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How Van Horn Auto Group is capitalizing on the final customer touchpoint—the card swipe
Featuring Jennica Krebsbach, Van Horn Auto Group and Julie Douglas, Dealer Pay
Welcome to another edition of the CDG Industry Spotlight Podcast Recap newsletter.
In this episode, host Sam D’Arc catches up with Jennica Krebsbach, Controller at Van Horn Auto Group, and Julie Douglas, CEO of Dealer Pay, to discuss the hidden inefficiencies that bleed cash from dealers every single day—especially when it comes to payment processing.
1. Don’t overlook dealership controllers.
Jennica—who brings 40 years of experience to her role as controller for the Van Horn Auto Group and its 17 dealerships—says it’s very important that everyone on the team understands the role of the controller.
“Yes, we are the police in a lot of ways, but we’re here to support and train, assist, and try to make things more efficient all for the good of the company.” — Jennica
Van Horn’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP)—and the ability to discuss financial goals and challenges in that context—play a key role in helping the team better appreciate her role.
“We go through those results every month with every dealership, what they did as an individual dealership and what the group did as a whole. When they have an understanding of everything that goes into this company, they have a better understanding of how to make it better.” — Jennica
2. Inefficiencies waste time.
“Every customer that wanted to pay with a credit card had to input their name and phone number and email address and then the charge to get it to them to get the payment link to them. And it was taking a long time for every transaction.” — Jennica.
On top of that, administrative errors—like transposed numbers or small miscalculations—meant going back to the customer to fix it, creating awkward interactions and extra work.
Individually, these issues seemed small, but together, they slowed down operations, frustrated employees, and chipped away at the overall customer experience.
3. Finding the right partner.
After doing research on companies that could help address their credit card processing issues, Van Horn finally landed at Dealer Pay.
“We connected, did some demos, and we were very impressed. Their customer service is outstanding. Everyone at that company that we talked to, from implementation to the help desk. Everybody there is helpful, 100% looking out for us.” — Jennica
4. Many operational issues can be solved with automation.
Dealerships often don’t even realize that there are solutions to problems like the ones Van Horn Auto Group encountered in their operation, says Julie.
“Dealers are used to so many manual processes over three years. They may not even know certain automations like this exist. So, it’s refreshing when we have the opportunity to show them.” — Julie
And Jennica adds that having a DMS integration alone is probably saving at least 30 minutes a day of reconciliation, not to mention the time it takes to input all that customer data.
Dealer Pay – Designed to increase productivity and customer retention, Dealer Pay is a dealer-specific payment acceptance solution with over 25 years of experience as a trusted payments partner for dealerships across the U.S. Contact Julie today at [email protected] or 636-442-4901.
5. Listening is the first step to providing a viable solution.
One of the first steps to improving dealer processes is to have a clear understanding of the problems, says Julie.
“Early in my career, I spent a ton of time just listening to issues, situations, whether it be finance managers, service managers, office managers, about areas in their processes of their day that were causing them trouble… It's taken me a lot of years to figure out where the holes are to actually fix them. But a lot is dependent on the systems that are in place and trying to remove as much human error as possible. — Julie
6. . The growing role of credit card surcharging.
With higher credit card processing fees cutting into dealership profits, more dealers are shifting costs to customers through credit card surcharges—a practice that’s becoming more common across industries.
Van Horn resisted surcharging for years, fearing customer pushback. But as the costs added up, they implemented a 3% surcharge in fixed ops on January 1st—and the transition has been smoother than expected.
“It’s going fine. Customers are used to it. We fought it for a long time, but the costs added up.” — Jennica
But as surcharging becomes normalized, dealerships must ensure they implement it correctly to avoid compliance issues.
7. Why compliance in credit card surcharging matters.
Not all surcharging programs are compliant. Certain states ban surcharging, and federal regulations require clear disclosures and transparent pricing. Dealerships that fail to follow the rules risk hefty fines and customer backlash.
“You have to display the surcharge clearly, ensure it’s a separate line item, and train staff on how to communicate it properly.” — Julie
Dealerships that try to profit off surcharging—charging more than their processing costs—could face legal trouble.
8. The next frontier in payments: fraud prevention.
As dealership payment systems evolve, fraud remains a growing threat. Sophisticated scammers are using stolen identities, fraudulent checks, and chargebacks to target dealerships.
“I always say if it looks funny or smells funny, we want to make sure to advise that particular dealer user real time so they have the opportunity to say, ‘Hey, yeah, let me actually make a call’ or something to that effect. And it usually pertains to transactions that don't happen in the dealership… So, it's huge for a payments company to help their dealerships mitigate that as much as possible. It's never going to be 100% foolproof though.” — Julie
9. Taking the time to scale the partnership right can be hugely beneficial.
The Van Horn Auto Group started working with Dealer Pay on a small scale.
“We implemented it at one store…that’s real close to my office so that if there were problems, I could be hands-on or one of my team members could be hands-on to help with anything.” — Jennica
Starting with a pilot store and dialing in the details tends to be the best approach, added Julie.
“Jennica also does check processing, ACH, and there’s other components to payment acceptance besides credit cards. So, just dialing in all those specific details, permission for users…how the DMS interacted, we were really able to really finetune a lot of that on-site with our team.” — Julie
10. Payment processes will continue to evolve.
Julie estimates that the number of dealers using processing fees was probably about 65% or 70% prior to NADA, but since the show, about 90% of dealers are looking to add processing fees.
“Dealers should know what their effective rates are. So an effective rate is essentially your total fees for payment processing or card processing divided by your volume. So that should be anywhere from 1.95 to 0.35%. If you peel out debit cards, obviously the credit card rate will be higher because credit card interchange can go up to north of 3%, but that's not an effective rate. So they're completely covering their costs if they stay at 3%.” — Julie
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