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Losing deals because of slow lenders?

KarnaPatel

Green Pea
May 31, 2021
3
1
First Name
Karna
Hi all, first time poster long time lurker. :alien: Let me start off by saying these forums have been an absolute godsend for the greenest noobie to the auto dealer game.

I was wondering how more experienced dealers efficiently and quickly get loan terms in front of customers once they are in the F&I office. I'm in a suburb of a major city in the South and for the credit unions (all 2 I have relationships with...), the process is really slow: emails, snail-mail, phone calls (if someone actually picks up) to get financing schedules, etc. The banks near me a little better, but not much. I feel like I'm losing out because I'm not offering competitive rates and because it seems super costly to have my F&I personnel chasing loan information all day.

Is this a problem I can throw better tech at (people have talked about DealerTrack or CDK but this is all Greek to me)? Or am I doing something wrong in terms of process? Most customers in my area are pretty well banked and often have arranged financing already (which most of the time matches what I could offer) but it seems like if I could improve this piece I would have a lot more dropping to my bottomline.

Any advice / guidance is most welcome!
 
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Can you provide some details so that maybe we can help you?

Are you a franchise or independent dealership?
Who is your DMS provider?
Do you use a platform like RouteOne, Dealer Track, CUDL to submit your loan requests?

I am guessing you are an independent, and that your Dealership Management software does not interface with your lenders. Or maybe it does, but you have not subscribed to any platforms. The challenge for lenders is that they no longer have anyone to enter loan applications into their portal. They have transitioned to the dealers doing it and they are really slow if they are required to perform the data entry.
 
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Reactions: Jaythematador
Can you provide some details so that maybe we can help you?

Are you a franchise or independent dealership?
Who is your DMS provider?
Do you use a platform like RouteOne, Dealer Track, CUDL to submit your loan requests?

I am guessing you are an independent, and that your Dealership Management software does not interface with your lenders. Or maybe it does, but you have not subscribed to any platforms. The challenge for lenders is that they no longer have anyone to enter loan applications into their portal. They have transitioned to the dealers doing it and they are really slow if they are required to perform the data entry.

Appreciate the response, @Tallcool1 . Yep, you'r right, I'm an independent. I've chatted with the franchisees around me and they seem to have a menu of loan options ready to go in their DMS come time of purchase. We have DealerTrack set up but are trying to get used to using it for F&I. I think you raised a good point about connecting lenders to my DMS. Our DealerTrack rep isn't the most responsive, but I can try pinging him to get some support on how to subscribe to lenders. My impression was that only the more sophisticated lenders near me have these integrations? Has this been true in your experience?

Thanks, again!
 
Appreciate the response, @Tallcool1 . Yep, you'r right, I'm an independent. I've chatted with the franchisees around me and they seem to have a menu of loan options ready to go in their DMS come time of purchase. We have DealerTrack set up but are trying to get used to using it for F&I. I think you raised a good point about connecting lenders to my DMS. Our DealerTrack rep isn't the most responsive, but I can try pinging him to get some support on how to subscribe to lenders. My impression was that only the more sophisticated lenders near me have these integrations? Has this been true in your experience?

Thanks, again!
There is a report that you can look at in Dealer Track. Lenders>>Partner Communications>>Lenders>>Lender Search. This will show you all of the available lenders in your area. You can then just start calling.

You will find a few in there that you may be able to partner with.
 
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If you're looking for a great sub-prime lender that partners with both franchise and independent dealers nationwide - check out Gateway Financial Solutions:

*Full disclosure: my dealer group owns Gateway Financial Solutions.