All Ears Podcast | Better dealership practices for the ever-evolving compliance landscape.

Join Emma Hancock in an insightful conversation with Michele Holdosh, Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives at Ally Financial, as they delve into the vital role of compliance in dealership operations. Discover actionable strategies and the innovative Ally Total Dealership Compliance program designed to empower dealers in today’s dynamic automotive landscape.

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Emma Hancock: Hi everyone. Welcome back to the All Ears podcast. I’m Emma Hancock with Automotive News. This podcast is sponsored by Ally Financial and produced by the Automotive News content studio. In each episode, we explore topics that are important to leaders in automotive retailing. Our guests include experts in their field from Ally plus dealers from around the country to offer actionable solutions in our ever changing industry.

Today, we catch up with Michele Holdosh, Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives at Ally Financial. And our topic today is compliance. Compliance is part of dealers’ everyday lives and with fluctuations in the economy and the auto industry, having a direct impact on risk management. Compliance needs to be the backbone of every dealership.

Hi Michele. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Michele Holdosh: Hi. Thank you, Emma.

Hancock: Okay, Michele, having a strong compliance program is something dealers should adopt throughout the entire store and or group. What might help dealers uphold and really champion their compliance program and create a compliance culture?

Holdosh: Emma, this is such an important question. The most important thing before we even talk about the different components to consider is compliance just cannot be done part time. It has to really be full time, and everyone involved in helping drive that forward. What’s most important is the dealer is really dedicated to creating and upholding that culture.

If it’s not top down with no deviation, it really does struggle and has a hard time of staying ongoing over time. But when we think about creating a compliance culture in a dealership, some things we think are the most important as number one, that the dealer needs to be able to dedicate the monetary and human resources to it that it deserves.

So sometimes the focus is maybe just a little too narrow for what needs to be done. And then, every employee in the dealership, from the get ready folks to the head, the GM, needs to have compliance in their job description and in their annual review so that it is understood that this is how the dealership is going to operate moving forward.

Hancock: Yeah, that’s just what you’re saying about the investment level and just having a top down approach and it can’t be done part time. It just permeates throughout the entire store. And that leads me to my next question about a robust compliance program, which is, I think what you’re getting at. How might having a robust compliance program benefit the dealer?

I think I know where you’re going with this is it’s, you put that kind of investment in there and you see what happens.

Holdosh: Agreed. There’s some obvious ones that people talk about a lot, but still worth mentioning. Limiting the dealership’s reputational damage in the community and with their customers, they don’t want somebody to come in and buy a car one time. They want a customer for life. And this is a great way to establish that. And then finally, this I did not know before I really delved into compliance and dealership.

Statistically, it has been proven that it even lowers employees’ turnover. And that is something that all dealers want to do but having that culture and the employees feel like they are empowered to do the right thing has them staying at the dealerships for their careers.

Hancock: I know you speak with dealers quite a bit and you hear their feedback and I’m guessing, most of them want to have a robust sort of a compliance program, but they might be hesitant as to how to do it.

I know Ally recently rolled out Ally Total Dealership Compliance program. What can you tell us about it?

Holdosh: Yeah, this was really a labor of love for us Emma, because, to your point, out in the field, speaking to dealers, this is a recognized and voiced need for many dealers that we work with, and so we knew it was important and we wanted to make sure we put something together that was of value from the beginning.

So, the program itself is three different components. The first is an assessment to determine what the most immediate dealership compliance needs are. What you find is every dealership generally has some form of compliance that’s been installed at some point. So, you want to know, where do they stand on this journey? What’s been done, what needs to be addressed, and maybe even what’s some things that are out of date. So, we do that first. The second, we have aligned ourselves with a company called ADCO, which stands for the Association of Dealership Compliance Officers. It’s a sister company to AFIP.

So, they put together customized packages and pricing for dealers. It includes things like the initial review, what’s in place, what needs to be in place.

And then also employee training. They have a system where it can be assigned and then recorded and reports can be run. And then the newest part is they have a really great complaint management program, which dealers that do business with Ally will have access to. And then our third and last part of the program is an interesting one.

It may not be what people typically think of compliance, but we tapped our fixed operations professionals within Ally to put together a warranty consultation program so that they can go in and work with the dealer and perform an audit of OEM claims, warranty claims.

So that’s the program as a whole. When we looked at it, we think there’s really three main advantages. First, I love that it meets the dealer where they’re at. So, some dealers are further along.

It’s also not a one-time approach. When you get on this track, and you know this, Emma, the regulations are ever changing. So, this is ongoing, it’s not one time, and it will be updated as regulations change, the dealership employees change and really even the dealership if they have changes within.

So, it grows with the dealer. And then the third advantage is, as we talked about before, it does contain the sales and finance part of compliance, but it has those additional five areas as well. So, it’s a complete program touching every department throughout the dealership.

Hancock: You know, you’re talking about this compliance program, which essentially is training. And I think, everything you’re talking about really helps us understand how to create that culture because without the training, you’re not going to create those new habits.

None of this can be an afterthought. It does need to, like we said off the top, it does need to really be the backbone of the dealership. And the only way to do that is this ongoing training. It can’t be this afterthought. It really has to be at the forefront of how everybody conducts themselves.

Holdosh: That’s right. We like to say, and it is true, the first line of defense on compliance is those frontline employees that you’re talking about. So, everybody, from I know we just talked about get ready folks, to the F&I managers, to the sales folks, to the HR individuals. Everybody needs to understand and appreciate the importance of following those regulations.

Hancock: This whole new program that you’ve introduced the Total Dealership Compliance program. It just makes so much sense. And like you said, you’re out in the field, you’re hearing a lot of feedback from dealers and you’re understanding what it is that they need to make their lives easier.

This has been such a great conversation, Michelle. I want to thank you so much. You’ve given us a lot of great information and really current information. That is it for this episode of the All Ears podcast. I hope everyone found this helpful. I certainly did. On behalf of Ally Financial and the Automotive News Content Studio, thanks for listening and bye for now.

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