Innovate Your Automotive Desking Software Strategies

Uncovering the transformative impact of automotive desking software strategies and the pivotal role of pre-desking tools in refining sales processes and elevating dealership customer interactions. Join us in exploring the dynamics of automotive desking software systems and their integration with pre-desking tools for a streamlined retail experience and more profitable transactions.

Automotive Desking Software

In October 2023, eLEND Solutions’ Industry Survey uncovered some real transparency challenges dealers are faced with from the get-go of the car-selling process.

Trust Gap

Dealers and customers viewed transparency differently, creating a trust gap acknowledged by a whopping 97% of dealers.

Meeting Customer Needs

Dealers had a tough time juggling what customers wanted (transparency) with running a practical business. Almost all dealers (95%) felt this balancing act.

Lenders’ Lack of Clarity

Dealers found it hard to close deals smoothly due to a lack of clarity from lenders. About 84% felt they needed more info to make deals work.

Dealers Making It Harder

Sometimes, dealers unintentionally made things more confusing. For instance, sharing payment estimates before getting solid answers from lenders just led to more head-scratching.

Providing clearer deal terms from the outset can improve the car buying process, making it easier and more transparent for everyone involved. That’s where pre-desking tools come in, offering optimized dealer solutions to effortlessly drive sales.

Read this article to learn how digital finance innovations can enhance automotive desking software profitability while meeting consumer demands for transparency.

New digital finance technologies offer a new perspective on the potential of automotive desking software tools – increasing the accuracy, speed, and utility of desking tools – in-store and online. 

When optimized correctly, automotive desking software solutions can revolutionize an auto dealership’s operations by enhancing efficiency levels across all departments. With eLEND Solutions’ innovative DealMaker platform, dealerships can take their desking processes to new heights, empowering sales managers,  BDC/Internet depts and digital retailing platforms to deliver exceptional customer buying experiences. 

The Significance of Automotive Desking Software Optimization

In the dealership world, desk managers rely on their expertise to create deal structures, considering customer details and the vehicle of choice. After the customer has said “yes,” they then send these deals to multiple lenders for approval.

However, this back-and-forth process between dealers, lenders, and customers often leads to inefficiencies and prolonged wait times. And what happens when a deal structure cannot be matched to a lender program? The entire deal has to be re-worked, adding even more time and dissatisfaction to the buying experience.  

Now, with DealMaker, we’ve revolutionized this process. Our finance automotive desking software instantly matches the buyer, vehicle, and deal structure with multiple qualifying lender programs. This eliminates the need for multiple lender submissions and provides customers with a comprehensive view of available payment options, significantly speeding up the entire transaction process and ensuring smoother transactions for the customer, the dealer and the lender. 

This complex deal structuring and negotiation process, seamlessly facilitated by pre-desking software like eLEND’s DealMaker platform empowers dealerships to generate penny-perfect,  fundable payment options in real-time. These innovative solutions are purpose-built to cater precisely to this need.

They enable dealers to precisely match individual customer credit profiles and the selected vehicle with personalized and qualified payment options, enhancing the dealership’s ability to structure more profitable deals faster and meet the transparency needs and payment challenges of today’s car buyers.  

By implementing innovative automotive pre-desking software solutions,  supported by eLEND Solutions‘ software or other comprehensive services available on the market today – auto dealerships can streamline their operations while ensuring consistent results across all sales transactions. Recognizing the significance of automotive desking software optimization in auto dealerships is essential for optimizing sales processes and enhancing customer experiences. 

What Are Pre-Desking Tools?

Pre-desking tools represent innovation to traditional automotive retailing workflows, serving as precursors to automotive desking software activities.  These solutions enable dealers to start sales and finance conversations at the same time and earlier in the process – including the presentation of accurate, fundable payment information during the negotiation, not after the negotiation. And perhaps most importantly, these pre-desking software solutions can be used in-store, in the BDC, and as a middleware solution for digital retailing platforms. We are the only company offering these hybrid pre-desking solutions.

Features and Functions of Pre-Desking Tools

Quickly Structure All Deal Types

Supports loans, leases and balloon notes, and full credit spectrum loan programs 

Process Streamlining

API interfaces and bilateral API’s enable single dashboard views of all deal inputs, eliminating switching between multiple systems and screens.

Multi-Scenario Deal Calculations

Compare multiple retail and lease deal structure scenarios side-by-side to find the options that provide every customer with real choices and maximize PVR for your dealership.

Transactional, Fundable Deal Structuring

Deal structures and calculated payment options are matched to a waterfall of lender programs (including pricing underwriting and loan advance guidelines) + all applicable taxes + all dealer-specific fee structure and all levels of dealer participation.

Benefits of Pre-Desking Tools

Managing an entire transaction online is no easy feat. The U.S. retail automotive Industry encompasses over 13,500 makes and models, each with endless combinations of trims, colors, and options. Layered on top of this complexity are various regulatory challenges, including federal and state advertising laws, franchise rules, and brand compliance requirements.

The true strength of a digital retailing solution shines when embedded digital finance technology can handle the nitty-gritty tasks like credit filtering, fundable payment quoting options, deal structuring, and most importantly: lender matching. Anything falling short of this is merely an advanced lead-generation tool. This is where automotive desking software steps in to offer a comprehensive solution to these intricate challenges.

This synergy enables the finance information today’s payment-sensitive shoppers crave, including qualifying interest rate, term (length of the loan) and monthly payment details.

The deal transparency is a significant trust builder,  accelerating conversions of online browsers into in-store buyers.  And for the in-store buyer, getting to the “I’ll take it” faster, with far fewer frictions has positive impacts on F&I product penetration and profitability.

Structuring Profitable Deals Rapidly

Advanced digital finance technology replaces the educated guesswork used by most desk managers, providing penny-perfect, fundable deal structures within seconds.

Improved First Pencil Closing Ratios

Quoting credit and vehicle-qualified options reduces friction in negotiations, leading to fewer rehashes and defections.

Reduced Time in F&I

Presenting qualified deal structures matched to the best lender-fundable program during the negotiation reduces deal unwinds and rewrites – and eliminates lender decision wait times.

Enhanced Customer Experience

Pre-desking tools empower customers by providing them with transparency and information at the onset. This transparency fosters trust and confidence in the dealership, creating a positive experience for the customer.  For the dealer, early realistic payment quoting, frictionless and transparent negotiation, and faster transitions to and through Finance are significant drivers of customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Informed Decision-Making

 Soft credit checks equip dealerships with preliminary insights into a customer’s buying power. The early visibility allows sales teams to work the right deal, right way – improving process efficiency and effectiveness. 

Protection Against Synthetic Fraud

Credit report solutions, required to provide qualified payment information can serve as an essential defense mechanism for dealerships against synthetic fraud risks. By conducting soft-pull credit checks prior to the negotiation, credit report inconsistencies and sudden changes, you can enjoy the benefit of early detection of identity fraud and financial fraud red flags. 

Integration of Pre-Desking Tools with Digital Retailing Platforms

Customers engage with digital retailing platforms to complete initial buying steps online, at their convenience, with the expectation that it will save time at the dealership.  Initial buying steps typically include vehicle selection, incentives information, trade-in valuations, applying for credit, and monthly payment estimates.

Anything beyond estimated payment information, the customer is forced into the dealership to complete the remaining buying steps. But now, with automotive desking software innovations, the online journey no longer dead ends at the estimate. Realistic, accurate, transactional payment information is made available in seconds.  

The captured data and deal structure seamlessly integrate with the digital retailing platform and all other platforms involved in the deal flow, ensuring a smooth flow of information and consistency between online and in-store buying experiences. When the customer arrives at the dealership, unifying integrations and workflows enable the dealer to pick up in-store where the customer stopped online, and continue working the deal or move to contracting.

Contact Us Today and Transform Your Automotive Sales

We are bringing much-needed digital finance innovation and automotive desking software solutions to the industry. If you are tired of the status quo and committed to providing transformative buying experiences, consider us partners in your journey. Contact us today as we look forward to being a part of your success.