MONTEREY, Calif. — When it comes to treating shoppers in the right way at the store, the brand whose dealers were rated as the best was Mercedes-Benz, according to the 2010 Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index U.S. Auto Industry Study. The study also discovered that dealers at Big 3 brands have made the biggest strides from a year ago.

In gathering the data, the study relied on 3,658 people who were hired to be anonymous "mystery shoppers." These consumers went into various dealerships across the country. To make sure their data was accurate the shoppers utilized the patent-pending PSI process in rating the stores.

After results were compiled, the study found that almost three-quarters of the brands measured (25 out of 34) showed gains from the prior year. Luxury brands are still on top of the game, but there has been "striking" progress made by the mainstream brands.

Take Ford, for instance. In comparing the brand's 2007 performance versus this year's, researchers discovered that the likelihood of a typical salesperson for the brand talking about vehicle features was 52 percent higher in 2010 than it was three years ago.

Moreover, the chance that today's Ford salesperson will introduce themselves is 29 percent higher that it was in 2007. Furthermore, the likelihood that the salesperson will "proactively" go into all the different financing options available is up 65 percent.

Among the industry's various brands, there are still areas in which improvement is necessary; however it may not be where one would anticipate it, according to the study. 

Case in point, it was more likely that a salesperson didn't pay enough attention or was not helpful enough (18 percent) than it was for him to be pushy (6 percent).

Also, the lack of brochures offered by some brands and dealerships could be troublesome to shoppers. In this study, there was a rather low occurrence (57 percent) of brochures being given out after the visit to the store.

This marked the lowest level since 2007.

There were also a lot of differences between the experiences for individual brands.

Volvo and BMW, for instance, had heavy mention (80 percent or more) of their respective maintenance programs and the costs tied to those offerings. Meanwhile, salespeople at Scion, Mitsubishi and Dodge dealerships were far less likely to talk about it, as less than a third did so.

Another example was the salesperson going over features and controls of the vehicle. Lexus and Porsche dealers were more likely (95 percent) to delve into this than BMW dealers (74 percent).

"Today's car shoppers are armed with far more vehicle and pricing information than ever before," said Fran O'Hagan, chief executive officer of Pied Piper Management Co.

"Successful brands and dealerships have responded by acting as helpful enablers for today's shoppers. At the most successful dealerships, the stereotype of the old-fashioned car salesperson no longer exists," O'Hagan added.