SAN FRANCISCO — Roadster announced the findings of an in-depth study examining how technology is being utilized within dealerships and how it is helping to make the car-buying process more efficient. The study, which examined the instore car-buying experience from both the dealer and consumer side of the equation, found that while the use of technology in-dealership is actively helping salespeople shave hours off of each transaction, they put their sales at risk by stepping away from their customer an average of three to four times during the sales process.

The study, which was conducted in partnership with Survata and Talk Shoppe and polled over 1,500 consumers and eight dealers across six brands, revealed that when a sales agent left their customer’s side, they involuntarily created confusion and distrust around the entire car-buying process. In fact, over 25% of consumers stated that they had no idea what their salesperson was doing in the time they were away. And when they left a customer’s side more than three times, customer satisfaction levels plummeted, decreasing almost 30%.

Analysts suggested dealers have an opportunity to improve customer satisfaction levels by marrying improved instore training with new technologies that allow salespeople to run credit, value a trade in, scan a driver’s license, and get a customer’s price or financing approved without having to abandon them.

“Technology can be an incredibly important part of the car-buying transaction, but it takes more than just good software to achieve significant efficiency gains,” said Andy Moss, CEO of Roadster. “For dealerships to truly modernize, they need to re-examine their instore sales processes. In today’s mobile world, leaving a customer alone, even momentarily, can lead to decreased satisfaction levels, lack of referrals or even worse, the loss of sales.”