Auto Dealer Monthly Magazine is the daily operations publication serving the retail automotive industry. This automotive publication serves dealer principals, officers and general managers with the latest best practices.
Issue link: http://autodealermonthly.epubxp.com/i/79640
ᑗᑩᑱᑦᑧ∀ᑰ%ᑀᑘ! ᑨ Where Auto Dealers Should Focus Their F&I; Training Efforts course, but the F&I; office is one place in particular where dealers certainly want to focus on regular training. But where is the need greatest within the F&I; office? Which areas need the most attention? It might not be where you think. T Customer Wait-Time According to Ron Reahard, president of Reahard and Associates in Tennessee, "One of the issues we're seeing is that F&I; managers tend to make customers wait until [the manager is] ready to talk to them. And that creates customer satisfaction issues, and it reduces your ability to sell products." Many F&I; managers want to first conduct a full interview with the customer to gather information, then go back to their office and take time to customize the menu and craft the perfect presentation. The 20 raining is important in every area of a dealership, of thinking is, if they can get the proposal just right, the customer will have to buy something. However, more often than not, this will result in just the opposite. F&I; managers who do this are "wasting their time and the customer's time trying to figure out [in advance] what they can sell them or what packages they should offer…," said Reahard, whose company provides F&I; training and consulting to dealerships. "By the time they finally think they're ready to talk to [the customer], the customer's gotten more and more frus- trated because they don't know what's happening: 'Why is it taking so long? Why can't I go in there? What's he or she doing back there?'" "The customer feels their time is valuable, and they don't like people who waste their time …," he explained. "The sooner we engage and interact with that customer, the more products we're going to sell and the better the experience is going to be for the consumer." The Reahard and Associates chief said that in some cases, the menu software can be a factor as well. He points out that some F&I; offices use a menu program that does not integrate with their dealership management system, or DMS, simply because they went with software that was free; they are unaware of the hidden cost—lost time that could translate into lost sales. "The information's in their … dealer management system, but it doesn't populate the menu," he said. "They have to go in and re-key information to create a menu … and that's time-consuming." He said in his experience, it is best for the F&I; office to have a generic menu template that offers all available products to every customer, then the F&I; manager can sit down and tailor that menu with the customer. "That way, the customer sees that you're helping them, and you get the good will that goes with that," Reahard continued. "Today's customers like somebody who's going to help them. They hate somebody who wastes their time. And if you're not adding value to their experience, you're wasting their time." Leadership/Relationships Shari Vance, who founded IPS Agency in 2005 to provide dealers with income develop- ment tools, said that one area she has been focusing on when training in dealerships is leadership, which she de- scribed as an "unconventional piece" of F&I; orientation. The idea applies not only to managing the staff within the F&I; office but also figures heavily into the relationship between sales and F&I.; "We