Why Service Departments are Turning to Text-to-Pay

The idea behind text-to-pay is simple: your customers would prefer to pay with a text message, so let them.

Convenience is king, and what better way to provide a convenient experience for your customers than allowing them to pay via a text message.

We launched text-to-pay in March of 2020 (if you recall…that probably wasn’t the best time to launch a new product but oh well). And immediately dealers loved it. A few dealers here and there started using it in their service departments. They’d ask the customer if they wanted to pay via text. And a few said yes. Then more said yes. Then more and more and more.

That first month the average dealer was doing about$4000/month through text to pay, mostly in their service department.

Now, 18 months later, the average dealer is doing$20,000/month through text to pay. That’s 5x growth in just 18 months. Some dealers say they’re now capturing 80% of their monthly service revenue through text-to-pay.

They haven’t removed their card terminals or anything, but they are doing most of their service transactions via text-to-pay. That’s how popular this gets.

Bottom line: your customers love it. And if you start providing this an option, they’ll take advantage of it and start paying you via text.

How Text-to-Pay Works

The idea is simple: get your customers to pay you with a text. They’ll love it (it’s more convenient). Your employees will love it(it’ll save them time). Your finance team will love it (you’ll get paid faster and with lower fees). And it’s more secure.

While you’re logged into Kenect and texting a customer, you can simply click on the ‘Payment’ button. You’ll then be asked to put in the details for the transaction (amount, invoice #, and a description of what the payment is for). Then you send the text.

The customer gets it. Puts in their payment information and…that’s it.

That’s it.

You get your money within 24 hours.

You’ll get paid faster. It’ll save you time. Your customers will LOVE IT.

Service Departments, Text-to-Pay and Convenience

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Why has it grown so fast. The answer is simple: it’s convenient.

Deloitte published a report recently that found consumers will pay MORE for something if it’s convenient. If pick-up or delivery is convenient, if payment method is convenient, they’ll pay more for it. To quote from the report:

“Consumers say they would prefer to shop online or on smartphones for home delivery. This behavior is transforming how payments can be made. Nearly 70% of consumers say they would pay MORE for a product if the buying process (and the payment process) was convenient.”

Service departments at dealerships like yours are uniquely positioned to provide this convenience. Imagine never having to stand at a counter as customers swipe cards again, or never having to send out email invoice, or (shudder) paper invoices.

Instead replace all that (or reduce all those drastically)by starting to use text-to-pay in your service department.

One dealer told us recently:

“My customers are addicted to text-to-pay. They love the convenience. And it saves my team time. We’re collecting payments faster than ever.”

Jump on the bandwagon and get a demo of Kenect Text-to-Pay today!

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