If you want to sell more vehicles, and more F&I products, take control of your department!
Too many F&I professionals will simply allow things to happen within their department, that hampers vehicle sales, F&I product sales and worst of all the customer’s overall dealership experience.
Here are 3 easy solutions that will boost sales and enhance the customer experience:
- Host a “Daily F&I Gathering” in your office, every morning for a maximum of ten minutes. Ask all the salespersons to gather in a specified area and ask, “Who has a delivery going out today?” Shockingly, some you will be aware of, and others will be the first time you’ve been told. Surprises in the F&I offices equal losses of gross profit and customer faith. Also ask, “Who has a customer that you need my help with?” It’s a great way to get involved in a sale early. With the time remaining, educate the staff on the benefits to the consumer of purchasing your products. Teach them how to ask for cash down and instruct them regarding better ways to quote payments. The Daily F&I Gathering allows the F&I Manager a platform in which to guide and take control of the sales staff.
- Take control of the dealership’s delivery log. That period from 5 p.m. and the dealership’s closing is a tough time, since all the best sales reps are busy doing deliveries of already sold vehicles. So now, junior sales reps may be waiting on customers. Simply put, you can’t have that! Put the delivery schedule on a wall in your office so that everyone can see it, sales reps, detail staff, and clients. The log should have half-hour time slots available and blacked out when a time is unavailable. The last thing anyone needs is to process nothing all day and then have a bottleneck of deliveries. It certainly doesn’t help you properly offer products, and the customers get very impatient waiting to speak with you.
- Practice “Management by Walking Around.” The best F&I Managers are up and out of their offices, on the showroom floor patrolling for situations that they can inject themselves into. Simply waiting in your office for something to be brought to you costs the dealership hundreds of sales annually and too much gross profit loss. Keeping a strong open-door policy for the sales reps, letting them know that you are always available to speak with clients is imperative. We can’t send mixed messages to our staff about who and when we will speak to someone. Our message is clear, “I want to speak to everyone” whether it is the sale of an in-stock unit, a dealer trade or order out, we want to talk to everyone. If we are involved earlier in a sale, we can potentially stop the shopper from securing funds elsewhere and costing us product sales and gross profits.
After you take control of your F&I department, you will notice a change with your sales team, detailers, and customers, by demonstrating your involvement in the relationship between sales and F&I and ultimately a better customer experience.
To speak with Rob about best management practices for your F&I department, you can reach him at rmiller@ezvds.com or through LinkedIn.