F&I has always been a car dealership dichotomy.
On one hand, a dealership’s finance and insurance department it is a major profit center.
But it can cause consumer rumblings. When customers give a dealership lousy customer-satisfaction scores, it’s often F&I-related, typically involving too much time spent in the so-called F&I box toward the end of the car-buying process.
“Our studies show most consumers want to start the car-buying process online but finish it at the dealership,” says Cheryl Miller of Dealertrack, a Cox Automotive technology company. “They just don’t want to be there for three hours, if they can help it.”
Or if the dealership can help it.
Miller says many dealers seek to reduce the car-buying time, specifically those stretches in the F&I office.
“Dealers have told us, ‘Help us figure out how to make this process faster,’ and that’s what we’re trying to do,” she tells Wards.
For instance, Dealertrack F&I offers a faster, paperless workflow to keep things moving at the store. That includes digital contracting. It aims to enhance the customer experience and help dealers get faster vehicle financing.
“If you are papering a deal, it takes five or six days,” says Miller, Dealertrack’s senior vice president and general manager-F&I Solutions. “If you submit an error-free digital contract, it’s same-day.” (Cheryl Miller, left)
Meanwhile, Dealertrack’s F&I Express Network helps dealerships present aftermarket products that mean something to customers, she says.
What does the F&I manager still need to do?
“They are still presenting products to the consumer,” Miller says. “They are getting relevant information they need through our network. They still present the options.
“They are asking questions, trying to understand customer needs by asking how much they drive, how they use the vehicle on a daily basis.
“In figuring out the customer needs, F&I managers can make articulate, logical recommendations (on aftermarket products and services). Customers are more open to those.”
It’s rooted in the F&I manager posing the right qualifying questions, “rather than, ‘Here, would you like to buy this? Would you like to buy that?’” Miller says.
She credits auto dealers for their proactivity.
“Dealers totally get it,” she says. “They ask us all the time for help in being faster. They read the same studies we do.
“They understand what the consumer wants. They want consumers to buy a car through a good, expedient process so they come back. Dealers we work with want that long-term relationship.”
