Even before Covid, the sales process was changing to keep up with consumer demands. Consumers are doing more research online than ever before, and more customers are using online tools to start their sales process. Customers use website credit applications, trade value estimators, chat services, and BUY NOW buttons to initiate the sales process. Internal … Read more
Dealerships track many things, but the one thing that counts on the profit statement is sales. Funded sales, to be exact. Whether lender funded or cash funded, a sale is not a sale until it’s funded and the dealership posts revenue and profit. Is your deal management process delaying or even blocking your customers from … Read more
As the U.S. infrastructure bill works its way slowly through Congress, I thought it would be good to look at what this could mean for rural customers and their dealerships. Internet speeds in the urban areas have been well over 100mps for years while many rural areas are 10X slower (10mps) and close to old … Read more
A sale doesn’t happen until you have a transaction, which in most cases means an approved and funded loan or lease is accepted by the customer. The modern shopping process is disrupting the traditional flow of when and how dealers reach a sale. Technology lets customers think they can do a lot of the sales … Read more
The Covid pandemic changed automotive retail in 2020, and whether you consider the changes bad or good, many are staying with us. Digital retail became all the rage in 2020, never mind that several DR companies have been around for years. Heck, CreditIQ has help clients sell (fully funded and contracted deals) since 2017. 2020 … Read more
How do your customers perceive your dealership and dealer group? Do you fit the customer’s desire for how they want to buy a vehicle? If not, how is that affecting your brand image? Millennials, the first technologically focused generation, are now the most significant vehicle buying segment. They are primarily digital natives and experts at … Read more
If you were in a ten-story stair climb race and got to start on floor 6 or 7, you’d win every time. Even if you were up against great athletes, you would likely get to the finish line before they could catch you. The same goes for F&I managers. We put them in a race … Read more
The personal relationship is still vital in business. Dealers and staff do a great job (usually) of developing the personal connection with customers, whether in sales or service. There are a few areas of disconnect, like the online to dealership handoff, but for the most part, I believe dealerships do a better job than a … Read more
The world automotive industry is expected to lose $110 billion in sales in 2021. With the U.S. being the #1 auto sales country globally, that is a significant sales loss for dealerships. Although the dealership industry held gross much better with the limited available inventory, they need to start looking beyond front-end gross to keep … Read more
When rates and reserve are about equal on an F&I deal, it’s critical to understand your ancillary product maximums per lender decision. Ideally, you want to select the lender decision that allows maximum profitability on any sold protection products. However, you also want to ensure that the lender reserve allows an adequate profit based on … Read more
