Learn why enabling car shoppers to “shop by monthly payment” — with consistent, VIN-specific calculations that carry through to your dealer partner’s site — builds buyer confidence, accelerates deal-making, and helps win the business.
0:05
And we’re back.
0:06
I’m Greg Payne, Marketing Manager with Cox Automotive, and I’m joined once again by Andy Mayers, AVP of Dealer Track Lender Solutions.
0:14
So Andy, we’re coming together again to talk about the next topic in our small byte series, payment services.
0:21
Now, I’m somewhat familiar with this tool, but I could always use a more thorough explanation and I’m sure our lender audience could too.
0:28
So at its highest level, I know that payment services enables lenders and other industry partners to include a payment calculator on their websites, but there’s got to be so much more to it.
0:38
Tell me why this is so important.
0:41
That’s a great question.
0:43
You know, as you know, in our car buying journey, we, we are seeing that consumers want to figure out if they can buy the car that they love.
0:50
You know, I go online, I go to an OEM website and I find this nice shiny car and the first thing I want to do is find out, can I actually afford this?
0:58
And affordability has been a huge issue for our industry.
1:02
Interest rates are high, cars are expensive, and it’s a very time consuming process with the consumer when they’re trying to purchase a vehicle.
1:10
But most importantly, a lot of our customers are buying cars because they need to be able to afford them for payment, you know, and that’s, you know, whether it’s a new car or a used car.
1:19
So when you talk about payment services, what you’re really talking about is empowering the consumer and dealers who use the same tools in store to figure out what a customer can afford based on what their comfort level is.
1:32
You know what the term is.
1:33
Did they want to retail versus lease?
1:35
Do they want to go 36 months, 48 months?
1:38
The payment calculator allows them to say what if I put another $1000 down or $2000 down?
1:44
And what we’re finding, Greg, as you know is this is happening all online, everywhere, you know, just about every site that has a vehicle.
1:51
The next thing that’s sitting next to it is payment calculator.
1:54
So I think, I think the payment services which powers this and and quite honestly, you know, powers our payment calculations on Auto Trader, our VIN desking tool, you know, we use it inside dealer track has all the rates, taxes, fees calculations, all those things.
2:10
Now it’s available for consumer to do what they traditionally had to do by walking to a dealership and sit down with a desk manager in a Foursquare and things like that.
2:19
It’s totally unique by VIN.
2:21
It takes care of all taxes and fees.
2:23
It really does build and provide the consumer a very good accurate reflection of what they’re going to pay.
2:31
And it can be done at different stages in the process, could be done before aftermarket products or aftermarket products are done.
2:36
But I think when we look at payment services for our lenders, it’s important for them to understand that even though they have risk based pricing, they need to know that they have to have some programs out there so, so people can understand what their opportunities will be for financing.
2:54
You know, a lot of the OEMs and captives have specials rebates, you know, 9.9% financing or it might be lease programs, but our lenders also have retail programs that you know are published rates that that consumers can use to get their financing.
3:11
The payment service is not the final step in the process, obviously, because ultimately once the customer figures of What Car they want, how much they think they want to put down, they’ll move to the next step of the process, which is really getting approved, whether it’s for a lender referral deal or for contracting services.
3:28
But you have to have a payment structure in order to get to the next step in the process, which is really the financing journey.
3:34
So it’s really a critical part of the the ecosystem.
3:38
OK.
3:39
So it sounds like payment services are going to be table stakes for both industry partners as well as lenders as well.
3:46
And you did mention that the next progression in the process would be getting a car buyer pre approved before they even set foot in a dealership as a means of retaining existing customers as well as a way of conquesting new customers provided they meet the lenders credit and risk profile.
4:02
So join us next time as we talk about the next topic in our series, Finance services.
4:08
Thank you, Andy for joining us and thank you all to everyone in the audience for listening in.
4:12
My pleasure, Greg.
4:12
I agree this is easily a table stake.
4:14
It’s a must have payment services and the ability to calculate payments is critical for this financing journey that we’re on.
4:22
But most important, it helps the customer gain confidence in what they’re trying to do.
4:26
That information needs to be consistent when they walk into a dealership.
4:29
So you want to have consistent rates and programs and we share those in our platform.
4:34
But as we’ve talked in our car buying journey, consumers have to be able to figure out what they want to buy.
4:39
And, and I really appreciate you letting me join on this one and look forward to our next deep dive on finance services.
4:45
All right, anytime looking forward to the next succession.
4:48
Take care everyone, have a great day.
