CRYSTAL LAKE, IL, March 15, 2016 – From the CFPB’s encroaching influence on dealer finance and insurance practices to new challenges in human resources to increasing cyber crime exposures and day-to-day OSHA and EPA requirements, dealers in 2016 juggle considerable change.

“Dealership compliance in 2016 is increasingly difficult, given so many regulatory and social influences on the business today. Dealers want answers – and prefer not to wade through paperwork to find them, and we’re at NADA in Las Vegas again this year to provide direction,” said Terry Dortch, president, Automotive Compliance Consultants.

Dealers and their staff can visit the company at Booth 468C, where the compliance firm’s general counsel and vice president David Missimer also will answer questions, review why the CFPB is pushing dealers to adopt Compliance Management System software and practices, and address dealers’ other compliance challenges.

Also offering guidance will be representatives from Automotive Compliance Consultant’s network and data compliance partner, Nuspire Networks.     

Third-party access to the dealer management system for additional data applications needed by  CRM, data mining, lead generation systems, for example, are making dealership networks increasingly active targets for cyber criminals, Dortch said.

Automotive Compliance Consultants specializes in dealership and auto finance compliance, providing in-dealership consultations and analysis, compliance audits and training, and offers solutions for all compliance needs. The Automotive Compliance Consultants staff has extensive experience in the retail automotive industry and focuses exclusively on dealership compliance issues. For information, contact terry_dortch@compliantnow.com  or visit www.compliantnow.com

No dealer today can tolerate lost margin, yet dealers’ difficulty in managing and using OEM and vendor incentive funds costs them thousands of dollars a month in lost opportunity and sales.

The unused portion of an OEM or vendor sales program incentive fund (spiff) is referred to by sales and marketing as “breakage.” This represents opportunity for dealerships.

How to leverage this breakage to improve margin is a core theme of “Are You Leaving Money on the Table?” a presentation at theInnovative Dealer Summit 2016 in Denver by Sean Ugrin, founder and CEO of Colorado-based Spiffit, an end-to-end incentive dashboard application.

At the March 15–16 Summit at the Denver Conference Center, Ugrin will share best practices for increasing spiff utilization and optimization in service, sales, accessories, parts, and F&I departments. Read more.

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Gamification has come to the F&I office, where new technology is driving more interactive — and more productive — processes. Gamification employs video game technology to redesign complex, densely layered and annoying processes and transforms the way they are accessed, understood and transacted. 

F&I platforms that use gamification technology and this new approach to selling F&I products transform workflow into a visually clean, enjoyable, simple and very user-friendly process. This metamorphosis occurs through the sophisticated but easy–to-use presentation of graphics, sounds, movement and imagery that breaks down the processes into bite-size portions that are easily digestible for the consumer.

Read more here.

Dealers often ask how they should respond to people requesting information about why the dealership ran their credit. The nature of these requests is motivated by one of two things:

• Consumers demand to know why the dealership ran their credit, or
• Consumers are victims of identity theft.

The dealership may receive requests for information from a phone call, correspondence from the consumer, correspondence from an individual claiming to represent the consumer or law enforcement.

The response should be conditioned on whether the request is for identity theft information, or concerns previous credit inquiries by the dealership.

This article addresses the requirements the user of a consumer report must provide in response to consumer inquiries.