Auto dealers have plenty of options when deciding which lenders they want to partner with. So, how can you craft a digital dealer experience so brilliant that they can’t imagine selecting another lender?
One, the lender’s programs. Incentives, flexibility, and the ability to customize are crucial.
Two, customer service. Everything from onboarding and account management to lender support during credit, funding, and payments is essential to a sustainable business.
Three, process-improving technology – specifically a digital dealer experience. Enhancing the dealer’s experience with digital tools makes it easier for them to execute critical business processes and priorities. And who doesn’t want to make high-quality work easier to complete?
Let’s examine how these apply to the loan origination lifecycle.
1. Equip your dealers with an enhanced digital portal
Most lenders are already providing dealer portals for customer service and information on incentives and programs. You can take this one step further by offering dashboards with analytics to make it easy for dealers to view how many deals they have in flight, how many they’ve submitted, and how many they’ve had funded.
Each deal in progress should display its current status, next steps, and any outstanding requirements. Key financial metrics should also be included – profit per deal, overall earnings, and how close the dealer is to hitting bonuses.
2. Offer 24/7 flexible deal-making
Once an application is submitted, most lenders can already respond with a decision in seconds. A lender can enhance this process and become more competitive by returning multiple offers for the dealer to choose from.
Options might reduce or eliminate the down payment, maximize the dealer’s profit, or minimize the monthly payment. This can be improved further by offering additional benefits to preferred dealers. For example, some dealers might be allowed to configure their favorite deal structure options in the dealer portal, giving the flexibility to prioritize earnings per deal or deal volume.
When the dealer receives the offer, they might want to adjust the deal structure further – but this functionality is often limited on their systems. You can make the dealer’s life easier by allowing them to restructure the deal to their liking, creating several options to compare side-by-side before making a selection. This feature should be available on the dealer portal, ideally with a mobile-friendly UI that allows dealers to use it anytime, anywhere.
3. Keep paperwork off the dealer’s desk
Every lender knows that dealers don’t like chasing stips. Fortunately, this is another area that technology can help with. With an automated decision process, the lender’s risk model will flag the stipulations that can be cleared with digital verification tools before sending the decision to the dealer.
Several digital verification providers, such as LexisNexis, The Work Number, and Neustar, verify borrowers’ identity, income, and residence information.
Stip collection becomes even more efficient when you can simply send a text message to the borrower, who then uses the linked digital portal to upload photos of their documents. This service bypasses the dealer and makes those documents immediately available to your funding team. There are several providers on the marketplace offering stip collection via texting, including Solutions by Text.
Achieve a same-day buying experience with technology
Each piece of the digital dealer experience puzzle fits together to help lenders aim for the ultimate goal of same-day deals. The ideal: an application that’s received, decisioned, finalized, verified, signed, and funded on the same day, without any required human action on the lender side.
Get the ball rolling today – contact your technology team and start crafting the ultimate dealer experience today.
