MISSION VIEJO, Calif. -

Two hours: the amount of time it takes to watch a movie as well as the span it should take for the sales and financing process to be completed. At least that’s the majority sentiment, according to a new survey of dealerships from eLEND Solutions.

Results from an online survey of dealerships conducted in September showed 80 percent of participants reported their sales and F&I processes takes at least two hours or longer. Another 40 percent of stores acknowledged needing three hours or longer to get a vehicle delivered.

What’s the ideal situation? The majority of respondents — 82 percent of surveyed dealers — say the ultimate end-to-end process should take two hours or less.

Beyond just the time element, the eLEND Solutions dealer survey touched on a few other elements of the financing process.

A total of 75 percent of respondents indicated that F&I process started well after the test drive. To improve the situation, 44 of dealers surveyed mentioned that capturing more detailed information earlier in the process was the biggest opportunity to streamline the F&I process.

Not surprising to eLEND Solutions, but 90 percent of dealers agreed that a quick, efficient F&I process leads to greater customer satisfaction and higher CSI scores as 59 percent rated customer satisfaction as their store’s most important differentiator.

All told, 80 percent of dealers questioned think that the current F&I process has room for improvement as 87 percent of dealers agreed that negotiation and the F&I presentation are steps in the purchase process that customers dislike the most.

How would stores rectify their F&I challenges? A total of 63 percent respondents said they would dedicate the extra training resources to improving the quality of customer interactions.

“The results of this survey come as no surprise to eLEND, nor, I am guessing, to dealerships,” said Pete MacInnis chief executive officer of eLEND Solutions.

“There are multiple disconnects in the sales and financing process that are costing dealerships time, money and, importantly, customer satisfaction,” MacInnis continued. “The message is clear: the time has come for our industry to provide dealerships with the technologies and systems that will help them reduce the sales/finance process from hours to minutes.

“And with financing ranked as the first or second biggest profit center by the majority surveyed, it is a key place to start,” he went on to say.