Downtime in F&I? Here Are a Few Cool Ways to Keep Busy

Downtime. No deals. Few ups and just not a lot of activity. With COVID-19 keeping more buyers inside due to increased cases in states all across the country, this becomes every dealer’s nightmare scenario. It happens, though, and when we think of this quiet period in the dealership, everyone defaults to standing around chatting in service or staring endlessly at your phone checking updates on Facebook.

Let’s take a look at a few ways F&I managers can take better advantage of downtime at the store…

1)             Continuing Education: There is a wealth of training available to every F&I manager and not just within the dealer-sanctioned training programs from large providers. There are education channels all over the Internet as well…even on YouTube. Don’t laugh…believe it or not, there are plenty of quick videos on basic selling techniques and overcoming objections that could help your F&I staff hone their skills or simply give them some new talking points.

Brush up on your existing knowledge base and understand that being a professional means learning like one.

2)             Educating Others: Sales and F&I really do share a symbiotic relationship. Each relies on the other to some degree to hold a profit and move the unit. Use that time to have F&I conduct training for the sales staff. Help them understand the importance of the set-up on products.

F&I can help sales understand more about their own challenges and keep them updated on new product offerings and coverage. The more educated the salespeople are about the F&I process, the easier it is to have them help the process instead of hamper it.

3)             Office Housekeeping: This may seem like a silly thing to make a point of but in today’s busy dealerships, a messy, unorganized desk that looks like a bomb went off is not the image you want to project to customers. Downtime is the perfect opportunity to have the F&I managers get their offices together. Dump the smelly lunch out of your trashcan and ditch the personal clutter. Keep the office disinfected in accordance with your store’s COVID procedures to keep your staff and buyers safe at all times.

Check us out here to see how truWarranty can help fill in that downtime for your F&I staff with compliance and product training. Stay sharp, sell more.