Employment and income verification are critical components in the automobile sales process. The ability to independently verify a customer’s income and employment information gives your dealership a number of benefits. First, having accurate data enables you to put together the best deal. Second, it streamlines your process and helps prevent funding delays, resulting in quicker contracts in transit (CIT) times. Third, but less often considered, it can prevent awkward conversations with your customers.
One solution is employment and income verification services. Before I get into the details of how it works, let me begin by giving you some numbers. These all come from a study Equifax conducted on customers applying for credit to buy a vehicle:
• Approximately 27% of applicants overstate their income by more than 15%. Customers overstating their income by a little is potentially not that big of an issue. This certainly could affect the terms of the deal, but not necessarily. How about the inverse?
• Approximately 20% of applicants understate income by 10% or more. Customers understating their income by a little could affect payment, which in turn could land them on a vehicle they are less excited about.
• Approximately 15% of applicants overstate income by 50% or more.
Clearly, that is significant. There’s a good chance that could unwind a deal after work has been put in. It could mean an unhappy customer and/or salesperson. Submitting with inaccurate income or job information could potentially damage your relationship with the lender.
That’s where employment and income verification services come in. You can’t be sure you’re offering the right deal to a customer when you don’t have accurate employment and income data. An employment and income verification services provider offers invaluable data and reduces your dealership’s risk.
We tested this service with 100 auto dealers running the gamut from small independent lots to large franchise stores, and results were overwhelmingly positive. Dealers reported that employment and income verification services had several benefits and no downside.
First, it is easy-to-use, quick and seamless. Employment and income verification data is available at the click of a button and fits easily into the sales process. The data is concise and clearly laid out for the salesperson. Equifax’s blog featured a great post about the value of data in a consumer-centered approach, which works to the benefit of you and your customer.
Second, the service instantly verifies employment and income information without difficult conversations. About 30% of the time, you will instantly have everything you need to submit. No painful income interviews or back-and-forth trying to pin down exact income with overtime, bonuses, etc. that take the focus off the exciting elements of car buying. The service enables you to skip this process entirely with a good chunk of your customers and keep the focus off money questions that make some customers uncomfortable.
Last, employment and income verification services lead to more and better deals. Simply put, whether you use it up front with every customer or just as a backup for customers who don’t have paystub information or a W-2, this service makes it easier to get the right deal. Not only does it reduce renegotiations and strengthen lender relationships, it increases efficiency and decreases your risk, and I think all dealers could agree, there’s no downside to that.
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