Auto Business Outlook: Specials Magazine

A customer’s journey from being a showroom visitor to a vehicle owner hinges primarily on their experience across different stages of the sales funnel. One way automotive dealers can reinforce positive customer experiences is by preemptively obtaining their credit and identity credentials in a secure and compliant manner to assess their creditworthiness early on. This translates into accelerated loan approvals, enhanced transaction efficiency, and improved sales closures. Identifying this, 700Credit, a leader in the credit service industry, strategically brings pivotal customer insights, including consumers’ credit scores and identity verification to automotive dealerships in the early stages of the sales process. Its solutions provide dealers access to customer information necessary to make the right funding decisions before initiating transactions, while closely monitoring compliance. 700Credit is the largest provider of credit reports, compliance solutions, soft pull products and identity verification & fraud detection solutions to automotive, RV, marine, and power sports dealers. Its growth is anchored in industry partnerships, with integrations extending to over 200 providers in the automotive space. “We integrate seamlessly into dealer native systems, expediting sales and compliance processes for smoother, quicker, and more effective operations,” says Ken Hill, managing director of 700Credit. Defying the Odds with Innovative Solutions With two decades of deep industry knowledge, 700Credit foresaw the shift toward prequalification—the ability to foretell an individual’s creditworthiness—in the industry and proactively offered innovative solutions to support this growing trend. One such innovation is the integration of the soft pull prequalification feature into dealership website and sales processes. Whether seamlessly incorporated into a dealership’s digital retailing solution or featured as a standalone prequalification application on the website, the integration allows potential car buyers to check their creditworthiness by providing basic demographic information, without impacting their credit score. The prequalification feature on the dealer’s website provides precise payment estimates at the beginning of the sales journey, attracting consumers browsing the site to make purchase decisions faster. Meanwhile the dealership gains valuable insights into the consumer’s credit score and existing loan balances even before the initial conversation, empowering them to make effective offers earlier in the sales process. In a notable instance, a dealership group with over 200 stores adopted 700Credit’s prequalification platform. The client reported a threefold increase in the call center’s size to handle the volume of leads generated through the websites post the platform’s implementation. Amid increased number of leads, dealers face a rising threat of fraud from customers as well as due to non-adherence to compliance. This requires them to take measures to prevent consumer-initiated fraud, such as identity forgery, while simultaneously adhering to the Federal Trade Commission’s guidelines for consumer protection. 700Credit’s QuickScan solution covers the blind spots in the digital retail processes for both consumers and dealerships. It allows clients to electronically capture their documents, store them in a secure environment, and run them through powerful likeness detection, identity verification, and synthetic ID fraud tools. This dual-purpose approach tackles fraud at the inception of the sales process while ensuring compliance with FTC regulations. Understanding the solution’s benefits, a dealership group planned to implement 700Credit’s driver’s license verification tools across their 60 stores over 3 to 4 months. The platform’s efficacy became evident on the first day of implementation in the initial store, where an attempt of fraud was successfully identified and prevented. The immediate impact led the group to accelerate the rollout plan, which 700Credit achieved within a week. Apart from these solutions, the company provides a diverse range of products including income & employment verification and compliance consulting, to simplify the journey.

The automotive industry needs more than just a quick tune-up to stay ahead in the digital race—they need an expert who knows how to transform online obscurity into digital dominance. That PPC Guy is that expert, successfully enhancing the visibility for dealerships, independent shops, and auto parts stores. Led by owner Justin Golden, That PPC Guy builds on his background as a successful automotive business owner and a corporate marketer with more than 15 years of experience. The dual perspective enables the company to garner valuable insights into the challenges automotive businesses face and offer tailored strategies that truly resonate with them. Golden’s passion for driving results ensures that clients gain visibility and achieve lasting success in the digital space. Whether optimizing budgets or maximizing ROI, he has the tools and strategies to help businesses excel