Finance calculators are easy to come by, but not all of them are as sophisticated as Codeweavers’ latest development, reports JAMES BAGGOTT

There are few companies in the motor industry that have got the guts to admit they haven’t always got things right. But software development firm Codeweavers is the first to admit that over the past 12 months it hasn’t lived up to the expectations of some of its customers.

‘We’ve lost a couple of big clients over the last 12 months – and that is something that I really can’t live with,’ explains MD Roland Schaack. ‘But we’d be the first to admit we haven’t lived up to the expectations of some clients and that’s why we’re working twice as hard to change that.’

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It takes a company confident in their products to admit that they’ve let some clients down in the past, but Schaack and his team, which includes Car Dealer columnist and commercial director Martin Hill, have some very interesting developments up their sleeves for dealers this year – and it’s time for them to shout about it.

‘We’re not about “vapourware”,’ explains Schaack. ‘By that I mean we’re not about promising our dealer clients software that we can’t deliver. We want to get our products to market right first time and if that takes 12 or 18 months then so be it. It’s about quality – and I pride myself, and everything we do, on the quality of our products.’

‘We were the first with finance calculators on dealer websites and now we’ve innovated it again’

He’s referring to a hectic 18 months of development which has seen the Codeweavers team completely rewrite its famous online finance calculators, that dealers up and down the country have been successfully using for years, to make them even better.

Schaack and Hill give me a live demonstration of the new software – and I have to admit it’s rather impressive indeed. ‘We were the first with finance calculators on dealer websites and now we’ve innovated it again,’ explains Schaack. ‘Now we’ve changed the way customers can search for cars on dealers’ websites. It’s about affordability, not just make and model.’

Customers can now input a variety of details into the search facility including their deposit, term they’d like the finance over, annual mileage plus their preferred minimum and maximum monthly payments. This then searches dealers’ databases of cars in fractions of a second to return live finance quotes on cars depending on their budget.

‘The difference here,’ adds Hill, ‘is it’s about showing the customer what they can afford. Let’s say they were originally looking for a Ford Fiesta, but because of the better residual values on a Mini they could actually afford one of those instead – the customer will be pleasantly surprised, and much more likely to be attracted to dealer finance.’

Dealers embed a link on their website and Codeweavers hosts the Payment Search page with the dealership’s branding on it. Funding comes from a variety of lenders – big names like Black Horse, Santander, Close, Carlyle and many brokers are just a few that are supported by the system. And it’s you that dictates which funders are used for which cars.

‘The system is totally configurable by the dealer,’ adds Schaack. ‘For example, if the dealer only wants to offer PCP quotes on his BMW stock from Alphera then we can ensure that the only quotes the customer gets back are those. Or if the dealer wants to set certain parameters, such as how much commission they’d like to make on every deal, we can ensure that is met too.’

‘We want to add value to our dealer partners’

If the customer is happy with the quote, they can simply email it to themselves by clicking a button, print it off and then bring it into your showroom. And because the quotes are live – there are no cached quotes here – it means the deal the customer sees is what they get. And what’s more, with the emailed quotes you know exactly how well the Payment Search facility is working for you.

So how much does this all cost? Well, here’s the good news – if you’re a Codeweavers client, absolutely nothing. It comes as part of the suite of services that the firm is constantly developing to ensure its dealers are happy.

‘We want to add value to our dealer partners,’ said Hill. ‘And that means we’ll drive finance business into their showrooms with innovative solutions like this. You can get a budget finance calculator for your website elsewhere but the parameters can’t be driven by the customer – and that can put some people off.

‘We’ve come up with an interactive way of replicating what your business manager would do in the showroom online. Your business manager is there to ensure you make the most out of every deal – they do that by placing the right customer with the right finance package with the right funder. With Payment Search, dealers can be confident that is happening on their website when their business manager has gone home for the day.’

And if anyone should know the importance of business managers it’s Schaack and Hill – both held those very positions at different Holdcroft dealerships. Schaack went on to become group F&I manager and then held the same position for Pendragon. He joined Virgin Cars in 2000 where he set up the finance side of the business but was then made redundant when he’d done just that. It was after that setback that he delved into IT and soon afterwards joined Jigsaw Finance.

It was at Jigsaw where he developed the first online finance calculator for PCP and it saw the broker’s PCP business rocket from £50,000 a month to more than £2m. It was then the firm realised it was on to a real winner.

‘We proved it worked with Jigsaw,’ he said. ‘In 2002 we formed Codeweavers and started pushing it out to dealers and we’ve gone on from there.’

‘With us it’s about quality: Quality of product; quality of service. ‘

After leaving Holdcroft, Hill went the other route into the finance world. He worked for GE for nine years where he specialised in training and FSA integration. He did a stint as MD for ITC Compliance and then moved to Codeweavers where he’s put his compliance training to good use for dealers with the recent CCD changes that have sent shockwaves through the industry.

‘We’re constantly checking our partner dealer websites to ensure they’re CCD compliant,’ says Hill. ‘If dealers get CCD wrong they might lose their licence – it’s as simple as that. And if they’re

reliant on finance for profits then that could be disastrous. I’ll gladly help any dealer and advise them of what they need to do to ensure their online offering complies with the regulations.’

HELP

It’s that helping hand ethos which runs through the company that has led Codeweavers to invest in ways it can help de-mystify the world of dealer finance. ‘Many customers don’t understand high street loans, let alone car finance,’ said Schaack. ‘That’s why we came up with the idea of providing videos to help explain how the different aspects of dealer finance works.’

Schaack shows me a video of the firm’s explanation of PCP and it’s an extremely high- quality production. The firm has invested thousands of pounds into the very best production equipment as well as a new head of video production to make them.

‘The idea is dealers can use our videos on their site to explain to customers why they might want to chose PCP over HP, a lease deal over high street lending,’ says Hill. ‘These videos are free to our customers and can even be branded to their company.

We like to think of it as a way of dealers putting their very best salesman or business manager in front of their customers every single time. The videos explain consistently and simply how each part of dealer finance works and we’ve even got one that tells customers why they should be using dealer finance over the high street banks.’

‘If a dealer’s web partner can’t integrate our services we’ll lend a developer so they can at no cost’

Video production is something Codeweavers is moving into. The firm is already working with a London Volvo site to produce a corporate welcome for its website and hopes to introduce the service to many more.

And it’s not just the big dealer groups like Marshall Motor Group, Perrys, Jardine and Carshop that utilise Codeweavers’ services but manufacturers too. The company is providing calculation services for BMW, Mini, Citroen and will be moving into Europe soon.

It works with all the major website builders – and, even if it doesn’t currently work with yours, it can. ‘If a dealer’s web partner can’t integrate our services we’ll lend a developer so they can at no cost,’ said Hill. ‘We’re never going to start building websites for dealers – that’s not what we’re about – we’re about building relationships with those that already do and helping them integrate our services into their dealer clients’ websites.’

Some of you will remember Codeweavers as being part of the Jigsaw company but last year the two firms parted company completely. Codeweavers has even moved into a new countryside, renovated barn office to give its developers the best environment in which to work – and ensure the separation from Jigsaw is obvious. ‘We’re now completely independent and that has opened the doors for us to work with even more finance brokers and lenders,’ explains Schaack. ‘It was a problem before, so we moved to address that. Jigsaw is still a client of ours and always will be, but we’re now totally separate companies.’

‘For the services dealers get and the leads they generate, it more than pays for itself’

With two new entrants recently entering the finance calculator market, we asked Codeweavers what really marks them out. Hill explains: ‘With us it’s about quality: Quality of product; quality of service. You won’t get our payment search facility anywhere else and it brings a whole new way for customers to browse for cars while generating leads for dealers.

‘We focus on the detail too. Whether that’s compliance or just ensuring things work properly, working with Codeweavers will mean you’re looked after. We’ve learnt from our mistakes and invested heavily in client services and development teams to ensure our partners are properly looked after.’

So again it comes back around to the issue of price – surely a service like this is going to cost dealers thousands of pounds? ‘Not so,’ says Hill. ‘There have been claims that software companies like us charge dealers thousands every month – that’s simply not true. Our services start from as little as £48 per month and our average dealer customer pays only £250 a month. For the services dealers get and the leads they generate, it more than pays for itself.’

For more information call 0800 021 0888 or visit Codeweavers.net