Hyundai Capital America is building the “upfront groundwork on consumer process challenges” to develop a pilot program that will allow consumers to review personalized ancillary product packages online from their home, Scott Belkofer, vice president of Hyundai Capital Insurance, told Auto Finance News.
While this solution is still in the very early stages of development, the industry at large understands ancillary products should be more digitized, Belkofer said. However, dealers are hesitant to make the change because they fear it will decrease the take rate. The pilot is intended to show that ancillary product take rates won’t decrease under this system and that in many cases it may increase sales.
“We’re beginning to see customers who would prefer to do some of this work from the comfort of their own home, on their own device be it a mobile phone, iPad, laptop, etc.,” Belkofer said. “That may be the transition we’ll see — how do we get the consumer’s the information before the sale so they can do some self-education without taking away the role of the dealer as well as the opportunity for the dealer to sell F&I products.”
Dealers have told AFN that ancillary products are increasingly vital to a dealerships revenues and that they require that in-person time to make a sale. However, consumers may be overly defensive in that sales environment, and Hyundai’s pilot hopes to show that the buying process at home can inform the consumer and make the F&I office more inviting.
“You walk into the finance office to finalize everything, and all defenses go up — how do we change that?” Belkofer added. “That’s the piece of the sales experience I’d most like to change, and we do that by having the consumer more engaged with the process overall which is inclusive of the ability to research up front.”
