Next month, Apple is going to do something extraordinary: They will debut the new Apple iPhone 8, along with an assortment of new devices. And while most things in the Apple world are treated with trumpets and red carpets, this time the rumors and leaks indicate that it’s a special moment: The “8” represents a distinct design departure from the existing iPhone. According to Forbes.com, it’s slightly larger than the 7, but smaller than the iPhone 7 Plus, and features a screen that goes edge-to-edge.

So the world will be watching. And that, to me, is the extraordinary part. The idea that Apple can release a phone to worldwide acclaim, and thousands upon thousands of pre-orders…it shows how absolutely critical mobile devices have become, and how we use them for everything we do. In fact, one could say we’re pretty dependent on our devices, on a daily basis. I know mine serves as an alarm, a planner, for social networking…I even use it for phone calls occasionally!

But you know all that. And if you don’t – just think a moment about how you use mobile tech. Are you reading this post on a tablet or smartphone right now? Probably.

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A couple month’s ago, I posted a blog that got the DrivingSales community talking about how financing and the entire, old-school, 4 square process could be moved online. The argument being – this is what consumers want so what’s stopping us from giving it to them?

Since then, we've had a deeper conversation with dealers about whether or not they are ready for a connected car-selling process. And the answer was a resounding “Yes!”

Eighty percent of dealers we talked to agreed that connecting the online and in-store experience will help them sell more cars fasters. This is good news for everyone – especially consumers, 99% of who start their purchasing journey expecting it to be hassle, according to a recent DrivingSales.com study.

Thanks in large part to the transparency offered by online shopping, consumer expectations have made the traditional 4 square process obsolete. Instead, car shoppers are seeking out a pleasurable experience – and are even willing to pay more for it: a recent AutoTrader study found that customer satisfaction trumps pricing: 54% of consumers would rather buy from a dealership that offers their preferred shopping experience over one that offers the lowest price.

Another upside of connecting online and in-store processes is that transparency finally becomes a two-way street – because, by bringing financing (prequalification not just pre-screening) online, dealers will have key information before the customer walks in the door. Right now, it’s the online consumer that has a leg up on the dealer in terms of pricing and competitive information.

The vast majority of dealers (95%) we spoke to agreed that the industry should strive to create an, easy, streamlined buying experience by starting both sales and financing online. They believe it will help sell more cars faster and lead to greater customer satisfaction -- and nearly 70% of dealerships say this is a goal for their dealership.

Now that online financing (actual credit approvals with real payment terms) is becoming a reality, let’s give consumers a car buying process they can love – making the in-store experience much shorter and much sweeter.

A couple month’s ago, I posted a blog that got the DrivingSales community talking about how financing and the entire, old-school, 4 square process could be moved online. The argument being – this is what consumers want so what’s stopping us from giving it to them?

Since then, we've had a deeper conversation with dealers about whether or not they are ready for a connected car-selling process. And the answer was a resounding “Yes!”

Eighty percent of dealers we talked to agreed that connecting the online and in-store experience will help them sell more cars fasters. This is good news for everyone – especially consumers, 99% of who start their purchasing journey expecting it to be hassle, according to a recent DrivingSales.com study.

Thanks in large part to the transparency offered by online shopping, consumer expectations have made the traditional 4 square process obsolete. Instead, car shoppers are seeking out a pleasurable experience – and are even willing to pay more for it: a recent AutoTrader study found that customer satisfaction trumps pricing: 54% of consumers would rather buy from a dealership that offers their preferred shopping experience over one that offers the lowest price.

Another upside of connecting online and in-store processes is that transparency finally becomes a two-way street – because, by bringing financing (prequalification not just pre-screening) online, dealers will have key information before the customer walks in the door. Right now, it’s the online consumer that has a leg up on the dealer in terms of pricing and competitive information.

The vast majority of dealers (95%) we spoke to agreed that the industry should strive to create an, easy, streamlined buying experience by starting both sales and financing online. They believe it will help sell more cars faster and lead to greater customer satisfaction -- and nearly 70% of dealerships say this is a goal for their dealership.

Now that online financing (actual credit approvals with real payment terms) is becoming a reality, let’s give consumers a car buying process they can love – making the in-store experience much shorter and much sweeter.

There’s got to be a better way to sell a car. Everyone seems to think so.  In our recent dealer survey, 8 in 10 dealers agreed the time it takes to buy a car ought to take two hours or less but most say the average transaction time today is 3-4 hours from meet & greet to funded. The clear majority of these same dealers say that the biggest opportunity for change is to capture more information from the customer earlier in the process.

With the endless eCommerce sites available today, empowered ‘electronic’ shoppers have come to expect the transparency and immediate gratification made possible by the internet. It’s difficult for them to understand why buying a car still has to take so long. Most car shoppers today want to know what their payment terms will be while deciding on a vehicle, so it's completely illogical that dealerships make it virtually impossible for car shoppers to find financing information online. 

Dealers should want to provide an easy, seamless experience for their customers that starts online because that’s where they’re making their decision to buy the vehicle. A connected buying experience that seamlessly moves the customer from the Internet to the showroom to F&I is quickly becoming possible.  With new technologies, financing no longer needs to be arranged exclusively as an in-store activity. 

Traditional online credit apps were a first step in that direction.   The next generation of interactive online credit apps will offer actual credit approvals with real, exact payment terms from your lender programs - made visible to you and your customers in seconds.   With no credit application to be completed in-store and no lender decision to wait on – your customer is transitioned from the meet & greet to the test drive to negotiation to F&I much quicker.  You’re selling more cars and, because time is money, profitability surges and CSI soars.

We know most consumers are doing their shopping and making their decision to buy online so why not give them a seamless shopping experience from start to finish?

There’s got to be a better way to sell a car. Everyone seems to think so.  In our recent dealer survey, 8 in 10 dealers agreed the time it takes to buy a car ought to take two hours or less but most say the average transaction time today is 3-4 hours from meet & greet to funded. The clear majority of these same dealers say that the biggest opportunity for change is to capture more information from the customer earlier in the process.

With the endless eCommerce sites available today, empowered ‘electronic’ shoppers have come to expect the transparency and immediate gratification made possible by the internet. It’s difficult for them to understand why buying a car still has to take so long. Most car shoppers today want to know what their payment terms will be while deciding on a vehicle, so it's completely illogical that dealerships make it virtually impossible for car shoppers to find financing information online. 

Dealers should want to provide an easy, seamless experience for their customers that starts online because that’s where they’re making their decision to buy the vehicle. A connected buying experience that seamlessly moves the customer from the Internet to the showroom to F&I is quickly becoming possible.  With new technologies, financing no longer needs to be arranged exclusively as an in-store activity. 

Traditional online credit apps were a first step in that direction.   The next generation of interactive online credit apps will offer actual credit approvals with real, exact payment terms from your lender programs - made visible to you and your customers in seconds.   With no credit application to be completed in-store and no lender decision to wait on – your customer is transitioned from the meet & greet to the test drive to negotiation to F&I much quicker.  You’re selling more cars and, because time is money, profitability surges and CSI soars.

We know most consumers are doing their shopping and making their decision to buy online so why not give them a seamless shopping experience from start to finish?

The auto retailing world is currently consumed by the CFPB’s threats to unleash new regulations aimed at curbing potential discriminatory lending practices – and reduce or eliminate dealer participation in the finance contract process. The saber rattling from every side just gets LOUDER. On the dealer front, there is understandably much emotion, but the focus has narrowly been on what will happen to the money, money, money - with no discussion of what the elimination of dealer reserve would logically mean for the current sales and financing process.

No matter what transpires, it’s always good to think things through. Dealers and lenders need to be prepared, given that legal analysts - even for major dealership magazines -have included in their 2014 industry forecasts that “discretion with respect to dealer participation (will) dwindle (maybe out of existence) as a result of CFPB pressure on finance companies.” Legal analysts note that, “finance sources are already telling dealers they ‘might’ have a discrimination issue on their hands.”*

So, let’s shut out all the noise and fear for just a moment and rationally consider what the nixing of dealer reserve would mean, at the most basic level, for the current dealership sales and financing process.

To do that, let’s quickly review how, in our dealer participation world, cars are now bought and financed…

First, we all know that consumers have to slog through time-consuming stages on the dealership sales and financing “game-board”: trudging from test-drive, to sales department, to last stop, F&I. And we know that in F&I, because of the dealer reserve model, this is how it goes: managers use educated guesswork (after eyeballing the customer’s credit history and flipping through their pile of lender rate ‘sheets’) to set a financing rate. They then “spray and pray” terms to multiple lenders, waiting for those lenders’ mysterious ‘black boxes’ (where real pricing and unique credit policies/parameters are locked up), to return finance terms that deliver the biggest dealer profit. Dealer participation is, of course, the difference between the lender’s approved interest rate (the “buy rate”) and the APR the dealership wrote the vehicle purchase contract at. A manager assumes that customer is Tier 2 credit qualified, writes the rate up at 7%, chooses the lender that returns the lowest buy rate, such as 5% – and profits with that 2% spread.

Note here that this archaic, guesswork-based model happens without any involvement on the part of any lenders (and without any human’s ability in F&I to master all the complexities of multiple lenders’ loan parameters and rules). So, the upshot is that a percentage of loan deals either unwind or have to be completely rewritten. This is a costly, time-consuming headache for all parties: consumers, dealers and lenders.

The Process in a Post-Reserve World: There is one overwhelming fact about how the sales and financing process would change in a post dealer participation world: the negotiation of finance terms, monthly payments and interest rates without lender involvement will no longer be practical. The lender interest “buy rate” will NECESSARILY become one and the same with the consumer contract interest rate/APR. Dealers will have to determine the lender and final loan approval terms BEFORE contracting with the consumer, so the financing “piece” will move right up to the point of the sales negotiation. If it didn’t, a dealership would suffer an impossible proliferation of purchase contract re-writes, unwinds and reduced profit. The old system of interest rate guesswork and shot-gunning of loan applications at the end of the “game” will not be sustainable. You won’t be able to have managers writing contracts at 7.5% with the best-priced lender coming back with a 6.5% rate. For dealers to be able to structure a finance deal, lender approval terms must be known, done, locked up and transparent at the point of sale – whether that’s online or in-dealership.

We all know the CFPB is looking towards replacing dealer participation with a flat-fee model to dealers for handling the finance purchase contract process. We all know dealerships provide hugely valuable services (for lenders and consumers) in financing, and dealers will still get paid and profit. And if CFPB regulations come to pass, we may see set profits on each loan getting pre-loaded by dealers – but based on amount financed, not the customer’s credit qualifications.

This short exercise in reviewing how the current sales/financing process works - and how that would most essentially change in a post-dealer-participation world, shines a clear light on how crazy and broken the current process is – and how, at a very fundamental level a post-reserve model could ultimately benefit dealers. It could make them far more efficient, and, yes, profitable. When you move the financing to the front of the sales process and eliminate all the dealer-lender back-and-forth it. by nature, creates a radically more streamlined, integrated sales and finance process – and one that could reduce the total transaction time from hours to minutes.

At the recent NADA convention, emotions over the CFPB ran hot. But another hot topic was how the sales process simply needs to get more efficient. A study was presented showing the current purchase transaction takes a whopping four hours** with the report’s author noting, “It’s frightening…how much time is being wasted on the typical car sale. It’s a wonder…the dealership manages to make any money.” Leading dealer sales consultants like Grant Cardone argued the way cars get sold simply needs to change, and speed up, because people are “irritated” and don’t even want to come into the showroom anymore.

Very few have connected the dots between these two “hot topics.” If the CFPB acts to eliminate dealer reserve, final, approved loan terms must be in place at the point of sale, and the costly guesswork and irrational shot-gunning of loans must end. This would rationalize the whole process and it would certainly make consumers much more happy, and more likely to finance with dealers. And if the CFPB doesn’t act, change still has to happen. We’re at a real crossroads with the sales and financing process – and I believe it’s welcomed, and nothing to fear.

*F & I Magazine, “5 Regulatory Predictions for 2014,” by publication’s ‘legal insider,’ January 2014.

**Field study of 200 dealerships by consultant Mark Rikess, reported in Automotive News, February 2014.

By Pete MacInnis, Founder & CEO, E-Lend Solutions (a DealerCentric company)

The auto retailing world is currently consumed by the CFPB’s threats to unleash new regulations aimed at curbing potential discriminatory lending practices – and reduce or eliminate dealer participation in the finance contract process. The saber rattling from every side just gets LOUDER. On the dealer front, there is understandably much emotion, but the focus has narrowly been on what will happen to the money, money, money - with no discussion of what the elimination of dealer reserve would logically mean for the current sales and financing process.

No matter what transpires, it’s always good to think things through. Dealers and lenders need to be prepared, given that legal analysts - even for major dealership magazines -have included in their 2014 industry forecasts that “discretion with respect to dealer participation (will) dwindle (maybe out of existence) as a result of CFPB pressure on finance companies.” Legal analysts note that, “finance sources are already telling dealers they ‘might’ have a discrimination issue on their hands.”*

So, let’s shut out all the noise and fear for just a moment and rationally consider what the nixing of dealer reserve would mean, at the most basic level, for the current dealership sales and financing process.

To do that, let’s quickly review how, in our dealer participation world, cars are now bought and financed…

First, we all know that consumers have to slog through time-consuming stages on the dealership sales and financing “game-board”: trudging from test-drive, to sales department, to last stop, F&I. And we know that in F&I, because of the dealer reserve model, this is how it goes: managers use educated guesswork (after eyeballing the customer’s credit history and flipping through their pile of lender rate ‘sheets’) to set a financing rate. They then “spray and pray” terms to multiple lenders, waiting for those lenders’ mysterious ‘black boxes’ (where real pricing and unique credit policies/parameters are locked up), to return finance terms that deliver the biggest dealer profit. Dealer participation is, of course, the difference between the lender’s approved interest rate (the “buy rate”) and the APR the dealership wrote the vehicle purchase contract at. A manager assumes that customer is Tier 2 credit qualified, writes the rate up at 7%, chooses the lender that returns the lowest buy rate, such as 5% – and profits with that 2% spread.

Note here that this archaic, guesswork-based model happens without any involvement on the part of any lenders (and without any human’s ability in F&I to master all the complexities of multiple lenders’ loan parameters and rules). So, the upshot is that a percentage of loan deals either unwind or have to be completely rewritten. This is a costly, time-consuming headache for all parties: consumers, dealers and lenders.

The Process in a Post-Reserve World: There is one overwhelming fact about how the sales and financing process would change in a post dealer participation world: the negotiation of finance terms, monthly payments and interest rates without lender involvement will no longer be practical. The lender interest “buy rate” will NECESSARILY become one and the same with the consumer contract interest rate/APR. Dealers will have to determine the lender and final loan approval terms BEFORE contracting with the consumer, so the financing “piece” will move right up to the point of the sales negotiation. If it didn’t, a dealership would suffer an impossible proliferation of purchase contract re-writes, unwinds and reduced profit. The old system of interest rate guesswork and shot-gunning of loan applications at the end of the “game” will not be sustainable. You won’t be able to have managers writing contracts at 7.5% with the best-priced lender coming back with a 6.5% rate. For dealers to be able to structure a finance deal, lender approval terms must be known, done, locked up and transparent at the point of sale – whether that’s online or in-dealership.

We all know the CFPB is looking towards replacing dealer participation with a flat-fee model to dealers for handling the finance purchase contract process. We all know dealerships provide hugely valuable services (for lenders and consumers) in financing, and dealers will still get paid and profit. And if CFPB regulations come to pass, we may see set profits on each loan getting pre-loaded by dealers – but based on amount financed, not the customer’s credit qualifications.

This short exercise in reviewing how the current sales/financing process works - and how that would most essentially change in a post-dealer-participation world, shines a clear light on how crazy and broken the current process is – and how, at a very fundamental level a post-reserve model could ultimately benefit dealers. It could make them far more efficient, and, yes, profitable. When you move the financing to the front of the sales process and eliminate all the dealer-lender back-and-forth it. by nature, creates a radically more streamlined, integrated sales and finance process – and one that could reduce the total transaction time from hours to minutes.

At the recent NADA convention, emotions over the CFPB ran hot. But another hot topic was how the sales process simply needs to get more efficient. A study was presented showing the current purchase transaction takes a whopping four hours** with the report’s author noting, “It’s frightening…how much time is being wasted on the typical car sale. It’s a wonder…the dealership manages to make any money.” Leading dealer sales consultants like Grant Cardone argued the way cars get sold simply needs to change, and speed up, because people are “irritated” and don’t even want to come into the showroom anymore.

Very few have connected the dots between these two “hot topics.” If the CFPB acts to eliminate dealer reserve, final, approved loan terms must be in place at the point of sale, and the costly guesswork and irrational shot-gunning of loans must end. This would rationalize the whole process and it would certainly make consumers much more happy, and more likely to finance with dealers. And if the CFPB doesn’t act, change still has to happen. We’re at a real crossroads with the sales and financing process – and I believe it’s welcomed, and nothing to fear.

*F & I Magazine, “5 Regulatory Predictions for 2014,” by publication’s ‘legal insider,’ January 2014.

**Field study of 200 dealerships by consultant Mark Rikess, reported in Automotive News, February 2014.

By Pete MacInnis, Founder & CEO, E-Lend Solutions (a DealerCentric company)

• 25 percent of mobile users are mobile-only – if information is not optimized for mobile use, consumers will miss it. [2]
• Mobile search now trumps desktop search - in other words, consumers demand their information in a convenient and easily digestible format.[3]
• The time Americans are spending with mobile is growing at 14 times the rate of time spent with desktop/laptop computers (52 percent vs. 4 percent) and it has grown roughly 50 percent annually for the last four years[4].

And, of course, the mobile wave is rewriting the car-buying process:

With the number of smart phones continuing to grow, it is no surprise that mobile phone research now extends to the car buying process. We hear from so many dealer clients that mobile now drives over 50 percent of total traffic to their sites, consumers are not afraid to make decisions based off of mobile phone based research.

In the last year, many dealerships have stepped up their mobile game: creating mobile-friendly websites and engaging in various types of mobile marketing…many even adopting a dealership app.

But one area where most dealers are still lagging is that they don’t have a mobile-optimized consumer credit app strategy. Consumers are researching where to buy their vehicle, but dealers are not equipped to provide financing information to these potential buyers, in the same mobile format – this is a huge missed opportunity.

Highest Quality Leads

With 9 in 10 consumers now shopping online, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for dealers to determine who’s just looking, who’s seriously ready to buy, or whether that shopper is even qualified. When an online/mobile shopper fills out a credit app and puts their personal info online, it’s one loud, clear signal that they’re transitioning from the “just shopping” to the buying cycle. And what more convenient way to convert researchers into buyers than by providing financing in mobile format?

Dealers Are Losing the Preapproved Financing Battle

While the majority of car shoppers now research financing online, 50 percent plan to get preapproved through a bank/credit union and only 34 percent at a dealership.[5] Because most dealers and banks/lenders have a weak mobile credit app presence, they could gain a new advantage -- reaching car buyers where they are increasingly "live"…on their smartphones and tablets.

People Do a Whole Lot of “Stuff” on Their Smartphones

For many smartphone users, their smartphones are an “appendage” that’s with them 24/7. In fact, Americans now spend more than 2.5 hours daily on their smartphones/tablets, nipping at the heels of the time they spend with TV! (168 minutes daily).[6]

Financing Needs to Move to the Front of the Sales Process

Moving auto financing to the front of the sales process is increasingly critical for dealers and their customers, because it can slash the old, frustrating three-hour sales process to under an hour. Web and mobile-optimized credit apps, which, of course, get people preapproved, pre-test-drive, create significant, new efficiencies.

If a dealer wants to get their online credit app mobile-friendly (or they currently have an online credit app presence through lenders or vendors) there are certain key things to execute on:

• Mobile “version” doesn’t mean mobile-optimized: Too many dealers and vendors offer up the same version of their online credit app on mobile. Consumers can technically access the app, but because the experience and interface isn’t mobile-customized, it’s unwieldy and a major headache to fill out. People will simply abandon it. Best practice: an auto mobile detect platform, which means if a consumer is accessing the application through a mobile device the application is automatically formatted to be mobile-friendly.
• Online and mobile credit apps need to engage: more rich, compelling content, like streaming video and calls-to-action, mean more financing apps for your dealership.
• Make it quick, easy, hassle-free, and make them feel secure: Having an initial credit app as long and complex as the Dead Sea Scrolls means they will also abandon it. Keep is simple: gather their name, address, phone number, email address, date of birth, and Social Security number. Then the credit score gets run. Then, if they’re prequalified, ask for more details like income and residence info. Messaging about how their personal info is 100 percent secure needs to be prominent throughout the experience.
• Many online and mobile credit apps are for direct loans, and for an amount, rather than for indirect loans or those tied to a specific vehicle in a dealer’s inventory. Only apps for indirect loans ensure that a dealer gets that share of the interest income, the dealer reserve. Apps for indirect loans, and ones for a vehicle rather than an amount, are where the profits lie.
• In general, any online/mobile credit app that pre-approves auto shoppers for financing should be based on your dealership’s credit criteria.

Consumers have spoken, and the verdict is that convenient, mobile based information wins. Given the staggering growth in mobile adoption and time-spent-with-mobile, dealers using these golden rules for mobile credit applications should see their credit apps grow exponentially. And anyone serious about driving the highest-quality leads at a low cost needs to get serious about a mobile credit app strategy now.

Pete MacInnis, founder/chairman/CEO of DealerCentric has 34 years experience in automotive finance, including co-founding Onyx Acceptance which originated over $14 billion in auto loans, and was acquired by Capital One. He began his career with WFS Financial, helping grow the company from $100 million in assets to over $4 billion serviced. At DealerCentric, Pete oversees the creation of a more streamlined sales and financing experiences for the industry, including Mobile Get Pre-approved in Seconds.

[1] Pew Research Center, 2013

[2] MobiThinking data, 2012

[3] Google data, 2012

[4] eMarketer, 2012

[5] Kelly Blue book survey

[6] Flurry Analytics report, 2013

• 25 percent of mobile users are mobile-only – if information is not optimized for mobile use, consumers will miss it. [2]
• Mobile search now trumps desktop search - in other words, consumers demand their information in a convenient and easily digestible format.[3]
• The time Americans are spending with mobile is growing at 14 times the rate of time spent with desktop/laptop computers (52 percent vs. 4 percent) and it has grown roughly 50 percent annually for the last four years[4].

And, of course, the mobile wave is rewriting the car-buying process:

With the number of smart phones continuing to grow, it is no surprise that mobile phone research now extends to the car buying process. We hear from so many dealer clients that mobile now drives over 50 percent of total traffic to their sites, consumers are not afraid to make decisions based off of mobile phone based research.

In the last year, many dealerships have stepped up their mobile game: creating mobile-friendly websites and engaging in various types of mobile marketing…many even adopting a dealership app.

But one area where most dealers are still lagging is that they don’t have a mobile-optimized consumer credit app strategy. Consumers are researching where to buy their vehicle, but dealers are not equipped to provide financing information to these potential buyers, in the same mobile format – this is a huge missed opportunity.

Highest Quality Leads

With 9 in 10 consumers now shopping online, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for dealers to determine who’s just looking, who’s seriously ready to buy, or whether that shopper is even qualified. When an online/mobile shopper fills out a credit app and puts their personal info online, it’s one loud, clear signal that they’re transitioning from the “just shopping” to the buying cycle. And what more convenient way to convert researchers into buyers than by providing financing in mobile format?

Dealers Are Losing the Preapproved Financing Battle

While the majority of car shoppers now research financing online, 50 percent plan to get preapproved through a bank/credit union and only 34 percent at a dealership.[5] Because most dealers and banks/lenders have a weak mobile credit app presence, they could gain a new advantage -- reaching car buyers where they are increasingly "live"…on their smartphones and tablets.

People Do a Whole Lot of “Stuff” on Their Smartphones

For many smartphone users, their smartphones are an “appendage” that’s with them 24/7. In fact, Americans now spend more than 2.5 hours daily on their smartphones/tablets, nipping at the heels of the time they spend with TV! (168 minutes daily).[6]

Financing Needs to Move to the Front of the Sales Process

Moving auto financing to the front of the sales process is increasingly critical for dealers and their customers, because it can slash the old, frustrating three-hour sales process to under an hour. Web and mobile-optimized credit apps, which, of course, get people preapproved, pre-test-drive, create significant, new efficiencies.

If a dealer wants to get their online credit app mobile-friendly (or they currently have an online credit app presence through lenders or vendors) there are certain key things to execute on:

• Mobile “version” doesn’t mean mobile-optimized: Too many dealers and vendors offer up the same version of their online credit app on mobile. Consumers can technically access the app, but because the experience and interface isn’t mobile-customized, it’s unwieldy and a major headache to fill out. People will simply abandon it. Best practice: an auto mobile detect platform, which means if a consumer is accessing the application through a mobile device the application is automatically formatted to be mobile-friendly.
• Online and mobile credit apps need to engage: more rich, compelling content, like streaming video and calls-to-action, mean more financing apps for your dealership.
• Make it quick, easy, hassle-free, and make them feel secure: Having an initial credit app as long and complex as the Dead Sea Scrolls means they will also abandon it. Keep is simple: gather their name, address, phone number, email address, date of birth, and Social Security number. Then the credit score gets run. Then, if they’re prequalified, ask for more details like income and residence info. Messaging about how their personal info is 100 percent secure needs to be prominent throughout the experience.
• Many online and mobile credit apps are for direct loans, and for an amount, rather than for indirect loans or those tied to a specific vehicle in a dealer’s inventory. Only apps for indirect loans ensure that a dealer gets that share of the interest income, the dealer reserve. Apps for indirect loans, and ones for a vehicle rather than an amount, are where the profits lie.
• In general, any online/mobile credit app that pre-approves auto shoppers for financing should be based on your dealership’s credit criteria.

Consumers have spoken, and the verdict is that convenient, mobile based information wins. Given the staggering growth in mobile adoption and time-spent-with-mobile, dealers using these golden rules for mobile credit applications should see their credit apps grow exponentially. And anyone serious about driving the highest-quality leads at a low cost needs to get serious about a mobile credit app strategy now.

Pete MacInnis, founder/chairman/CEO of DealerCentric has 34 years experience in automotive finance, including co-founding Onyx Acceptance which originated over $14 billion in auto loans, and was acquired by Capital One. He began his career with WFS Financial, helping grow the company from $100 million in assets to over $4 billion serviced. At DealerCentric, Pete oversees the creation of a more streamlined sales and financing experiences for the industry, including Mobile Get Pre-approved in Seconds.

[1] Pew Research Center, 2013

[2] MobiThinking data, 2012

[3] Google data, 2012

[4] eMarketer, 2012

[5] Kelly Blue book survey

[6] Flurry Analytics report, 2013