Streamlining the buying process for customers is one of the easiest and most lucrative ways to improve a car dealer’s bottom line, believes one of the industry’s leading finance providers.

Oodle Car Finance joined Car Dealer Live recently to discuss the challenges facing car dealers right now, and how working with the right partners can see an immediate uplift in profit.

‘Managing cash flow is essential for all businesses, but for car dealers it’s probably the biggest problem they face,’ Oodle Car Finance’s chief commercial officer, Ciara Raison, told Car Dealer.

‘Dealers have a lot to juggle – they’re balancing the supply and demand of vehicles through quite unprecedented volatility in both trade and retail prices. They’ve got an uncertain economic and political climate and wider global issues impacting their businesses, and they’re also working in this ever shifting landscape – whether that’s regulatory or the advancement and acceleration of technology.’

Working with a supplier that understands this and one which can offer services and products that make life easier is essential, no more so than when it comes to finance.

‘At the very heart of what a dealer is doing is a very simple business model – they want to help more customers buy more cars, more often, more simply and more profitably. So, being able to access car finance solutions for as many of those customers as possible really facilitates that business model,’ said Raison.

‘Firstly, dealers is really should use integrations as the most efficient way to connect lots of customers with their panel of lenders as the optimum way to ensure that they really get the best outcome for each customer.

‘I think secondly, they should use motor finance partners with the technology capability to facilitate that full end-to-end digital journey as quickly as possible and in as few steps as possible.

‘To give you an example, at Oodle, our technology integrates with multiple other platforms which means that we can underwrite 99% of customers automatically in a few seconds. We can then validate that customer’s income and assess their affordability, so the dealer knows right from the beginning what that customer’s monthly budget is likely to be, and the types of vehicles that they should therefore be able to show them.

‘When the dealer comes to closing that sale and the customer is ready to complete the car buying journey, Oodle can send all that documentation digitally and then complete all of the final checks automatically to get those funds released to the dealer.’

She added: ‘A really good example of this was Easter Sunday this year. We were closed but the technology meant that we were still able to continue receiving customer proposals, underwriting them and paying out those funds to dealers.’

Elsewhere in the video – which you can watch at the top of this story – Raison explained:

• How the right partnership with a finance provider should work
• Her top tips for car dealers working with finance providers
• How the industry has adapted with Consumer Duty rules
• How technology is impacting the finance sector

Watch the full interview by clicking the video at the top of this story.