The status quo is all to easy to maintain. After plenty of time spent running your retail business, chances are you've grown accustomed to certain processes, functions, and tasks. If you're successful and feel good about your business overall, it's even more likely for that to be the case.
This broad principle applies more specifically to your consumer finance program as well. After offering consumer financing to your customers for a while, you may be wondering why you should switch anything up now. But is your finance program really where you want it to be? Is it the major revenue booster you expect? Are you getting all the sales you should or are you losing some as a result of inefficiencies in you process? And, from the customer perspective and from that of your employees, does your consumer finance application process take too long?
That's a tough thing to measure. After all, the definition of 'too long' can differ from person to person. But there are some telltale signs that a slow and inefficient consumer finance process could be hurting your customer relationships and your overall business. Here are a few examples.
If a customer agrees to make a financed purchase and then backs out at some point during the process, there's a good chance the process itself is flawed. One particular area to examine is the application process. If you are running applications through multiple lenders and your team members are inputting duplicate data for each one, you are not only wasting your employees' time, you're also wasting your customer's. It's important to note that time is valuable for everyone, and just because a customer gets to the application step, that doesn't mean the sale is done. If they get frustrated with the application process, they could choose to simply walk away.
You no doubt understand the importance of online reviews, and you should be scouring these for mentions of your finance program. Are your customers describe it as simple, easy, and convenient? Or do you more often see it referred to as being slow and cumbersome? Pay attention to customer feedback, because it is not only an indication of past interactions and impactful on potential customers, it also serves as a roadmap for process improvements.
No one understands the day-to-day challenges of running your financing program like the team members that run it every day. Talk to your team and get their feedback. Where are the pain points? What is the slowest part of the financing process? When do customers seem most frustrated, impatient, or agitated during the process? Take down your employees' thoughts and take them to heart; it could make a big difference for your consumer finance program.
Recognize any of these signs? If so, it's time to work with FormPiper, a consumer finance automation solution that simplifies the financing process through convenient managed and self-managed services. From eliminating duplicate data entry during the application process to helping you easily track your finance program's performance from one convenient dashboard, FormPiper is the perfect way to speed up your financing process, make things easier for your employees and customers, and boost your retail operation's revenue, all in one smart move.