The retail credit process: There has to be a better way
Kevin Lawrence
Seasoned sales and marketing executive with extensive experience connecting merchants, buyers, and lenders to boost sales, improve satisfaction, and optimize financing in B2C, B2B, and omni-channel markets.
One of the struggles retailers face is providing customers with access to easy, convenient credit options. Having store personnel involved in the process of entering customer applicant information can keep them from supporting other customers for 20 minutes or more. Further, the application process can result in a negative customer experience if the customer is declined. These reasons make some employees uncomfortable and unwilling to proactively offer credit.
Customers can be equally disillusioned with the process. Do I really want to fill out an application and hand my personal information over to someone I don’t know? Worse yet, do I want to hand that information over to my neighbor who happens to work there? Add to that the customers who are interested, but feel their credit is marginal and don’t want to take the chance that they will be declined.
There has to be a better way.
Retailers are excited by a self-service solution featuring a waterfall or cascade in which customers declined for credit by the prime lender elect to have their information passed down to a sub-prime and even a no-credit-required option. A self-service kiosk is a great solution to this problem.
Consumers are invited to interact with the kiosk display by rotating images and video. When the screen is not busy processing a credit application it can be programmed to announce promotions and sales. It can also be the repository for product information and videos. Special order inventory is accessible by the touch of a button. How-to videos and product spec sheets are displayed in brilliant high definition.
This results in a win-win-win. Employees are more productive and focused on selling. Customers are more inclined to apply for credit because they feel the kiosk is more secure and they are less concerned about the potential of being declined by a machine than a person. Retailers win in big way. Those deploying these solutions typically experience an increase of 20 percent in applications, a 40 percent increase in approvals and a 30 percent increase in credit sales.
There is a better way to process and provide customers with retail credit. And its already working in thousands of storefronts across North America.