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Doing It Right-Compliance in Dealerships: Preventive Medicine
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Article: Doing It Right-Compliance in Dealerships: Preventive Medicine
Article Date: Friday, September 9, 2011
Author: Compli
Article Source: Dealer Digest Daily
September 9th, 2011
Doing it Right
HOW-TO'S BY INDUSTRY EXPERTS
Compliance in Dealerships: Preventive Medicine
The auto industry is highly regulated and is likely to become increasingly so in the years to come. Your core mission may still be to sell, service and finance vehicles, but you risk failing at that mission if you don’t focus on the details of compliance.
Compliance can no longer be viewed by your employees as an obstacle to doing their jobs, because in well-run dealerships it’s now an integral part of every job.
Where to start?
• The most important thing you can do is create a culture of compliance. Make it as important as selling and servicing vehicles, and set the tone from the top to the bottom of the organization. Employees at every level need to understand that compliance is a top priority.
• Establish compliance priorities based on exposure to risk. One way to do this is to go online and do some basic research on hot “dealer fraud” topics in your state. There are dealer fraud and lemon law attorneys in every state, and typically they advertise by listing the kinds of practices dealers are getting sued for.
• Take a close look at the forms you’re using, the disclosures you’re making and the contracts you sign with customers. All standard charges should be questioned. Look through the deal jackets. What is being printed out, and what’s not? Why don’t you have a charge here? Are you using old forms? Do your employees understand why a particular form is used? Based on what you find, create clear compliance policies for your employees.
Bottom line: set the policy, train employees to follow it, audit for compliance and enforce the policy. Remember, enforcement can’t be outsourced, if you have a policy but don’t enforce it, a plaintiff’s attorney can actually use that against you by claiming you knew about a problem but ignored it.
To information above is an excerpt from Compli’s “Class Action Lawsuits-Proactive and Reactive Measures” Webinar presented by Rob Cohen, Esq. of AAS and Aaron Jacoby, Esq. of Arent Fox, LLP. Watch for FREE, CLICK HERE.
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