Level Up Your F&I Results in Today’s Market
High interest rates, low credit approval rates and tight underwriting policies are hurting your bottom line and your customers’ experience. So what can you do?
Learn how to level up your F&I results despite the hurdles presented by today’s market. Whether you focus on benchmarking your performance, setting realistic goals and improving your processes or strengthening your lender relationships, improving your F&I product presentation and training your staff, you can boost your penetration rates and profitability, while adding to the value you provide to customers.
BLOG
Fueling Profit & Trust: The Power of a Strong Marine F&I Department
As a boat dealership, you’re looking to increase profitability and improve the customer experience. However, the challenge of navigating the marine F&I landscape persists. Whether it lack of process or trust or customer objection, you have to produce so you can boost revenue. It cannot be overstated that having an effective F&I department is the answer, and should be considered a necessity, not a luxury. By taking advantage of and prioritizing your F&I expertise, leveraging captive finance partnerships and refining your processes, you will drive higher approval rates, repeat purchases and stronger customer retention.
BLOG
Successful F&I Operations, Whether In-House or Outsourced
In the marine industry, dealerships are like the old Transformers cartoons — “there’s more than meets the eye” when it comes to running them. While selling boats is a foundational piece of the puzzle, having successful F&I operations — whether in-house or outsourced — is a key piece to the overall revenue and prosperity of the business. Rob Grant of Lightspeed, an MRAA Strategic Partner, and Eric Smith, GM and Co-Owner at Colorado Boat Center, share tactics and tips for creating successful F&I operations in your dealership.
BLOG
6 Benefits of an F&I Department
An F&I department is more than just a paperwork-processing hub. It is a strategic component of a dealership that provides tailored financing solutions, protects customers’ investments and enhances their overall ownership experience. When implemented correctly, a powerful F&I department not only increases your dealership’s profitability, but also builds trust with your customers. Brenda Cline-Kereakes, Chief Operating Officer for Line\5, shares with you tips for success and the 6 benefits of an F&I department.
BLOG
Lender Mix is Key to Your F&I Success
It’s frustrating to have seemingly good deals fall apart due to tighter lending guidlines, high interest rates or aged inventory. You don’t have to let these challenges hurt your sales and profit any longer. It’s time to take a fresh look at your lender mix, the key to greater success for your F&I Department. By taking some pratical steps today, you can better leverage your lender portfolio to get more approvals, earn more sales, generate more revenue and satisfy more customers.
BLOG
5 Fraud Prevention Tools for Your Dealership
Your dealership faces unique challenges in preventing fraud because you deal in high-ticket transactions and handle a lot of sensitive customer information. Fraud and attacks are also why you need purpose-built tools and systems that reinforce your cyber defenses. This blog from Julie Douglas, Dealer Pay President, shares with you five fraud prevention tools you can use in your dealership to create a seamless and secure experience for your dealership and your customers.
DATA
Dealer Feedback – F&I Process & Pain Points
When your dealership suffers from a lack of integration between sales and F&I or doesn’t provide the appropriate training for your F&I staff you’ve found a couple of pitfalls of owning a marine dealership. This lack of process or knowledge can make matters worse because it can create issues with your customers, too, some of whom already carry with them a negative viewpoint of the entire F&I process. That’s why it’s important to educate your team, install best practices and equip yourself with a plan for success.
Boat dealers responded to the February MRAA Pulse Report (produced with Baird and Soundings Trade Only), sharing insights about current systems they have in place and their F&I pain points.
Not an MRAA Member, but want the MRAA Pulse Report data? Reach out to Sherri Cuvala, MRAA Director of Membership, at sherri@mraa.com.
EDUCATION
Drive Up Profits by Benchmarking Your F&I Performance
Your dealership needs additional profits right now. Your finance and insurance department can help you find additional revenue. But to become more profitable in F&I, you need to evaluate what’s working and not working, determine your team’s strengths and discover how to set goals and obtain them.
Today’s market — featuring hurdles like high interest rates and difficulty getting consumers financed — can make it hard to focus in this area of your business. On top of all that, you don’t even know if your F&I results are outperforming, underperforming or simply average compared to the rest. This course from dealership F&I trainer Dom Zappia of Relentless Dealers Services (Now EasyCare, an MRAA Education Champion) shares an effective tool to evaluate your F&I department. You’ll also gain strategies for tackling the obstacle and methods for creating appropriate performance targets. Use these tips to hit or even exceed them so you build success in F&I.
Note: Dom also provides a Finance Tracker Template as part of this educational course.
MRAA Members ONLY:
Not an MRAA Member? Reach out to Sherri Cuvala, MRAA Director of Membership, at sherri@mraa.com.
