Own Your Outcome: F&I in the Digital Customer Journey

From initial awareness to driving away with a brand-new or used car, an automotive customer’s journey is shaped by a multitude of touchpoints. In the modern era, most of those touchpoints are digital. And while inventory is usually easy to access, there is one area of the business that is often left out of the conversation, according to industry professional Stephanie Pash: finance and insurance.  

Pash is a production development manager for Finance Concepts, a Portfolio company. But she didn’t start at the top. Like a lot of people in the car business, she stumbled into sales, realized the opportunity set before her and never looked back.  

“A world opened up that my brain had never even comprehended,” she said of her career, which started at a rare combined Toyota-Mercedes dealership in Washington state. “This industry provides beautiful lives for people who want them.”  

Eventually, Pash moved from sales to the finance desk, and it was there that she found her niche: mastering the digital side of the business. She saw the need for a point person for the vendors and systems in the dealership where she worked, and she pitched the idea to her general manager at the time.  

Then, with a mere $20 a month investment on the part of the dealership, Pash launched a sponsored advertisement for the store that she said sent leads through the roof to the point that it had to hire several people to handle the volume. From there, she grew her knowledge base through Google Analytics and Facebook Blueprint certifications. 

It wasn’t long before she noticed that a vital piece of the puzzle was missing from the digital systems: finance. So she took steps to get the finance department involved and said the profit center saw a noticeable improvement in workflows and customer journeys.  

At this year’s Ethical F&I Managers Conference, Pash laid out four ways that dealerships can audit themselves for missed F&I opportunities. 

Audit No. 1 

Third-party platforms or anywhere your dealership’s vehicles are listed should have the finance department looped in, Pash said. The platforms often offer financing options and display rates that the dealership set. If F&I isn’t involved in the decision-making process, that could negatively impact the department.  

As Pash said, “You can’t have other people doing F&I’s job.” 

Some questions the dealership should explore include:  

• How far down the deal can the customer go? 
• Who is the point person at the dealership for the vendor/platform? 
• Is it protecting finance’s profit? 

“It’s your profit. It’s your department,” she said. “And this is influencing it. You deserve to be at the table to talk about this.” 

Customers obviously don’t want to waste time once they get to the dealership. If they’re locked in on a price they received online, where no F&I products were offered, that puts the F&I department in a reactive position, trying to establish value with a resistant customer. But if the platform is optimized for customers to choose protection products before they get to the store, it sets everyone up for a smoother, profitable process.  

Audit No. 2 

A dealership’s website is where it has the most control of what is shown to a customer, Pash said. It should be a hub of information for everything the customer needs, because if they can’t find it on the website, they’re going to look somewhere else. It’s the dealership’s chance to establish value early and begin to build trust with the customer.  

To audit the website, it must be viewed from the eyes of a customer, and that includes the mobile and tablet experience. Things to look out for on mobile include: 

• User-friendly layout – it’s essential 
• Banner ads extending beyond one screen worth  
• Content buried on a webpage, requiring much scrolling 
• Live chat features not properly fitting the screen  
• Broken calls-to-action links 

Pash also recommended helpful items to have on the dealership website, like F&I product explanations, video content highlighting the benefits of protection options, and real customer scenarios. 

Audit No. 3 

Dealership content is the key to start building trust at digital touchpoints before a customer gets to the dealership.  

“If you put the right amount of effort into your content, it can be used in so many different ways,” Pash said. “A one-time effort can be utilized across so many different platforms to keep a consistent and visible message across all of your third-party websites.” 

Content includes videos, photos and team member profiles. Pash said video is the fastest way to humanize your team, but it doesn’t have to be a high-budget production. The more human and relatable the content is, the more the customer will appreciate it.  

Video subject ideas include: 

• What customers can expect when they get to the dealership 
• Explanations of gap insurance and vehicle service contracts 
• A comparison of leasing and purchasing 
• Depreciation 
• Common misconceptions 
• Frequently asked questions 

Pash also emphasized the importance of saving and using good customer reviews on the dealership’s website and Google business profile. Team member profiles are an ideal place to include positive reviews and other feedback. 

Audit No. 4 

The finance team must be active every day in the dealership’s customer relationship management software, Pash said. It helps them see who is coming in that day and what, if any, steps can be taken before the customer arrives at the dealership to make the process as smooth as possible.  

Pash gave as an example the placing of courtesy phone calls to customers who are coming from out of town. If F&I doesn’t know they’re coming, the team loses the chance to intercept missed protections if the customer is armed with a check or cash.  

Pash listed some ways that your dealership’s CRM could be costing it F&I gross: 

• No prearrival engagement 
• No credit application ownership 
• No finance visibility to credit union inquiries 
• Missed unable-to-finance recovery 
• Lease-end orphans 

Pash ended her presentation by urging finance managers to take ownership of their own results.  

“The most successful finance departments aren’t waiting to be included,” she said. “They’re making sure that they are.”