The global pandemic has changed life as we know it, for better and for worse depending on the change. You're likely seeing both positive and negative effects occur simultaneously at your Buy Here Pay Here, Franchise or Powersports dealership or Finance Company.
The pandemic led to an increase in used-car sales, as people reduced public transit consumption. Stimulus payments and tax refunds have contributed to the used-car buying boom. On the flip side, many states instituted moratoriums on repossessions. In 2020 alone, 22 million U.S. jobs were lost due to the pandemic, causing many people to fall behind on their car loans.
How is a dealership or finance company supposed to handle this macro-economic yo-yo? The answer might surprise you: vehicle asset-management systems. That’s right. Vehicle GPS tracking devices and the systems that go hand in hand with those devices can help you weather the ups and downs, especially when you and your business are pulled in opposite directions. Here are 7 reasons why you need a vehicle-tracking system.
Your vehicles are more than assets; they represent your future business success. You need to know where each and every vehicle or mobile asset is in case you need to recover one. With a GPS vehicle-tracking system, you can spend less time and money tracking it down.
With PassTime GPS vehicle solutions, customers improved vehicle recoveries by 24% and reduced the time it takes to recover a vehicle by 6.4 fewer average days. What’s more, our vehicle-tracking systems helped customers recover 20% more in actual dollars as a percentage of the remaining principal.
Moratoriums may have or continue to prevent you from recovering assets. But that doesn’t mean you should stop tracking your vehicle assets. Leveraging a car dealer management system with vehicle tracking enables you to know where your assets are, even if you can’t recover them. When the moratorium is lifted, you’ll be ready to swiftly and efficiently recover those vehicles.
PassTime’s OASIS online mobile app powers dozens of reports. For example, you can pull a vehicle’s current GPS location and its history to more accurately determine where it will be next. You can also use a remote starter-interrupt device to encourage that delinquent customer to contact your collections team and work out new repayment terms.
Clear, transparent and timely communication with your customers is key to building a mutually beneficial relationship. Payment reminders from your vehicle-management system are a simple and effective solution to help you maintain a positive cash flow. Starter-interrupt functions and vehicle-disable functions are other powerful tools to help you encourage customers to contact you about their overdue payment.
PassTime’s award-winning Elite solution, for example, provides your customers with automated payment reminders and allows you to remotely disable a vehicle if you need to. We’ve seen vehicle-tracking systems reduce delinquent payments, result in fewer loan defaults and improve consumer responsiveness.
If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s flexibility. You need to be able to pivot and change course as needed. Car dealer asset-management systems give you that flexibility. You can work with a consumer to retool their payment plan with bridge or extension payments. You can focus on the consumers who need the most service.
PassTime’s proactive text/email alerts encourage your customers to contact you. As a result, less than 10 percent of customers require personal interaction from a collector, which means they can take on more loans without sacrificing customer service for the other 90 percent.
Maybe you think tough times call for a tightened belt. Maybe you see a vehicle-management system as a nice-to-have and not a need-to-have. The reality is, you can’t afford not to have a GPS vehicle-tracking system in place. When you add up all the lost time and money from delayed repossessions and defaulted loans and compare that to the cost of a GPS vehicle-tracking system, you’ll see there’s no comparison. The GPS vehicle tracking system wins every time.
Encore, PassTime’s wire-free, battery-powered GPS device, is our most affordable, sleek and easy-to-install vehicle-tracking solution. It fits in the palm of your hand and can be discreetly installed any number of places in under one minute. Yes, you read that correctly. Under a minute. And with our simple activation process and flexible power modes, you’ll have the flexibility and reliability to track vehicles for the long haul and to ramp up for recovery mode when needed.
When you collect more payments at a lower cost, your loans perform better for longer. You have lower loss rates. You can service more accounts with a smaller collections staff. You can price your inventory more competitively to sell more vehicles. All of which increase your portfolio value.
PassTime’s GPS vehicle-tracking solutions and accompanying apps help you improve operations and make more informed decisions. Our proprietary systems empower you to create dozens of reports that give you insights on what actions to take next so you can be more efficient and more profitable.
Reason #7: A partner in problem-solving
GPS solutions solve some of your biggest business challenges. But the company providing those GPS solutions shouldn’t just be a vendor. Your vehicle GPS solutions provider should be your partner. They should help you innovate. They should help you increase your efficiency. They should help you improve your portfolio value.
And that’s just what PassTime does. We’re a leader in GPS innovation and compliance. We’ll help you establish best practices. We’ll connect you with our nationwide network of certified installers. We’ll help you not only track your assets, but also modify consumer behavior for the better. And with 24/7 support, we’ll help you and your business succeed, no matter the twists or turns that appear.
Want to mitigate economic uncertainty at your dealership or finance company? Contact us.