How We Simplified Car Sales with the Single Signing Ceremony

In our ongoing commitment to "build in public," we bring you another recent capability within our product suite: Single Signing Ceremony.  Our customers in the Sales Department now have the ability to close a deal by signing all documents in one place. 

Aimed at streamlining the sales process for Lightyear customers, the Single Signing Ceremony tool marks a pivotal development in our suite of solutions, cutting the time and number of systems it typically takes to close a car deal. Here’s how we did it:  

What We Heard 

Complaint 1 – It takes too many systems to close a deal ! 

Sales departments often need to navigate several systems to complete a car deal. For example, a dealer might use RouteOne for financing workflows, a separate menu system for presenting options to customers, and Lightyear DMS for managing dealership operations. The big problem with this fragmentation is the amount of time it takes to constantly switch between systems, and worse, make the customer buying the car do so.  

Complaint 2 – Why are there so many different places to sign?! 

Customers are frequently required to sign multiple documents across multiple systems, which can lead to a frustrating “why is this taking so long” experience. Even more annoying, each signature process often involves a mix of digital and physical forms, which can be confusing and time-consuming. Customers are left wondering, "How many more places are they going to make me sign before this is done?" This scattered signing process not only prolongs the transaction, but also detracts from the overall customer experience. While some of it is necessary and unavoidable due to things like wet signature requirements or copyrighted forms, customers can’t help but think there could be a better way. 

Complaint 3 – We’re too dependent on paper!  

The reliance on paper forms and documents remains a significant pain point for many dealers. Dealerships often print numerous forms from different systems, requiring physical signatures from customers. These documents then need to be scanned and manually uploaded into a digital archive, if one exists. This manual process is not only time-consuming but also prone to errors, such as misplaced or incorrectly scanned documents. The excessive use of paper also raises concerns about environmental impact and storage space. 

Complaint 4 – All the manual uploading! 

Employees must frequently upload and download documents between various systems, adding tedious steps to the process. For instance, after generating forms in RouteOne, these documents need to be printed, signed, and then uploaded elsewhere for archiving or to consolidate a deal jacket. This manual handling of documents increases the risk of errors, such as missing or incorrectly filed documents, and consumes valuable time that could be better spent on customer service or other critical tasks. 

Complaint 5 – It’s clunky when people aren’t here to sign! 

More and more deals are being done remotely. It’s also not uncommon to only have one of the customers that need to sign present and to need a signature from a spouse or other co-signer. In these cases, sometimes a deal is delayed and other times it requires a very clunky process to get documents to the people that need to sign. It’s time consuming and delays the deal.  

What We Built 

Customers that find their next vehicle want to get out the door and on with their lives. The Single Signing Ceremony was conceived to simplify the signing process, allowing dealers and customers to handle everything it takes to get their deal closed in one seamless workflow. Signatures for all documents can happen in our F&I Menu and be automatically archived through our Document Management solution.  

By using DealerBuilt’s Enterprise Retail Cloud (Lightyear DMS) and enabling our F&I Menu solution, customers can enjoy the benefits of getting a digital deal jacket in one place and having all customer signatures happen in one place. If a customer uses RouteOne, our solution is even better as the integration between RouteOne and our F&I Menu product reduces the number of steps in the eContracting workflows with RouteOne. All documents end up in F&I Menu and can be digitally signed there. 

Even better, when customers have our Document Management solution, they can have all documents automatically archived. This saves a ton of time and effort to get documents properly archived, ensures safe handling of sensitive customer information, and makes it easy to access this information when it’s needed later. 

Here's how we addressed our customer asks: 

Final Thoughts 

At DealerBuilt, we listen to our customers and constantly enhance our products to meet their needs. We zeroed in on the Single Signing Ceremony because it's a small but crucial pain point that can slow down dealerships and frustrate customers. This innovation showcases our commitment to making car sales smoother and more enjoyable for everyone involved. As we continue to refine our offerings, we’re dedicated to building software that the highest-performing dealers in the country rely on to manage their teams, take control of their data, and run their businesses exactly the way they want.  

If you’d like to learn more, send me a message or feel free to visit us at dealerbuilt.com.