Author: efgmarketing

The Other Side of the Domino Effect

Post author By efgmarketing
Post date March 5, 2018

Contributing Author:
Steve Roennau
Vice President
Compliance
EFG Companies

In July 2015, BB&T Dealer Financial Services announced the launch of flat fees as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced the expansion of oversight to larger non-bank auto finance companies. BB&T became the third auto finance lender to change their dealer participation practices, after Chrysler Capital and Santander USA. A domino effect quickly took place, with American Honda Finance Corporation, Fifth Third Bank, and Toyota Motor Credit joined the growing number of lending institutions either reducing their cap on dealer participation, or implementing flat fees.

In February, BB&T became the first auto finance company to reverse the trend, stating in an interview with Subprime Auto Finance News that the bank would be abandoning its flat-fee dealer compensation program and introduce a more traditional auto pricing program mid-March.

While BB&T plans to eliminate flat fees, we can still expect them to be more circumspect on the dealer participation cap than in previous years. In fact, Brian Davis, BB&T’s director of corporate communications stated, “BB&T remains firmly committed to the auto finance industry and to the fair and equal treatment of all consumers.”

The fact of the matter is that it is highly unlikely that the auto finance industry as a whole will raise their dealer participation caps back to pre-CFPB levels. After all, the concept of treating customers fairly isn’t go away.

Featured

EFG Companies Scores a Clean Sweep with Four Stevie® Awards

Post author By efgmarketing
Post date February 27, 2018

Ongoing National Recognition of EFG’s Standard of Excellence

EFG Companies, the innovator behind the award-winning Hyundai Assurance program, announced today that the company was recognized in all four categories submitted at the 12th Annual Stevie^® Awards for Sales and Customer Service, a feature of the American Business Awards^SM, the USA’s top business awards program. This marks the fourth year running that EFG has brought home Stevie Awards. This year, the company received the following:

A Silver Award for Call Center of the Year (up to 100 seats)
A Silver Award for Innovation in Customer Service
A Silver Award for Sales Management Team of the Year
A Bronze Award for Sales or Customer Service Solutions Technology Partner of the Year

For more information on EFG’s accomplishments and the history behind the Stevie Awards, visit http://bit.ly/EFGStevies

Tags American Business Awards, ASE Blue Seal of Excellence, Association of Finance and Insurance Professionals, AutoRemarketing Power 300, Benchmark Portal, Dealer of the Year, F&i and Showroom Magazine, Nifty 50, Powersports Business, SSAE-16, Stevie Awards

Dealership Marketing Dealership Training

The Integrated Dealership

Post author By efgmarketing
Post date February 14, 2018

Contributing Author:
John Stephens
Executive Vice President
EFG Companies

One of the biggest struggles many dealerships have is breaking the different departments out of their silos to work together towards dealership initiatives. Sales teams tend to focus on just increasing front-end margin. On the other side, F&I teams tend to focus on back-end margin, financing, and product sales. The service drive considers itself completely separate from sales and finance, working towards completely different goals.

While the individual goals of each department are important, if they aren’t aligned under a general strategy for the dealership, they can often create tension and even serve as a deterrent to achieving larger dealership initiatives. While this may seem odd, just go with me here. To keep everyone aligned, go back to the basics of marketing: Product, Place, Price and Promotion.

Product and Place

Does your inventory mix meet the needs of your target consumer demographic? To determine this, take a look at your sales numbers for 2017 and look at what type of vehicles were the biggest sellers, i.e. sedans, SUVs, Trucks, etc. Talk with your service department to get a better understanding of what type of vehicles are coming through the service drive and the costs associated with certain repairs. The service department can demonstrate where attention is needed relative to new technology and cost of repair as well as the costs of certain repairs for certain models.

For example, if you sell a large amount of diesel vehicles, your service department can provide you an overview of just how much more maintenance this vehicle requires, and the associated cost of that maintenance. This knowledge can then be applied in sales and F&I to better promote the benefits of a pre-paid maintenance plan for diesel vehicles.