The Road to ROI with F&I

The finance and insurance (F&I) department plays a very important role in building the revenue streams of an automotive dealership. This department is tasked with the responsibility of directly engaging clients to strike deals and improving customer experience in the process.

No one knew the demand for new and used cars would soar. Now, with the semiconductor chip shortage, customers are pre-ordering vehicles. It is time to look at your F&I process and make it the best experience for your customers, ultimately increasing your sales profits.

For any business to thrive, the sales processes must be stellar, as should the customer experience. The secret lies with the F&I process. This process begins after the client commits verbally to buying an automobile. Therefore, it calls for a strong finance and insurance department tasked with implementing efficient F& I strategies since dealerships derive most of their profits from their F&I products. So how can you take your F&I process a notch higher?

The F&I process is crucial in every dealership. According to research by NADA, an average dealership company reaps half of its profits from F&I products. Therefore F&I process and strategy need to be exemplary. Companies are consistently looking for approaches to improve their sales processes and customer experience. Below are four ways to improve the F&I process in your dealership.

"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.

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.

No one wants to wait for hours to close a car deal. While sales representatives want to sell more vehicles within a short time window, customers want to get their car as soon as possible. However, negotiations, the exchange of documents and upselling F&I functions often take a lot of time. As long as you can learn how to eliminate the wasteful parts of the sales process, everyone goes home happy.

Customers may love your people, service, and cars, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who enjoys the hours long process of completing a purchase at the dealership.

Speeding things up makes good sense as there's a mutual benefit; the more efficiently you can lead customers through sales and F&I, the bigger boost to your business and to the number of satisfied car buyers.