The Road to ROI with F&I

You see customers entering your dealership, and some buy cars while others don't. There are ways to get more customers in the door and improve your sell-through percentage. Your dealership has the vehicles people want in stock, but you are looking to increase your sales quota and grow your business. Improving your level of customer service and building long-term relationships can help. Here are a few ways to improve your dealership's customer service:

For any business operation, hiring is a costly process. Putting effort and time to attract, hire, and retain the right team members will prove to be the best return on investment dealerships to make in today's tech-savvy world. 

For a dealer, selling a vehicle is a process, not an event. For salespeople to be successful, they need to understand all the essential parts of the sale. Each element of the sale, from building rapport with customers to understanding objections before they arise, is like adding a brick in the wall. The fortitude of those building blocks and strength of the bricks will always matter. Just how well-honed is your team at its sales process? If you want to unleash a team of unstoppable sellers onto your lot, you will need to constantly provide them with updated, empowering, effective sales training.  

Going digital in auto dealerships has become more of a priority with COVID-19 wreaking havoc on customer’s willingness to venture to a dealership and/or allowing customers on-site. As a result, having to offer retailing through online means is becoming a new norm.

While communication is vital to the success of any organization, keeping a clear flow of communication between the F&I Department and the Sales Desk is essential in a dealership. Negative communication can deliver a stormy impact on employee morale, the profitability of the dealership, and affect the reputation of the dealership's brand. The dealership must make sure that the communication flow between their F&I Department and Sales Desk are active and ongoing. Cohesiveness is necessary to ensure all things needed to keep the dealership in a high-profit margin and a high-level reputation of the dealership's brand. It's equally crucial to keep employee morale high and healthy.

While there are no laws that require you have to hire a compliance officer, there's a chance that without a hyper-focus on compliance, you could wind up breaking actual laws as a result.

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Repeat business is the proverbial 'bird-in-hand.' Your current customers are fertile ground for cross-selling. It's your golden opportunity to wow them beyond belief. Take the initiative, know your customers and understand their needs. Do this and your long-standing customers will remain loyal and your successes will continue to grow. 

Every word shared between salespeople, sales managers and the F&I Department carries with it the power to affect the bottom line. Details are crucial and as one sales manager once wisely suggested to his salesperson, "Land the plane!" 

Dealers often focus their marketing efforts on finding new leads and bringing in first-time customers. While those strategies are important, the most successful dealer managers know that retaining their customers is also essential. We wanted to highlight a few best practices the most successful dealerships leverage to create the ultimate customer experience and increase retention.

Smart business management is preparing for the "What-Ifs." While it's hard to predict sicknesses, it's also hard to predict if an employee will resign. If your dealership is void of F&I staffing, there can be a disruption in your day to day sales operations. Before your dealership stalls out, setting up a "Fill-In" F&I Specialist should be a consideration.