Legions of representatives, trainers and specialists travel to dealerships across the country every year, visiting personnel and conducting training sessions. Adjusting to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic has been difficult for many of these companies that, just as many of the dealership clients they serve, have pivoted entirely online for sales and training opportunities.
Finance-and-insurance training companies have experienced a roller coaster of activity since the pandemic began. For stores that remain open, dealership personnel are seeking guidance on how to sell vehicles remotely and conduct virtual F&I presentations. In areas where vehicle sales are not deemed an essential service, trainers are viewing the downtime as a silver lining — F&I managers can sharpen their skills and prepare for stores to reopen.
Over the past several years, many F&I training companies have added or expanded the digital components of their programs, with the goal of producing training modules F&I professionals can participate in without leaving the dealership. Those modules also can be accessed at employees’ homes.
Classrooms that typically hold 12 to 15 dealership employees sit empty at the Deerfield Beach, Fla., campus of F&I product and training company JM&A Group.
Pivoting to digital “wasn’t anything we were completely unprepared for,” said Chris May, director of JM&A’s Performance Development Center, adding that the coronavirus outbreak “just expedited our timeline.”
The JM Family Enterprises subsidiary trains 7,000 dealership employees annually across 1,300 dealerships, according to May.
The company pushed up the launch of its Performance Plus online initiative, initially slated for the end of this year.
“A lot more transitions well into a virtual environment than we originally thought,” May said.
Not every F&I training company is offering free courses, however, and dealership employees are weighing the investment of training certifications against employee payroll and other expenses.
The nonprofit Association of Finance & Insurance Professionals opened its live, online interactive state and federal regulation certification program to all dealership, finance source and F&I product provider personnel working at home during the pandemic. But dealership participation has waned during the closures, according to Executive Vice President Shannon Robertson.
“We have seen a drop in dealer participation but an increase in agent participation,” Robertson said.
Other training companies have noted a similar division among trainees.
JM&A is seeing two types of dealership clients, May says: “Some are reluctant to spend their cash. There’s a whole other segment of the marketplace that thinks this is the time to take a deep breath and re-skill their associates so that they’re ready to hit the ground running when we got on the other side of this thing.”
Paul McCarthy, senior vice president for agency and dealer sales at AUL Corp. in Napa, Calif., said when the pandemic forced states to close nonessential business operations and institute shelter-in-place orders, AUL saw sharp declines in F&I training requests. But interest rebounded after a few weeks.
“We are seeing an uptick in calls,” McCarthy says, particularly about outfitting dealerships with remote operations.
Forrest Heathcott, president of JM&A Group, said in a statement that the company acknowledges dealership employees in shuttered stores may have additional time on their hands as COVID-19 rages across the U.S.
“We therefore want to make our training more accessible than ever before, letting them use this time to sharpen their skills and techniques through our live, customized training experience, which they can participate in from anywhere,” he said.
For F&I training companies offering courses virtually, the classes driving the most traffic are those on how to leverage F&I technology and negotiating and closing car sales in virtual environments.
Dealerships nationwide employ people who have a wide range of technological savvy.
For digital leaders and those less experienced, May says creating an environment in which employees can learn and practice their skills will help dealerships survive prolonged shutdowns.
“A crisis always sharpens the mind and makes people focus on how to work their way out of it,” McCarthy said.
Dealership participation in digital F&I training has waned amid cost-cutting, but agents are sharpening their skills, preparing for stores to eventually reopen.
