Tips to Keeping the F&I Staff Happy

Dealerships across the country struggle with turnover for a variety of reasons…commission-heavy compensation, long hours, lack of respect from management or owners, lack of professional respect among peers. The list goes on and on. For F&I managers, though, there are some steps you can take to help reduce turnover and in turn, increase PVR in the process. You may not think the two are related but you couldn’t be more wrong.

1) Make Training a Priority:

Whether it’s an outside hire (not from the auto industry) or promoting a salesperson to F&I, offer them the very best training your store can provide. If they feel like you are making an investment in their professional development, that will pay dividends when you see the PVR rise. They will be confident, careful in compliance procedures, and truly enthusiastic when working with customers.

‍2) Realistic Pay Structure:

For decades, dealers have been offering F&I managers an all commission or, in some cases, draw vs. commission pay plans believing that it promotes a higher level of incentive to sell more product.

Highly successful dealers have started adopting a salary plus bonus compensation structure that is taking that edge off pushing unnecessary products and instead encouraging F&I managers to truly be the consultative salesperson your customer needs. PVR increases, chargebacks decrease dramatically, and F&I turnover lowers.  

3) Better Work-Life Balance:

Maybe it’s an overused term these days but work-life balance is a real thing. Dealers for generations have made their F&I staff work bell-to-bell especially in busy markets. That day could start at 9am and not end until the last shopper walks off the lot at 10pm. Make a concerted effort to schedule 2 days off a week for each F&I manager. Reduce hours from 80 down to 40-50 hours per week. If possible, staff enough managers to make this kind of schedule work and watch the change in PVR and CSI. Will they make less from working less deals?