Column: Deploy technology for a better dealer, customer F&I experience

The auto finance office might be the last place that comes to mind when considering which areas of the dealership could benefit from new technology or new practices reflecting innovations in the auto retail or auto lending industries.

After all, the finance managers are spinning deals and hitting their gross profit targets having face-to-face conversations with customers. No need to fix what isn’t broken, right?

But you might be surprised at how much better things could be with a little more technology.

Automotive News‘ second-quarter finance-and-insurance special section focuses on technology that could enhance the F&I process.

Read how lenders are growing more receptive to the notion of electronic contracting with auto dealers — and being encouraged by CDK Global and Reynolds and Reynolds to do so. Working with the captive finance companies and other lenders embracing this capability can mean faster deal funding, cleaner paperwork, juggling fewer systems and less FedEx-ing.

Speaking of cleaner paperwork, there’s a lot of room for improvement in the industry. A poll of auto finance professionals by Informed.IQ found many agreeing that at least 1 in 4 auto deals contains an error, introduced either internally or by the dealership. Screening and addressing these errors wastes both the dealership’s and the lender’s time and can involve awkward customer interactions. But technology at the lender or dealership can help catch these problems earlier in the process.

Errors also abound within dealership online payment quotes, a poll by eLEND Solutions found. These issues aren’t the fault of the F&I office, but finance managers find their work hindered by these flaws nonetheless. Dealers polled by eLEND overwhelmingly agreed that payment quotes matching what a lender would fund — including the dealership’s own margin — would improve F&I penetration by 10 percent or more and cut at least 15 minutes of time the customer spent in the F&I office. We talk to eLEND Solutions about how such quotes might be accomplished and why dealers might still set the bar for them too low.

All this talk of technology might make finance managers uneasy — will they become obsolete as the contracting and finance process grows more streamlined and customers seek to do more of the process online? Our look at remote finance-and-insurance ought to provide reassurance. We talk to three technology vendors who say human interaction remains necessary for F&I success.