It all came down to a dent.

The customer thought the protection policy he bought at Rallye Motors, in Roslyn, N.Y., covered it. It didn't. The customer would have known that if he had used the Your Dealer Experience app supplied to him free by the dealership.

The cloud-based service — part of Your Dealer Experience's private product and branding service for dealerships — outlines all warranties and protection products a customer purchased and details why a provider would reject a claim.

"It's always a question of what the customer remembers or doesn't remember," Eric Weiner, one of four business managers at Rallye Motors, told Automotive News. "The customer had dent-and-ding protection, but he didn't understand, even though we were very clear when he bought it, that the protection is for parking lot-type mishaps, door dings, acorns falling on the hood." The customer had a different problem, Weiner said. At the rear of his vehicle is a tire carrier that has a stainless steel belt around it. "The dent was on the belt," Weiner said. "This customer thought dent-and-ding should cover that. It doesn't. It's a trim item. Trim items aren't covered."

Although the customer didn't use the app, those who do have such answers readily available. Once customers register, they can access their information and send service requests to the dealership from their phone or other device. By the time customers arrive for service, the approvals are complete and service begins.

And misunderstandings, such as the one Weiner and Your Dealer Experience partnered to resolve for the dent customer, become increasingly rare.

Success "is when I have customers who have used the [app] once and come back and want to use it again," Weiner said, adding: "That means [it's] doing what it is supposed to do."

And because customers think of the private-lable F&I products as coming from Rallye itself, they are quicker to return to the dealership for service, parts and sales.

F&I product sales have risen about 14 percent since Rallye adopted Your Dealer Experience.

Customers 'receptive'

The math underscores Rallye's success.

F&I product sales have risen about 14 percent on average since Rallye adopted Your Dealer Experience about three years ago, Weiner said. A vital component of the service is that it uses customers' vehicle identification numbers to detail for them the date and type of expected services and even the lifespan of their vehicles.

"The customers are very receptive. It makes them more comfortable," Weiner said. "I try to structure the [F&I] conversation about what products will work for them, what they actually need. I pitch them everything and tell them when I don't think they need something. If they want to buy it, I'll certainly sell it to them, but I do stress I don't think it's a good spend. I find that helps me sell the products and services that are a good fit for them."

That type of streamlined conversation about the private-label offerings is one of the critical values made possible by the 2014 launch of Your Dealer Experience, said company President Steven Apicella.

"Every dealer wants to sell and retain more," said Apicella in an email to Automotive News. "Until now the F&I office has focused on primarily selling features and benefits. Your Dealer Experience strengthens the core dealer-customer relationship and improves revenue and retention through an unprecedented dealer-branded experience, even when multiple third-party administrators exist behind the scenes. ... The dealer can still choose to keep their existing F&I office product providers or enhance it without ever giving away their customer relationship to a disconnected support process."

'Seamless' experience

Your Dealer Experience's user-friendly pages include features such as visuals that enable the customer to identify the exact point of damage or trouble on the car without describing the location in words.

The service is subscription-based and generally paid for by a dealership's F&I product vendors. Rates range from $1 to $5 per vendor contract sold, depending on volume. If a vendor declines to participate, dealerships can switch to a participating vendor or opt to pay the fees for Your Dealer Experience themselves.

"It just makes the customer's experience seamless," said Jeffrey Friedberg, general manager of Rallye Motors. "If they have any problem — and in New York, we have a lot of problems due to potholes — they go on the app, and before they get to us, we have the information and the approvals, so they get the work done. It keeps us in the forefront of technology."