Inside Automotive with Jim Fitzpatrick, powered by CBT News

Younger buyers are losing trust in F&I—here’s how dealers can earn it again

• Jim Fitzpatrick • Season 1 • Episode 21

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We break down the 2025 F&I Shopper Study with CDK’s Jason Swiech and unpack why satisfaction slipped, where trust is strained, and what practical changes restore momentum at the end of the deal. We share clear steps to pull F&I forward, reduce overwhelm, balance digital with paper, and modernize staffing without losing expertise.

• headline findings from the 2025 F&I Shopper Study
• reasons F&I satisfaction declined year over year
• process fixes that reduce wait time and friction
• transparency and personalization to rebuild trust
• strategies to prevent buyer overwhelm
• balancing digital workflows with paper preferences
• single point of contact models with F&I expertise
• how lender negotiation, compliance, and menus fit together


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Announcer:

You're watching Inside Automotive with Jim Fitzpatrick.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Hey everyone, welcome into another edition of Inside Automotive right here at the CBT Automotive Network. The 2025 F&I Shopper Study examines how car buyers experience the F&I process during vehicle purchases. CDK surveyed over 1,200 car buyers to uncover insights on satisfaction, trust, product engagement, generational differences, and the use of digital tools. Joining us now is Jason Swiech, who is the F&I product marketing manager for CDK, to uh break down what the study uncovered. Jason, thank you so much for joining us on the show.

Jason Swiech:

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Sure. So the study found that F&I satisfaction dropped pretty significant, I guess about 5% since 2023. What do you believe is is driving the decline? And how should dealerships respond to reverse the trend?

Jason Swiech:

Yeah, so when we originally did it, it was pretty high. But like you said, it has dropped. And we we see a lot of outside influences on that, like interest rates, equity in cars. Uh, but there's a lot of things that dealerships can do to help that as well. And I think it all points to processes. If dealerships can start to move more and more of their processes that you normally see in F&I, Ford in the car dealership buying experience, uh, we think that helps with the overall experience, not only from a wait time perspective, because we see a lot of dealerships have a long wait time to get uh customers into the F&I office, but also a transparency and kind of relevance aspect for the customers themselves. So moving those processes, looking at those and bringing them outside the F&I office to really educate that customer along the way really helps for this satisfaction level.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Sure, that makes sense. The study also showed that F&I managers um is uh the trust in F&I managers, I should say, is falling, especially among younger generations. How can dealerships rebuild the trust and foster loyalty across all age groups?

Jason Swiech:

Yeah, well, when we when we looked at trust, it actually surprised us back in 2023 how much trust the F&I manager actually garners. And even though it has fallen a little bit, it is still probably the the strongest point of trust in the front end of a dealership is the F&I manager overall. So it's still a very strong thing. But it goes back to my previous answer around transparency and relevance. Uh, we find that if F&I managers have a transparent workflow in front of the consumer, uh, if they have relevance to what the consumer wants and they're not just presenting products like they do with every customer and they personalize it more for that customer, it builds that trust with the customer overall. And the customer doesn't feel like, you know, the F&I manager there is only there to uh upsell them, right? So that's really what we try and focus our F&I managers and our dealers that we work with on is you know, look at your process and and can you make it more relevant, more personalized for your customer?

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Sure, sure. And it's so it's vitally important that that consumer trusts that F&I manager in order for that F&I manager to be effective, right? With uh not not just the products that they sell, but also building that relationship as that kind of that last step that consumers have with the dealership before they take delivery of the vehicle, right?

Jason Swiech:

Yeah, 100%. I mean, if you don't build that that trust, A, you're not gonna upsell products very well.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Right.

Jason Swiech:

And B, it it diminishes that consumer's thought of the entire dealership process because you are the last one that they work with.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Yeah. Yeah. And you're also perceived, I think, as the official of this of the dealership, um, rather than just the salesperson, that they might have, they might they might not have as much uh uh respect for, for the lack of a better term, they have respect. But uh they I think they see F&I managers as you know the the one of the official managers of the dealership uh before they before they leave the facility, right?

Jason Swiech:

Agree a hundred percent with that because I mean if you think of what an F&I manager does, is they're getting you the deal bought. And so that's what the customer is experiencing from them. So they they see them as an official, uh, but they also see them as a helping hand. And I think that's what builds that trust as well.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Yeah, for sure. And they also know that you've seen all of their financials. They, you know, they know that you've run credit bureaus on them and you know what their their uh personal financial wealth uh is all about and uh their income and and everything else. And and so there's a there's that immediate, kind of that immediate bond, almost like you'd have with a a mortgage broker that you've been working with on the purchase of your home, right?

Jason Swiech:

I I yeah, it absolutely is. I mean, if you think about the workflows today, how many times is a customer, even myself, when I'm talking to a salesperson, guarded with all that information. But as soon as they get into that F&I experience, it almost like opens up. And that's what we want to have happen is it continue continues to be open instead of where you're jumping into something that's not relevant to them and it closes that door again because you're looked at as just another sales. So yeah, I agree with you on that, is that F&I has that special kind of bond with the customer that they need to, you know, make bigger.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Sure. Are can are consumers still feeling overwhelmed um during the F and I process, especially among younger generations, right? I mean, that seems to be uh an issue. Uh what strategies can dealerships use to rebuild trust and foster loyalty, loyalty among all age groups?

Jason Swiech:

Yeah, I think consumers are always gonna feel overwhelmed with these large type of purchases. Uh, but what dealerships can do is they can make it easier for the customer. Um, and when I say easier, I'm not saying that you're doing everything online, right? We want to be flexible with the customer on how they want to operate, but it's more about giving that customer an experience where they're in interactive with the dealership, that they are part of the process. And I think that's where you know some dealerships might fall by the wayside is you know, the customer comes in, asks for a price, and it's all done kind of behind the scenes.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Yeah.

Jason Swiech:

Whereas if you bring that more to the customer, and I'm not saying everything, but if you bring more of that experience to the customer and bring them along with it, it kind of opens them up to have a better experience, feel like they're a part of it. And then from an F&I perspective, it opens that up too. If I've educated that customer on products that we normally just sell in F&I, I don't have to worry that when they get in the F&I office, it's going to be a blind side to them of an upsell opportunity. They'll know about those products more. So it's all about bringing those things forward and having that conversation, but also being interactive with your consumers.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Yeah, for sure. Digital tools are increasingly uh a part of the F&I experience, yet many buyers still prefer paper documentation, um, which might maybe it's old school. Uh maybe those are the baby boomers. But uh how can dealerships balance digital innovation with consumer preferences for physical copies of their documents?

Jason Swiech:

Yeah, look, I will say this right now, and even from my position over at CDK, we know digital is the way to go. Uh we know dealers want to be paperless, and that's that's probably the best process to go when it gets into signing of a deal and working with the customer to sell the car. But what we're learning is that dealerships need to still be flexible with customers. Uh, from the stat that we learned, was 79% of them, the customers that we surveyed, still wanted paper to have in their hand when they walked out of that dealership. So we still did those digital processes from a signing experience and from an accounting office experience. But the consumer wanted that good feeling in their hand. And we want our dealers to be flexible and be able to be flexible with the solutions they use to give that experience to the consumer. So we're definitely not saying don't go digital, but what we are saying is be flexible to how your customers want to interact with you and how they want to walk out of your dealership.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Sure, sure. There's a growing openness to alternative sales paths, particularly among uh Gen Z and millennials. What does this mean for the future of the traditional F&I manager role and how should dealerships evolve their staffing models?

Jason Swiech:

I think that a lot of dealerships are evaluating what the F&I manager role plays these days and how important a single point of contact is. And while I'll tell you that I think that the F&I manager is still a very complex role and an important role, I think that it's very valuable for dealerships to evaluate all of their processes and a single point might be the way to go. That being said, I also think dealerships really need to take into account just how complex and what an F&I manager does. Because as we talked about earlier, they're there to get the deal bought, they're there to negotiate with lenders, they're there from a compliance standpoint, they're there from a revenue upsell standpoint for the dealership. So there's a lot more than just signing the paperwork that goes on in an F&I office. And a lot of the most successful dealerships that we've seen put a single point of contact in place actually still have that person behind the curtain, so to say, yeah that is helping that single point of contact with how to present, what to present, when to talk about certain things. So to a consumer, it's a single point of contact process. Right. But in internally it might not be. So we think it's great that dealers are looking at these and should look at all different workflows and processes, but just be aware of just how much F&I truly does.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Yeah. Oh, there's no question about it. Yeah, they're there for sure. Jason Swiech, F&I product marketing manager at CDK. Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. I know that our viewers will get a lot out of your visit. Love to do a follow-up with you to see how things are moving along on this issue.

Jason Swiech:

Thank you so much for having me.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Thanks.