Loan volume skyrockets with channel incentive program

Assessing the loan volume landscape

The F&I Managers at auto, RV and marine dealerships the client works with simply weren’t driving loan volume. The client relied too heavily on their top-performing dealers, and the current cash-for-contract incentive wasn’t seeing positive change. Leaders wanted to drive serious loan volume in their dealer channel.

Assessing dealer performance and program data

To understand the trend of the flat loan rates, our team reviewed 36 months of historical loan volume data to identify performance successes and gaps. After assessing dealer impacts on loan production and uncovering the effects of seasonal sales cycles, we reached some important conclusions.

With approximately 18,000 dealers registered to do business with the financial institution, the already small audience was shrinking. In fact, 52% of the audience wasn’t doing any business with the institution. Even during the busiest months of the year, the average loan volume per dealer decreased over the course of three years.

While some dealers weren’t engaging at all, middle-performing dealers fell short of earning top-performer status by only one deal per month. Program communication wasn’t resonating, and dealers didn’t seem motivated to participate in the organization’s established programs.

Setting new benchmarks for an incentive program

The organization wanted a program to:

• Motivate under-performing and dormant dealers to increase loan production
• Maintain momentum among top-performing dealers
• Increase loyalty among all participating dealers and F&I Managers

Designing an impactful incentive program

An integrated approach to communication, technology and awards would give the best possible results.

We segmented enrolled dealerships into three earning tiers based on the previous year’s loan volume, ranging from already engaged, loyal dealers to those not using the brand in any capacity. All dealers received a goal-based earning opportunity reflective of their engagement tier, and participants received points for each loan made.

To make the program as easy as possible to participate in, an intuitive client-branded platform shared program-specific information, enticing the dealer audience to participate and track their progress.

Finally, we worked together to craft a performance guarantee that returned a portion of invested dollars to the client if enrolled dealers didn’t achieve an average of at least 100% more loan volume than non-enrolled dealers.