Wrapping Up a Sale Next to the Car Means Better F&I Results for Ford Store By John Huetter, Automotive News A Waco, Texas, Ford dealership is selling more finance and insurance products, improving customer satisfaction after redesigning the delivery process and moving the F&I conversation from the finance office “box” to the customer’s vehicle. “Less than five customers a month actually walk into our finance office,” Amanda Lesikar, business director of Bird Kultgen Ford and the creator of the store’s “ownership experience” process, told the Ethical F&I Managers Conference. “We go out and take everything to the customer. Everything.” The process begins in the showroom’s “celebration lanes,” complete with furniture added by Lesikar, where she and Business Manager Miguel Contreras talk F&I with customers next to the vehicle being purchased. “We really take the process to the vehicle,” Lesikar said during a presentation on Bird Kultgen’s method at the Las Vegas conference on March 3. Changing the process was “incredibly uncomfortable” for the staff, Lesikar said, but “it’s more important that the process be comfortable for the customer.” Bird Kultgen, which sold 945 new vehicles and 691 used vehicles last year, introduced the ownership experience process in stages over approximately the past two years, Lesikar told Automotive News in an email. “The store now sells more F&I products per deal than it did two years ago, and customer satisfaction is high,” she said. Bird Kultgen sold 1.72 products per deal on new vehicles and 1.47 products per deal overall during the first half of 2023, Lesikar said in a May 6 interview. This year, through May 5, it averaged 2.61 products on new vehicles and 2.21 products overall. Customer satisfaction with the “overall payment experience,” a Ford metric that captures customer sentiment about a store’s F&I team, was 4.82 out of 5 at Bird Kultgen in the first quarter of 2023, Lesikar Bird Kultgen Ford conducts vehicle deliveries, including F&I discussions, in “celebration lanes,” demonstrated by Sales Representative Drae Powell and Marketing Manager Rebecca Cantu. (BIRD KULTGEN FORD) DEALERS’ CHOICE 40
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