The Dealership Sales and Finance Process has been Built by Dealers for Dealers. Not Consumers.
There’s got to be a better way to sell a car. Everyone seems to think so. In our recent dealer survey, 8 in 10 dealers agreed the time it takes to buy a car ought to take two hours or less but most say the average transaction time today is 3-4 hours from meet & greet to funded. The clear majority of these same dealers say that the biggest opportunity for change is to capture more information from the customer earlier in the process.
With the endless eCommerce sites available today, empowered ‘electronic’ shoppers have come to expect the transparency and immediate gratification made possible by the internet. It’s difficult for them to understand why buying a car still has to take so long. Most car shoppers today want to know what their payment terms will be while deciding on a vehicle, so it’s completely illogical that dealerships make it virtually impossible for car shoppers to find financing information online.
Dealers should want to provide an easy, seamless experience for their customers that starts online because that’s where they’re making their decision to buy the vehicle. A connected buying experience that seamlessly moves the customer from the Internet to the showroom to F&I is quickly becoming possible. With new technologies, financing no longer needs to be arranged exclusively as an in-store activity.
Traditional online credit apps were a first step in that direction. The next generation of interactive online credit apps will offer actual credit approvals with real, exact payment terms from your lender programs – made visible to you and your customers in seconds. With no credit application to be completed in-store and no lender decision to wait on – your customer is transitioned from the meet & greet to the test drive to negotiation to F&I much quicker. You’re selling more cars and, because time is money, profitability surges and CSI soars.
We know most consumers are doing their shopping and making their decision to buy online so why not give them a seamless shopping experience from start to finish?
Author: Pete Maclnnis
Author Bio: Pete brings over 40 years of experience in automotive finance and technology as Founder and CEO of eLEND Solutions™. Founded in 2003 as DealerCentric, Pete is leading the company’s evolution to an automotive FinTech company that specializes in digital credit and finance solutions designed to create a more efficient vehicle purchase process for the retail automotive industry.
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