The Road to ROI with F&I

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." These Abraham Lincoln words still vibrate in the minds of those who have sold themselves over to win. Every sales manager or any other business executive overseeing a sales team understands that preparation is necessary for success. Therefore, they spend time sharpening their teams to achieve stellar results.

Staying up to date with the Finance and Insurance field is demanding. Look at it this way: F&I conferences are a yearly investment that reaps benefits in worker productivity and competence. These conferences also provide a venue for networking, promoting brand recognition through product placement, and learning about relevant new technologies.

Many benefits accrue from partnering with a focus forward Finance and Insurance (F&I) provider when you are in the auto dealership business. With better-managed sales and F&I departments, you can expect high F&I profits for all your vehicle sales. Your company also retains customers due to high CSI and enjoys a reduced employee turnover.

Being an F&I Manager has never been easy—and the younger generations are making it more difficult than ever. Dealerships are becoming a last resort for Generation Z, who grew up through the recession of the late 2000s. Burdened by student loan debt and inflation, these younger customers often feel that dealerships are a relic of a previous era. Here's 5 ways to get them engaged and interested in the car buying and F&I process.

Changed to Speed Up Your F&I Sales Process with 3 Simple Steps

SPEED IS KEY

According to a study done by Autotrader, the average dealership takes 61 minutes (or the time it takes to learn 20 foreign words and phrases) to complete the finance and insurance portion of a sale. The study also concludes that customers are happiest when the entire process, from walking into the dealership to leaving in a new car, takes only 90 minutes total.

Finance and Insurance Departments are a staple of any dealership. They bring in revenue and are a key piece of customer service. But just as the dynamics of sales have changed with technological advancements and online consumerism, F&I is a competitive field that requires active engagement and constant learning to stay ahead. A good way to stay abreast of the best practices in the field and grow your business network is by attending yearly F&I Conferences and Expos with your team. Listed below are 4 reasons an F&I Conference can improve your dealership.

Pushing out the bottom line of your F&I department can feel like the most difficult thing you've ever done, and a lot of dealership decision makers have more trouble with it than any other aspect of the business. But a little bit of advice can go a very long way, and we're hoping that we can offer just enough to give you that boost you need. 

Finance and insurance (F&I) specialists are vital to the daily function within a dealership. Your F&I specialist has the flexibility to work with customers, lenders, and other staff members to maintain the quality relationships that keep your dealership running smoothly. With a thorough knowledge of all products and compliance laws, F&I specialists also help maintain the high ethical standards expected of your dealership.

There are a lot of problems you can run into when running a dealership, but one of the most prevalent is the constant struggle to increase your profit margins. There are a few key things that you should look out for when selecting an F&I Vendor.

Your F&I department is a key influencer on your Parts & Sales business. Every department at a vehicle dealership depends primarily on an unpredictable flow of new and returning customers to make revenue quotas, but the sale of an F&I department product is a predictable opportunity to generate additional Parts & Sales revenues.