Valvoline Inc. (NYSE:VVV) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

David Lantz: Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. So I was just curious if you could walk through the building blocks to the 6% to 9% system-wide comp outlook inside some of the expected benefits from non-oil change revenues and premiumization?

Mary Meixelsperger: Yes In the building blocks from a same-store sales perspective. We saw — from a ticket perspective, we saw the benefits from premiumization and non-oil change revenue, as I had mentioned, we also saw benefit from price. And then on the transaction side, we certainly benefited from expansion of our customer base as well as a nice benefit from miles driven, although a lesser benefit than what we saw in the expansion of the customer base then we saw that just under 100 basis point impact of unfavorable impact from the day mix on the transaction side. So again, on ticket, it was premiumization, non-oil-change revenue penetration improvements and then pricing, which includes some improvements in discounting that we saw for the quarter. in addition to price increases that we took as well. And of course, all of those are across the system from a system-wide same-store sales benefit.

Stephanie Benjamin: Sorry, David, sorry. I was just going to add, as you think about the guidance that we’ve provided in the 6% to 9% for the year, we’ve said that that’s going to be more skewed towards ticket, but more balanced than what we saw in the last year. And as you think about that, we have premiumization, which has been consistently driving between 100 and 150 basis points. We have NOCR, which has been driving 100 to 150 basis points. And then you’ve got pricing adding to the ticket inclusive of any optimization of discounting, and then you’ve got the transaction increase, so when you look at all those variables, you can see why ticket will be a slightly higher contributor in this year. But overall, really feel strong about the 6% to 9% system-wide same-store sales growth.

David Lantz: Got it. Okay. That’s helpful. And then you mentioned that the fleet business contributed to comps in the quarter. Was just curious if you could give a few more specifics around there in terms of top line performance versus the chain average and any account wins that you had in the quarter?

Lori Flees: Sure. We don’t — we haven’t been reporting fleet out specifically on a quarter-to-quarter basis. I can say that we continue to see great opportunity in the — our fleet business is growing both on the ticket side as well as on the vehicle served per day side faster than our overall business. So it’s definitely contributing to both nano change revenue growth, the premium mix as well as the transaction growth from a same-store sales perspective.

Operator: Thank you. The next question goes to Jim Chartier of Monness Crespi Hardt. Jim, please go ahead. Line is open.

Jim Chartier: Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. First, the day mix pressure in first quarter, is that going to be positive to second quarter, or is that more spread out across the year?

Mary Meixelsperger: No, it will reverse to positive in the second quarter. We’ll see a benefit from DMC in Q2.

Jim Chartier: Okay. Great. And then you mentioned the implementation of the new CRM system, can you just help us understand what the incremental capabilities of the system are and then where you see the biggest opportunities in terms of driving transactions and margins?

Lori Flees: So I’ll cover I think your question on CRM is specific to fleet, but your margin and transaction, was that also specific to fleet or more broad.

Jim Chartier: I guess it was on the new CRM system — so CRM on the fleet.

Lori Flees: Okay. So from a CRM system, as we separated from global products, we used to share a CRM system with them, and we use it for many different aspects of our business. One, all of our business development work in contact with potential new franchisees as well as independents. We use that system, and so they also converted. But on the fleet side, we have an inside sales team that is constantly outreaching. We have marketing that goes out when customers can come directly or we can approach customers that we get, and it allows them to be very efficient. So from an inside sales standpoint, that system. And I think there are some new capabilities relative to the old system we had because it’s been more built for our use.

And so I think it will create more efficiency in our inside sales team, which allows us to sign up and follow up with existing — sign up new fleet accounts and follow up with existing fleet accounts more efficiently and keep track of all of those. And as our fleet customer base grows. You can imagine how important a CRM system is as we do account management as well as following up on all leads for new fleet accounts. So it’s really — it will make our team more efficient and allow them to do more sales and more account management more efficiently.

Jim Chartier: Okay. And then with transactions becoming a bigger part of the comp going forward, it kind of implies an acceleration in growth in transactions. What do you see as the biggest drivers to accelerate the transaction growth?

Lori Flees: So I think on a same store — on an overall perspective, obviously, as we grow the network that’s going to drive transaction growth. But on a same-store sales perspective, really, the things that we’re doing around marketing optimization and really leaning into best practice from a high-growth retail perspective, not just looking at what’s done in our category, but what’s being done in high-growth retail more broadly. And using some of those tactics will drive customers. Two is fleet, we expect fleet to continue to be a contributor to transaction growth in the…