Two different kinds of inspection apply to fuel stations. The first is official inspection: fuel quality, measuring instruments, licensing and safety obligations are checked by authorised bodies under the relevant regulations. BİGEL does not carry out these inspections. The second is the brand standard audit: the fuel distributor or network owner measures its dealers' corporate identity, visual execution, cleanliness, physical condition and customer experience against its own standards, or has a service provider do this on its behalf. This guide covers the second kind. The goal is to compare hundreds of stations against the same yardstick and see problem sites together with their evidence.
Five audit areas
A brand standard audit is less one long checklist than five complementary areas. BİGEL AUDIT separates them into Brand, Visual, Clean, Physical and Customer Experience. At a station, each area maps to specific points on the forecourt.
Separating the areas makes the report readable. You can see at a glance whether a low overall score comes from a dirty canopy, a damaged price board or missing wayfinding, so the right team is sent to the right job.
- Brand: correct logo and corporate colours on the canopy and pylon, current signage, price communication and up-to-date campaign material.
- Visual: pylon and price board, illuminated letters, vinyl, posters, shopfront, stands and any digital screens complete and legible.
- Clean: canopy surfaces, pump islands, forecourt and car park, shop entrance glass, waste area and common areas.
- Physical: walls, doors, barriers, railings, furniture, island kerbs and minor surface damage.
- Customer Experience: visibility from the road, entry and exit wayfinding, shop entrance, checkout and waiting area.
An on-site checklist, point by point
When the five areas are checked by walking the station's physical zones, auditors miss less. The list below is the skeleton of a typical station walk; the detail and weight of each item follow each brand's own standards manual.
- Canopy: integrity of logo and colours on the fascia, dirt, exhaust marks or stains, dim or missing lighting sections, visible damage underneath.
- Pylon and price board: legible, current prices, missing or faded digits, broken panels, working illuminated sections, dirt or damage on the body and base.
- Pump island: clean island surface and kerb, brand and information material on the island, bins, spills or stains that could make the surface slippery.
- Shop entrance: clean glass and doors, entrance wayfinding, shopfront graphics, campaign posters matching the current campaign.
- Car park and surroundings: clean surfaces, oil stains, visible line and direction markings, general tidiness.
- Wayfinding: entry, exit, service area and shop signs in place, secure and legible.
- Campaign material: expired material removed, current material in the right place and undamaged.
Canopy cleaning guide →Pylon and sign cleaning guide →
How is scoring done?
BİGEL's digital audit product, AUDIT 100, consists of 10 categories and 100 checkpoints. Each item is rated Compliant (100 points), Partial (50 points) or Non-compliant (0 points). Items that do not apply at a given station, for example a check for an area the site does not have, are marked Not applicable.
Item scores are combined with category weights into a single site score out of 100. In the default weighting, Safety & Risk and Brand / Visual Standard carry the largest share; during a pilot, the category scope, question set and score weights are agreed with the client.
The score reads in three colours: 90–100 meets standard (green), 75–89 improvement needed (amber), 0–74 priority action (red). Head office can see at a glance which of hundreds of stations to visit first. The default category weights are:
- Exterior & Façade: 10
- Signage / Totem / Visual: 10
- Cleanliness & Hygiene: 10
- Furniture / Equipment: 10
- Technical & Physical Condition: 10
- Safety & Risk: 15
- Brand / Visual Standard: 15
- Customer Experience: 10
- Operations & Execution: 5
- Management / Data / Compliance: 5
The evidence rule: what to record
A finding without evidence invites argument. That is why every item in a BİGEL audit is evidenced with a photo, location, date and description. The photo rule is defined per question: some items need a photo only when there is a non-compliance (conditional), some always require one (mandatory), and some need before-and-after photos.
For photos to be comparable, the same point should be shot from the same angle on every visit. Shooting the pylon straight on, the canopy from the same corner and the pump island from the same direction makes real comparison between periods and stations possible.
- Visit date, time, site and the team carrying out the audit
- Result for each item: Compliant, Partial, Non-compliant or Not applicable
- A photo from the standard angle and a short note for each non-compliance
- Priority of the finding (critical, high, medium, low)
- Recommended action and which team owns it
How often should stations be audited?
There is no single audit frequency that suits every network. The right cadence depends on the number of stations, regional spread, previous scores, traffic, the campaign calendar and the brand's own standards manual. A common approach is to visit low-scoring stations more often and move consistently high-scoring ones to a lighter schedule.
BİGEL AUDIT offers service models for different needs, and they can be combined.
- Site-based audit: a one-off audit at selected stations.
- Periodic audit: a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual recurring programme.
- Project audit: a bulk check after campaigns, openings or signage changes.
- Franchise audit: measuring standard compliance across a dealer network on behalf of head office.
From finding to work order
An audit pays off when findings are closed. If the score report sits on a shelf until the next audit, the same findings come back. Every finding should therefore be tied to an owner, a target date and closure evidence.
Cleaning findings feed into the CLEAN programme; physical damage and anything that needs fixing becomes a CARE work order. Safety and risk findings go first. Work that requires legal authorisation, such as electrical or mechanical installations, is coordinated with qualified specialists, and closure is verified with an after photo.
- Prioritise: safety first, then brand visibility, then the rest.
- Assign an owner and target date to each finding.
- Prove closure with an after photo.
- Recheck closed findings at the next audit.
How BİGEL does it
BİGEL runs brand standard audits for fuel station networks with AUDIT 100, photo-verified and scored, and closes findings on site with CLEAN and CARE. The audit framework and AUDIT 100 details are on the BİGEL AUDIT page. To see results at selected stations before signing a contract, request a pilot.
Fuel station audit →Fuel station cleaning →BİGEL AUDIT →Pilot application →