Automotive News - October 10, 2016 - Supplement - S11

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT DIGITAL'S DOOR (Continued from page 4) TIPS (Continued from page 6) how many miles a year the customer drives, and planned length of vehicle ownership, Darwin can prescribe the best F&I products speciﬁc to the customer's needs. Darwin CEO Phil Battista says the application is aimed at Millennials and others with a need for speed, adding, "If you sell to them properly, they actually buy more products than the baby boomers." Customers can interact with the computer application beyond regular business hours, but in-store F&I managers can also use Darwin's app to communicate with customers at the dealership, via smartphone or tablet, before those buyers ﬁnish talking with a sales associate. Battista says that when the customer gets into the F&I ofﬁce, it becomes very personal. Dealers using this kind of technology experienced a signiﬁcant increase in sales of F&I products and signiﬁcantly shortened the transaction time, he says. Additionally, Battista envisions a future where customers will be able to complete most of the car-buying process digitally. "The vast number of people still want to go into the dealership to experience that test drive. But people will be able to go online and prequalify themselves-get a real payment from a real lender-and be educated on the F&I products before ever coming into the store," says Battista. Regarding digital shoppers, Gunnell offers a ﬁnal word of caution to dealers who operate both online and brick-and-mortar storefronts. "What's important about a digital storefront is that it mirrors the actual dealership," Gunnell says. "If I go on your site today and then I walk into your showroom and there's a different price, odds are you're going to infringe upon my trust, and that trust is the ﬁrst step towards earning new and repeat customers." * "Our ﬁeld team doesn't just provide dealers with the F&I tools and then walk away," says Scott Gunnell, vice president of Sales Strategy and Development for JM&A. "We go into dealerships and assess every aspect of their operations to provide training and instore support, but we also offer off-site and virtual training options." For JM&A Group, going to the dealer is a great beneﬁt, but it is important to get people out of the dealership environment. It allows associates to focus on the course information and not what's happening on the other side of the walls in the showroom. Kraybill believes it's important for dealers to communicate a clear mission and objectives that translate into purpose. When the showroom sales star gets bumped up to sales manager, you want the change to be well received so that team morale is not disrupted. Leadership skills and buy-in to the company's culture are the main ingredients for managers, and not all sales personnel possess those characteristics. Nevertheless, dealers can use assessment testing to determine an associate's success in management. "If change and being adaptive is central to your business operations, you can and should evaluate whether someone has been a change leader or a change resister," says Kraybill. Coaching, mentoring and training the staff is a proactive approach to succession planning. Once a dealer recognizes the value in implementing a training and development program, partnering with the right people who understand their company culture and goals becomes paramount to establishing an effective process. "The idea is to complement dealers' efforts, not interrupt their business," adds Gunnell. "We achieve that by supporting them with the best practices and tools to help maximize overall performance." * REGULATORS (Continued from page 9) lessness can put customers at risk and dealers are held liable, even for an unintentional oversight. "Identity thieves are attracted to dealer databases because of the sensitive type of customer data they house," says Jason Marino, associate general counsel for JM&A. "Dealers need to put adequate ﬁrewalls and safeguards in place, use reputable vendors and be able to detect if customer data is leaving the store." Marino stresses the importance of being vigilant about tracking your steps, particularly when handling personal information, and that dealer staff should constantly ask questions like Did I leave conﬁdential information on the printer? Did I shred excess documentation? or Did I store that ﬁle in a secured designated area? With respect to the federal governing bodies, the stakes are high for dealers, especially since Congress required protection agencies to adjust their ﬁnes to reﬂect inﬂation in 2015. The FTC used to have the discretion to ﬁne an individual up to $16,000 for a violation but now that can be upward of $40,000. Jason Barrie, vice president of Market Performance for Dealertrack, which operates a credit application network connecting dealerships and their lenders to its suite of comprehensive automotive retailing solutions, recommends state-speciﬁc dealer associations as a resource to provide some of the framework necessary to help a store follow legal standards and guidelines. "Dealers should develop compliance strategies, including employee training to address the increasing compliance burden placed on the dealers," advises Barrie. JM&A also has the ability to give dealer customers the lay of the land on hot compliance issues in this evolving regulatory environment. The company has 300-plus ﬁeld associates and more than 30 Performance Development Center trainers throughout the U.S. who provide support to dealers in F&I ﬁxed operation and any compliance matters that may arise. "We provide compliance training and webinars, which, in this regulatory landscape, no dealer should go without," says Marino. * OCT '16 / JM&A GROUP / 11

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive News - October 10, 2016 - Supplement