Charles Pompey asked:
For special finance dealers and BHPH dealers, the most important aspect of your dealership website is the online credit application. If you do not have an online credit application on your website, you are wasting your money and time online.
The sale of a vehicle is secondary to the fact that you are providing financing for the purchase. The vehicle inventory you list on your site, with all the pictures and long descriptions are a waste of time if the customer is not going to submit an application to you, and it is not going to be approved.
1. The credit application must be secure. In addition to privacy and identity protection issues…if you are going to ask a customer to submit their private / personal financial information on line they need to know it is secure.
2. Your customer must be able to reach your credit application, and begin inserting information in NO MORE than 1 click of a mouse from your home page. Every additional click will cause customers to leave your site before completing.
3. Ask for the MINIMUM information needed on the credit application and keep it to one page / one screen.. Did you know that the online statistics for applications and purchases started and never completed are over 70%! I have seen dealer websites that 90% of the customers starting the application on line do not complete it. I would venture to say that if you have an on line application, you have no idea how many people start and fail to complete your application. It is simply too easy to hit the “back” button and exit your site unless you make it extremely easy to complete.
I believe the future of special finance and BHPH is on the web. If you are not heavily involved in the web with your business, you need to be. If you are very successful and feel you do not need the web to maintain or grow your business…you are mistaken. In every market, there will be operators that will take full advantage of this avenue to increase business to your detriment.
Think Amazon crushing a complacent Borders book store chain before they could do anything about it. The smallest dealer in a market can use this new technology to dominate the long term leaders. It can happen very quickly. Stop and think for one minute how the internet has changed the entire world we live in, only in the last 10 years! Do you really believe that your business is insulated from this? I am consulting with a number of small dealers right now that I have not even told them what I believe their market potential is as it would frighten them. The large established dealers in their respective markets have no internet strategy and no idea of the potential threat to their businesses. Do you?
The correct internet strategy can allow you to cover a larger market area at greatly reduced cost, with fewer employees, fewer locations and much higher sales unit volume per location. It does mean though, a change in the way you think about your business, and your customers. Start with the credit application hints above.
Dan
For special finance dealers and BHPH dealers, the most important aspect of your dealership website is the online credit application. If you do not have an online credit application on your website, you are wasting your money and time online.
The sale of a vehicle is secondary to the fact that you are providing financing for the purchase. The vehicle inventory you list on your site, with all the pictures and long descriptions are a waste of time if the customer is not going to submit an application to you, and it is not going to be approved.
1. The credit application must be secure. In addition to privacy and identity protection issues…if you are going to ask a customer to submit their private / personal financial information on line they need to know it is secure.
2. Your customer must be able to reach your credit application, and begin inserting information in NO MORE than 1 click of a mouse from your home page. Every additional click will cause customers to leave your site before completing.
3. Ask for the MINIMUM information needed on the credit application and keep it to one page / one screen.. Did you know that the online statistics for applications and purchases started and never completed are over 70%! I have seen dealer websites that 90% of the customers starting the application on line do not complete it. I would venture to say that if you have an on line application, you have no idea how many people start and fail to complete your application. It is simply too easy to hit the “back” button and exit your site unless you make it extremely easy to complete.
I believe the future of special finance and BHPH is on the web. If you are not heavily involved in the web with your business, you need to be. If you are very successful and feel you do not need the web to maintain or grow your business…you are mistaken. In every market, there will be operators that will take full advantage of this avenue to increase business to your detriment.
Think Amazon crushing a complacent Borders book store chain before they could do anything about it. The smallest dealer in a market can use this new technology to dominate the long term leaders. It can happen very quickly. Stop and think for one minute how the internet has changed the entire world we live in, only in the last 10 years! Do you really believe that your business is insulated from this? I am consulting with a number of small dealers right now that I have not even told them what I believe their market potential is as it would frighten them. The large established dealers in their respective markets have no internet strategy and no idea of the potential threat to their businesses. Do you?
The correct internet strategy can allow you to cover a larger market area at greatly reduced cost, with fewer employees, fewer locations and much higher sales unit volume per location. It does mean though, a change in the way you think about your business, and your customers. Start with the credit application hints above.
Dan