Lori Church, director of corporate compliance and training for John Elway Dealerships in Denver, Colo., keeps sales and F&I staff on their toes with open-book style compliance tests. The quizzes offer opportunities for one-on-one training, and they also help identify potential problem areas in the stores.
The compliance quizzes — one is designed for sales employees, and another for those working in the F&I office — allow Church to gauge compliance knowledge at her stores and stay on top of trends.
"My philosophy is that life is an open-book test," Church said. "It's not about knowing all the answers — it's about knowing where to get all the answers."
The questions don't have to be complicated. Previous quizzes have asked:
- What types of activities could be considered bank fraud?
- What is the Red Flags Rule and what does it hope to prevent?
- Is changing income or the duration of employment on credit applications acceptable?
"Little things like that that makes them think, 'Oh yeah. I can't do that,' " Church said.
Each exam is made up of about 25 questions that are multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank. Church downloads it as a PDF and sends it to dealership employees. She's administered three tests so far in the past few years.
Despite frequently providing extensions on the time employees have to complete the exam and allowing them to Google the answers — or even ask her the answers — Church says employees still get some questions wrong.
And sometimes they get them wrong, or right, together.
"I have one finance department [where they] get in one office together and discuss everything and turn in their quizzes en masse. And it's great. It helps them think," Church said.
That also presents an interesting social experiment. Church said she's always amused to discover that employees sometimes change correct answers to the wrong ones based on the persuasiveness of their co-workers, "which also happens in the real world."
In addition to the quizzes, Church takes F&I managers to breakfast off-site once every quarter to discuss any recent changes in the regulatory climate or forthcoming compliance concerns.
John Elway has three metro Denver locations, which sell Cadillac, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram vehicles.
