Sonic Picks Exclusive Menu-Selling System Provider

Sonic Automotive dealership chain, which has had irregularities at some of its dealerships' finance and insurance departments, picked MenuVantage to be its exclusive software provider for “menu selling” F&I products and services.

MenuVantage is customizable, web-based and integrates with major dealer-management systems for menu selling, a customer-friendly method of F&I presentation that promotes simplicity and full disclosure of prices and financing terms.

Some of Sonic's 151 stores — notably in California, North Carolina and Florida — have attracted the attention of the media and investigators for alleged F&I improprieties.

Sonic corporately has taken strong reform measures to prevent repeat incidents.

In its search for a web-based menu-selling system, Sonic conducted extensive due diligence for almost a year before concluding “MenuVantage was the best fit for Sonic's F&I practices, says Richard O'Connor, Sonic's F&I vice president.

“Most importantly, we chose MenuVantage as it showed the unique ability to provide our dealerships with compliance and best practices in all areas of F&I, as well as increased profitability," he says.

The system offers advanced technology, including electronic submission of warranty and F&I products to providers and real-time service contract rating for over 50 providers.

Integrating with the DMS eliminates any need for double entry. A web-based system eliminates the need to back up information on the company server.

MenuVantage processes more than 67,000 deals per month for 2,300 users at automotive dealerships nationwide. The firm claims the system produces an F&I sales average of $903 per vehicle compared with $633 per unit without the system.

Menus are generated based on deal parameters entered by an F&I manager at the time of sale. These parameters are used to build a menu from templates to provide the best possible package for each dealership customer.

The F&I manager then has the opportunity to fine-tune the parameters for pricing and terms to provide a customized solution, ensuring that customers are offered all products and get all required disclosures.