How to Get Maximum Impact out of Your Consumer Financing Program
When homeowners are faced with buying a big-ticket item, they likely take a long moment to think about how it will fit into their budget. As a merchant, you can put them at ease by offering consumer financing with affordable monthly payments.
Get the most impact from your financing program this year, while simplifying the buying process for your customers, with these five tips:
1. Make the purchase more realistic with monthly payments.
Price is the top factor in most buying decisions, but if you can mitigate the cost for buyers, you put them in a more favorable position with their budget. Not many people can spend $10,000 all at once on a new roof. However, if you break it down into small monthly payments as part of your consumer financing program, the goal suddenly seems within reach.
2. Develop creative marketing programs around consumer financing.
Give your buyers incentives such as “0% interest” or “no payments for a year” to help you boost sales.
3. Advertise within your store.
It’s great to implement a new financing program, but it’s not going to work well if no one knows about it. Put posters in your window to catch the eye of passersby. Place prominent signage throughout your store and particularly near the registers to capture their interest. It’s also important to put banners on your website and even offer financing pre-approval online.
4. Make it easy to sign up.
It’s easy for customers and sales associates to get overwhelmed with long, drawn-out application processes. That’s why you should only ask for pertinent information to streamline the process. You can also use digital tools such as bar code scanners or point of sale credit card terminals to automate basic data entry.
5. Train your staff.
Well-trained sales staff can boost awareness and success of your consumer financing program. Make sure they are all fully trained on how to offer financing to a customer, how the program operates, and how to answer customers’ most common questions.
Get in touch with us to find out how you can best offer flexible, budget-friendly, monthly payment plans for your customers as part of a solid consumer financing program.
