A harmonious, integrated front office is invaluable in today’s fast-paced dealership environment. Bringing together all your front office components – F&I, desking, CRM and DMS – allows more time for selling more cars and building happier, more fruitful customer relationships.

Not having an integrated front office can cause lots of headaches. With payment options, deal types and rebate scenarios becoming increasingly more complex, errors and chargebacks can be a hassle for you and your customers. When you’re working with a customer, having fewer entry “screens” and checklists would speed up the process and make the transaction more transparent. Inputting the same information multiple times is a headache for both you and the buyer. Having the ability to input and update once – across multiple platforms – would not only save time but also reduce duplicate information and maintain data integrity. The same applies to your inventory and long-term customer relationships.

Integrations can help with turnaround times for trade-ins by making them available for accounting and service. They can also protect profit margins by showing the reconditioning for the trade-in while selling to the next customer who may want to purchase that vehicle. Posting deals is easier, faster and more accurate with an integrated front office. A standardized posting ensures less mistakes and consistent recording of grosses, commissions and lien payouts. Having customer information updated from your DMS gives you easy access to the most up-to-date information – not only improving the customer relationship but also maintaining CASL requirements.

When all of the elements come together, you can spend more time getting your customers into the perfect vehicle with the perfect payment for them. If you’d like to learn more about putting the pieces together, visit www2.cdkglobal.com/ca/one-eighty-nada .

Timothy (TJ) Morrow has been an associate of CDK on a variety of teams for 16 years. TJ came to CDK after being a client for 8 years and after having completed a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, and a bachelor’s degree in Business Operations. Outside the office, TJ is married to his wife Robin and you will often find them on the golf course. If they are not there, they will be snow skiing, kayaking, boating, or enjoying one of the many wineries in their area.