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Industry Trends

Keep On Keeping On

Contributing Author: John Stephens Executive Vice President EFG Companies
Contributing Author:
John Stephens
Executive Vice President
EFG Companies

We are halfway through a very interesting year in retail automotive. If you had planned for flat sales, lower OEM incentives, and interest rates bumping along the lower range, congratulations! You’ve planned for this situation and hopefully are managing well. Going forward, you’ll need to stay the course. The forecast for the second half of this year and all of 2020 appears to be equally bumpy.

The Economy

On June 19th, the Federal Reserve chose to keep interest rates steady in the near term, but retained an option to cut rates as economic risks mount and inflation remains stuck below their target. But amid continuing trade tensions and slowing global economic growth, the Fed is preparing for the economy to take a hit and is keeping an interest rate ace up their sleeve.

There are other indicators of a stalling economy. A subdued global economy, increased corporate stock buybacks, and some spikes in lay-offs will keep business bumpy throughout 2019 and into 2020. Significant peaks and valleys in the stock market have caused unrest. The good news is that investors are predicting another recession in two to three years, meaning a recession may still be a few years off.

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Categories
EFG Companies

EFG Launches Customizable Maintenance Plan to Boost Customer Retention

DALLAS, TX (June 18, 2019) EFG Companies, the innovator behind the award-winning Hyundai Assurance program, today announced the launch of the company’s new pre-paid Maintenance Value Program (MVP), designed to boost customer retention with a fully-customizable program to fit individual dealership needs. For more information, visit http://bit.ly/2F6IV2D.

According to the National Association of Automotive Dealers, 83 percent of customers who perform maintenance with the selling dealer will return to purchase another vehicle. However, for decades dealers have struggled on the customer retention front.  The Cox Automotive 2018 Service Industry Study states that dealerships only represent 33% of the share of consumer service visits.

“We originally developed MVP to provide a solution for the customer retention puzzle,” said John Pappanastos, President & CEO, EFG Companies. “As customer and vehicular needs have changed, we’ve morphed MVP to be even more compelling with customizable options. Dealers utilizing MVP now have a better opportunity to turn one-time only vehicle purchase events into an ongoing relationship through the service drive.”

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Categories
Training

Reducing Chargebacks with Good Customer Service

Contributing Author:
Joe Williams
Account Executive
EFG Companies

We’ve all experienced the repercussions of chargebacks. A customer refinances their auto loan and the dealership loses the rate markup. A customer cancels their products and the dealership loses the profits from those. Often, the negative effects roll downhill all the way to the F&I manager’s paycheck.

The goal, of course, is to minimize chargebacks. But, how can your F&I managers go about it? First, it’s important to understand what causes customers to refinance and/or cancel their consumer protection products. So, let’s start by putting ourselves in the customer’s shoes. Right or wrong, the F&I office is sometimes seen as a high-pressure environment. The in-depth discussions about their financial situations might make some customers disengage. If a customer leaves the finance office more disengaged, and feeling like they were pressured into a deal, you might have a refinance and cancellation on your hands.

The challenge for your F&I managers is to keep customers invested in the conversation and tone down the high-pressure atmosphere of the office. How? Simply go back to the basics of providing good customer service.

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