Finding Lost Prospects

As much as we special finance people would love to boast we can get anyone done, that just isn’t the case. In fact, if we could, we would all be gazillionaires. Now, I can see the wheels turning in your head, especially those dealers who have programs such as Credit Acceptance, Westlake or buy here pay here, but it holds true for all of us.

I am not saying that you did not get the customer approved. You may have, but the fact that you have an approval doesn’t guarantee a funded deal. Inventory or down payment can still prevent a deal from coming together. The approval, however, was still based on credit—something we have no control over! Or do we?

First, we do know if the customer had a higher score or if some of the garbage could be taken off their credit report, we would have been able to get them into a car. What if the customer was a 520 instead of a 479? How many times have we looked at this type of customer and been able to see they really should get a loan? How many times have you wondered what someone at the credit bureau was thinking when they scored someone? There are some customers with a 700-plus score who should be lower.

What happened to this potential customer? We worked for the down payment we needed, but they just couldn’t swing it or find a qualified co-signer. So we resolved ourselves to, “It is what it is. Win some, lose some.” I am not afraid to admit that we, like many other dealers, designate them as dead in our CRM and file the credit reports and applications away in our archives as required, and it seems to be game over. Unless they really did something with their credit, had a windfall of cash or the used car gods dumped a truckload of the “perfect” cars on our lot, most of us do not have the time or manpower to stay on top of these folks. I am not saying we do not want to, but let’s be realistic. We do great follow-up when we can see the commission in our future, but we can’t get them all. Or can we?

Credit cleaning and repair agencies have been around for a very long time, and in recent months, I’ve seen brochures popping up on dealership sales and finance desks. I’ve always been a skeptic, since I know people can clean their credit on their own. However, after seeing this enough times, I started looking into this and asking dealers a lot of questions—the biggest being why they have these brochures on their desks and how they got there.

Most told me some rep stopped by and said this is a nice way to bounce these folks out with something in hand. I guess the thought is something was better than nothing, but many dealers didn’t know much about the company or its program. Why the heck would you have something inside your store you don’t know anything about? Your customers will remember where they got it from.

One of the first things that made me finally give the green light to offer credit repair information was the realization that customers have as little time these days as we do. They don’t have time to clean up their credit; it’s labor intensive. I also found out letting someone else do it was a lot less expensive than I thought too.

So, what does this have to do with you? Everything! I learned that not only will a few of these really good companies help clean up customers’ credit, but they work with dealers to get the customers back to your dealership when they are able to purchase.

The result is you have now outsourced your follow-up at no charge to you. In my research, I ran across a few programs that request the special finance manager to specify how many points customers need to improve their credit by to purchase a car and guarantee this to customers. They also keep the dealership apprised or allow it access to a CRM which shows customers’ progress. They do all the work, and the customer is sent back to the store at the completion of their program with a discount certificate to purchase from the referring dealer. In some cases, these credit repair companies will bird dog the dealer for the credit repair customer.

There are very important questions you must ask before using a program such as this. Here are a few I recommend:

• Does the company guarantee the customer results with a 100 percent refund?

• How long does the average process take, so you know when to expect this customer back to make a purchase?

• What kind of progress reporting will the credit repair company do so your dealership can hold it accountable?

You also need to determine if the credit repair company is reputable. The only way to know this is to do your homework through research. Look for feedback from other dealers using them.

Now you have a cost effective way to salvage some lost prospects. You no longer can say you do not have the time or the manpower to do so.