Dealer wait times, delays pick up in 2024, hurting customer satisfaction

Customers spent more time waiting on dealers in 2024 than they did the year before, putting pressure on retailers to speed up the car buying process in the months ahead.

Driving the news: With low affordability and shrinking demand putting the squeeze on profit margins, having a solid customer experience will be key to outmaneuvering the competition in 2025. But while dealers were making progress in this area in 2023, last year saw the industry take a step back, according to CDK Global’s Friction Points Study.

• Delays are a key factor in buyer frustration. Out of all steps in the process, test drives were the biggest cause for holdups in 2024, with 55% of buyers having to wait on a test drive. That’s 14 percentage points higher than in 2023.

• Delay frequency similarly impacted vehicle selection, with 36% of buyers saying they had to wait on their salesperson to find the car they were looking for compared to just 29% the year before.

• Wait times were also higher in the F&I department. Those who waited 30 minutes or more for an F&I manager accounted for 49% of car shoppers, up sharply from 2023’s share of 37%.

Zooming in: Scoring poorly in these areas can be particularly damaging to a dealer’s buyer satisfaction, hurting their ability to earn repeat business and expand their market share.

• Test drives are crucial to closing the deal, with 78% of consumers in a previous CDK Study saying it was the sole reason for choosing their vehicle.

• Failing to meet expectations here can convince buyers to take their business elsewhere—multiple respondents who had to wait to test their car in 2024 declined to recommend the dealership to others.

• Similarly, wait times in F&I are closely related to a dealership’s ability to retain and gain customers. Retailers with a 15-30 minute F&I wait time see net promoter scores (NPS*) of +49.

• That number drops 13 points to +36 for those that take between 30-45 minutes.

Looking ahead: While dealers will be looking for ways to speed up the sales process, 2024 still saw improvements being made in other categories.

• Most customers (75%) were able to get a head start on the purchase process online last year, with their salesperson already having their information on hand when they arrived at the dealership. Forcing buyers to re-enter information in-store comes with a 24-point decline in NPS, but has been a common complaint from car buyers in recent years.

• Tech-savvy dealers are also seeing operational improvements by investing in artificial intelligence. Forty-six percent of dealers were able to close more leads after implementing an AI tool. Another 17% saw improvements in F&I gross profits while 15% reported higher vehicle sales profits.

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