Creek Travel Centers Case Study
Customer case study
How Creek Travel Centers turned AI into a daily pricing assistant
Gerald handed his morning routine to Cortex AI. Now he starts the day with decisions, not dashboards.
Gerald's manual morning steps
✓13 fewer manual steps, every morning
A morning spent checking instead of deciding
Every operator knows the routine: open the dashboards, check retail, check cost, check the comps, see which sites didn't respond, and only then start making decisions. Gerald decided that routine was no longer the best use of his team's time.
Figure 1
What's on Gerald's plate each morning
Fourteen of fifteen manual steps now run on their own
Before
15 manual steps
- Open the retail price dashboard
- Check credit prices by site
- Check cash prices by site
- Pull replacement cost by grade
- Work out penny profit by grade
- Look up competitor prices
- Check competitor range by grade
- Find sites that didn't respond
- Note which sites need attention
- Confirm price changes published
- Recheck publishing later in the day
- Chase down numbers that look off
- Cross-check cost vs. retail moves
- Compile it all into one picture
- Make the pricing decisions
After
2 steps left for Gerald
- Read one morning email
- Make the pricing decisions
✓14 tasks now handled automatically
- Open the retail price dashboardIn digest
- Check credit prices by siteIn digest
- Check cash prices by siteIn digest
- Pull replacement cost by gradeIn digest
- Work out penny profit by gradeIn digest
- Look up competitor pricesIn digest
- Check competitor range by gradeIn digest
- Find sites that didn't respondIn digest
- Note which sites need attentionIn digest
- Confirm price changes publishedAuto-alert
- Recheck publishing later in the dayAuto-alert
- Chase down numbers that look offAsk Cortex
- Cross-check cost vs. retail movesAsk Cortex
- Compile it all into one pictureIn digest
Illustrative morning routine, based on the workflows Gerald set up in Cortex AI.
Three requests: 14 manual steps down to 1
Gerald asked Cortex AI for three things in his own words. Each one took a chunk of his morning routine off his plate. What's left is reading one email, then making the calls.
Figure 2
What each request took off Gerald's plate
Manual steps before each request, and what's left now
Email me every morning with retail, cost, penny profit, AI comps, and sites that did not respond.
10 manual steps
Open the retail dashboard · Check credit prices · Check cash prices · Pull replacement cost · Work out penny profit · Look up competitor prices · Check competitor ranges · Find sites that didn't respond · Note sites needing attention · Compile it all
1 step
✓Read one email
If Auto-Publish fails twice, email me and PriceEasy Support.
2 manual steps
Confirm prices published · Recheck later in the day
0 steps
✓Nothing, unless it fails twice
Explain why diesel cost dropped but retail did not move.
2 manual steps
Chase down odd numbers · Cross-check cost vs. retail
0 steps
✓Answers on demand, when he wants them
Illustrative steps, based on the workflows Gerald set up in Cortex AI.
Leadership takeaway
What an AI-first operator looks like
Gerald handed the routine work to AI so his team can spend their time on the decisions that grow Creek. That is what forward-looking independents are doing, and we're proud to work alongside him.
Thinking about where AI fits in your operation?
We'd be glad to share what we're seeing across independent operators.
