As 2022 places yet-more challenges onto automotive retail, the digital retail provider landscape is experiencing uncertainty with providers going out of business or being sold to private equity. 

Here are some key elements you should consider when evaluating your digital retail provider: 

1. Create Net Profit by enabling your managers to drive more sales or sell more product. We’ve all seen those DR promos, “Save 15 minutes”…where this doesn’t meet reality. As DPs and GMs, we pay the consultant the same commission whether it takes them 30 minutes or 30 days to sell a car. Efficiency is a buzzword—let’s buzz past it to net profit.
   
   What about increasing the number of active deals that a desk manager can work? Increasing time that an F&I manager can interview and sell products? Or switch cash customers to single pay leases? We’re talking about driving incremental net profit.
   
   Select a partner that saves time for the managers with the ability to assign customers to consultants, enable your green peas to land customers on a car without time wasting trips to your desk, establish guardrails for markups, fees and products, and create real lender decisions that are ready to fund immediately.

2. A deal isn’t done until it’s through F&I and Funded: Re-think “End-to-End.” We’ve been conditioned that pushing from DR to one system or another internally is the epitome of integrations. Look at your operation on a busy day with fresh eyes and tell me honestly if pushing to a CRM here or a DMS there really saves time where it matters.

   You will still have a frantic F&I manager typing in RouteOne (or Dealertrack) as they do a menu presentation, looking over the customer’s shoulder to the line of other customers waiting.
   
   This is your modern sales process pain point that when solved, can minimize contracts in transit and maximize F&I performance. After all, we don’t pay F&I managers to input apps…we pay them to sell.
   
   Leverage a partner that extends across departments in your store to deliver approvals and deal structure into your RouteOne (or Dealertrack), unlocking both F&I performance but also eContracting and rapid funding from your lenders.
   
   What good is a “digital” solution if it doesn’t enhance your ability to execute digital contracts and get funded fast?

   
   

3. Re-engagement is king. Customers start online then call, visit, or bounce. Look for a partner who can help you address that leaky funnel with the ability to pick customers up where they left off.
   
   And we’re not just talking about “online-to-in store.” There are countless emails, texts, and phone calls that happen with the customer in-between—choose a partner that can re-deliver the customer’s deal to them via a variety of channels, with additional vehicle options, and allows your team to co-browse with the customer and take steps on the customer’s behalf.                                                           

    

   

    

4. Flexibility to show multiple vehicles, even in-transit VINs. In the old days, some of us parked vehicles nose to nose as part of our “land the customer on a car” technique. Select a partner that can bring this into the digital age with side-by-side comparisons of multiple vehicles, or the same vehicle with multiple structures, and even the ability to create accurate payment options for a vehicle that is not in your feed yet.

   Select a partner that does this with your lenders, rate markups, fees and address-specific taxes that are so accurate, that they power exclusively online retailers.

    

Unlock net profit. App → eContract → fast funding. Nurture prospects across a variety of channels, and elevate leads to real deals. Land shoppers on a car or a deal structure, even if a vehicle is in-transit.

At AutoFi, we are your digital commerce partner—expanding the deal-making power of your desk across your business. Request a conversation with your local Sales Director today.

—
Patrick Wyld is Director of Training at AutoFi