There is a considerable contrast between actual start-to-finish transaction times car buyers experience and what dealers believe is ideal, according to eLEND Solutions' survey of dealers nationwide published on Wednesday.

While 36 percent of dealers surveyed said the ideal amount of time shoppers should spend in their dealership during the buying process is less than an hour and 79 percent said less than two hours, the survey found that more than half of the dealers have a process that takes more than two hours.

An overall account of actual transactions times given to eLEND Solutions from the same group of dealers showed that only 11 percent of them see their buyers out in an hour or less and 42 percent in two hours.

Though most dealers have yet to meet their ideal time on average, transaction times reported by dealers have been improving.

Forty percent of dealers surveyed in 2014 reported an over three-hour process and this year only 25 percent said their process took more than three hours.

“We are pleased to see that transaction times are improving for some dealerships, but this continues to be a pain point for many dealers, costing them significant dollars in resources and lost opportunities,” said Pete MacInnis, chief executive officer of eLEND Solutions.

Seventy-three percent of dealers surveyed point to the completion of the finance and insurance (F&I) portion of the car buying process as the main reason for long transaction times.

“These are symptoms of the ‘silo’d’ sales and F&I process,” MacInnis said. “If information flow were consistent and uninhibited across departments, a connected car buying process would be facilitated, time in F&I would be reduced, and the overall transaction times would accelerate.”

The nearly two-thirds of dealers who claimed their transaction times have improved credit their decision to change the finance process, such as pulling credit reports earlier within the transition time from the sales floor to starting steps related to F&I. 

But of dealers who say they pull car buyers credit, most wait till far into the purchasing process to do so.

The following figures are surveyed dealers’ response to this question: “At your dealership, when do you normally first pull a customer’s credit?"

•    Before the handoff to F&I: 44 percent
•    Before the first pencil: 38 percent
•    In the F&I office: 10 percent
•    Before the test drive: 8 percent

“We believe that pulling credit sooner is a critical — and simple — step to streamlining the process and achieving better CSI and higher closing ratios,” said MacInnis.