There are three types of situations in which inefficient back office processes can sabotage a dealership’s bottom line. You may recognize some of these scenarios at your dealership. Let’s take a look and see how a solid registration and title technology partner can help.
- The Fruitless Internet Search
In this instance, you have an out-of-state customer who wants to buy a car that you’ve advertised online. You’re not familiar with the forms, tax rates and regulations for registration and title in their state, so you spend hours looking online for the information you need.
In the meantime, the customer is getting more and more frustrated that it’s taking forever to complete the sale.
No one expects your back office staff to have encyclopedic knowledge of registration and title processes and rates for all 50 states. However, you can plan ahead for these situations so you know how to find the correct information – and also set expectations so your customers are prepared for the amount of time it will take.
You can also implement technology solutions that include out-of-state registration and title information, automatically calculate taxes and fees, help you stay compliant with each state’s regulations and do it all quickly and efficiently.
- The Vanishing Ex-Spouse
Here we have a situation where an out-of-state customer comes to your dealership to purchase a vehicle and they bring you a trade-in, claiming to be the sole owner. Because your dealership wants to close the deal, you move forward with the sale. The customer leaves with their new vehicle and you start the title search for the trade-in.
Oops! It turns out that the customer’s former spouse is listed as co-owner. You can’t reach your customer, and hours of searching have failed to turn up contact information for the other person. Now you’re potentially facing legal issues and a complete loss on the trade-in.
The non-tech solution is to slow things down and make sure you don’t make decisions like this under pressure. Of course, that means you run the risk of losing sales if you delay too long, so it’s important to set a risk threshold.
With the right registration and titling technology solution, you can instantly view the details of even out-of-state titles so you’ll know what steps – if any – need to be taken to confirm the legitimacy of each trade-in.
- The Lost Sale
Let’s say you have a buyer interested in a vehicle that you recently took in on trade. You’re still working to square away the registration and titling details along with other prep, so you let the customer know that it’ll be available in a week or so. The customer doesn’t want to wait that long, so you lose the sale and now you’re looking at holding costs as well.
To take the delays out of processing trade-ins, it helps to create a process for accuracy checks on critical steps so you’ll be on the lookout for inaccuracies such as short pay rejections. It also helps to build relationships with lenders and consider the holding costs associated with lenders who are slow to fund.
Finally, using registration and title technology that streamlines the process is your most helpful tool to add speed and efficiency to trade-in processing.
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