2025 LHPH Summit Highlights as featured in the latest NVLA Article
Economic Outlook with Melinda Zabritski
- Shifts in Financing & Lending: Financing volumes are slightly up YOY, with banks pulling ahead as the largest lender type while captives lose share to banks, credit unions, and finance companies.
- Affordability Challenges: Loan amounts and terms continue to rise, over 15% of new payments now exceed $1,000, and more consumers are pushed into older (9+ model year) vehicles for affordability.
- Market & Consumer Trends: Leasing is down YOY, EV share of new purchases is declining, used EV purchases are up 44% YOY, and higher-income households increasingly dominate both new and used vehicle markets.
Navigating Conflict & Building Great Relationships to Drive Great Outcomes with Marc Otto
- Right People, Right Roles: Companies fail to match talent to roles 82% of the time, but when employees’ needs are met, businesses see higher profitability, productivity, and retention.
- EQ Over IQ: Emotional intelligence and awareness of self and others drive leadership success more than technical skills, with supervisors influencing 76% of employee engagement.
- Managing Conflict Builds Culture: Clarify what can and can’t be solved, maintain personal energy, and aim for a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions to strengthen team relationships and outcomes.
Doing Collections Differently with Gene Daughtry
- Quality Over Quantity: Focus on smaller, targeted groups each day instead of trying to call everyone. Quality attempts matter more than volume.
- Consistency & Confidence: Collectors should always ask for payment, follow set policies (including repossession guidelines), and build confidence through coaching and activity reviews.
- Structured Approach: Use a daily calling schedule, mix communication methods (call, text, email), and separate specialized roles (collectors vs. sales, insurance/recovery specialists) to improve effectiveness.
AI Applications for the Automotive Industry
- ChatGPT: Tim Lawrence led the group through a quick ChatGPT application to asks ChatGPT to act as a seasoned advisor, gather context through one-on-one questions, and then provide 20 ranked, actionable strategies to restore profitability, improve cash management, and stabilize the business without adding new locations. The goal is clear, practical, and encouraging guidance tailored to dealer operations as we worked through follow up questions to dial in some insightful ideas.
- How Dealers Are Using AI: Specific examples of current and planned uses include assisting the sales department with inbound leads and long-term follow-up, engaging existing owner bases, monitoring phone calls, aiding collections with inbound calls and promise-to-pay tasks, diagnosing vehicle problems, designing daily workflows for technicians, streamlining administrative tasks like reconciling bank accounts, conducting employee reviews, simplifying notes, and even role-playing sales objections.
- Implementing AI at Your Dealership: Successful adoption means tackling employee concerns and vendor limitations while highlighting AI’s benefits. Resistance often stems from fears of job loss, but showing how AI improves efficiency and profitability can turn it into a win-win. Challenges include the time and cost of setup, too many model options, and limited vendor APIs that complicate DMS integration. Key strategies: demonstrate real-time value, provide paid AI tools, encourage daily use, and reward employees for discovering new applications.
These are only some of the highlights from the 2025 LHPH Summit and we look forward to another collaborative event with dealers and industry speaker in Fall of 2026!