{"id":5678,"date":"2025-03-12T13:30:38","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T18:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/?p=5678"},"modified":"2025-03-12T13:30:39","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T18:30:39","slug":"dealers-talk-about-how-to-keep-good-paying-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/dealers-talk-about-how-to-keep-good-paying-customers\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealers talk about how to keep good-paying customers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From the March issue of UCD<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the buy-here pay-here space, getting a customer to make payments on time and reach the end of the life of a loan is something to be celebrated by the dealer and the consumer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many dealers reward these good-paying customers by offering special incentives on their next purchases as their loan approaches term. It allows the customer to upgrade vehicles, and the dealer to continue working with someone with a solid pay history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we have a good customer, I want to keep their business because I already know that customer,\u201d said AJ Rogers of Pappy\u2019s Auto Sales in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. \u201cRight now, I have four to five people that want to upgrade with their tax money\u2026 For me, it\u2019s selling an opportunity to grow into a nicer car. It\u2019s a relationship. You treat me well and I want to help you get into another car.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rogers offers an opportunity to upgrade with a matching down payment of $1,000 if a customer has paid six months with no late fees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The topic of working with customers with a low balance and the incentives to keep them in the portfolio was discussed at the end of the BHPH 20 Group meeting in Galveston, Texas, in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dealers at the meeting took different approaches on when to contact their customers and the types of incentives they offered to keep customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kevin Pendergrass of Carolina Auto Sales in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, starts contacting customers when they hit $1,800 left on their loans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf they are 100 percent on time, they can roll into a new loan with no money down,\u201d Pendergrass said. \u201cIf it\u2019s their third down we offer a loan rate with a significant cut.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pendergrass said they will even work with customers who regularly pay a few days late, but always make their payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf they are always a consistent payer, we want them back, even if they are 14 to 18 days late. We know what to do to collect and how to work with them,\u201d Pendergrass said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nathan Smith of Parker Auto Sales in Knoxville, Tennessee, said they start working customers at $3,000, and allow for some added flexibility. He\u2019ll offer down payments of $500 or less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur sales manager pulls a report each week and starts calling them as a new lead,\u201d Smith said. \u201cYour balance is low and we\u2019d like to try to put you in a new car. We try to make a deal work. At that point, we know it\u2019s a customer we want to keep, so we\u2019re going to do what we have to do to make that payment work and get that trade done in a way where we don\u2019t increase their payment so they can\u2019t afford it. But we want to sell a new car to get that balance back up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seth Merrifield of McCall\u2019s Auto Sales in Brewton, Alabama, offers a rate drop of 6 percent points for repeat customers with a good payment history that\u2019s made it to a balance of $2,000 or less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Shantok Motors in Uncasville, Connecticut, Melissa and Nathaniel Dailey offer customers the opportunity to trade at $2,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe offer $500 toward the down payment,\u201d Melissa Dailey said. \u201cWe give them a trade credit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the March issue of UCD In the buy-here pay-here space, getting a customer to make payments on…\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5679,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_appearance_grid":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[44,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-best-practices","8":"category-industry","9":"cs-entry","10":"cs-video-wrap"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}