ATLANTA and ROCHESTER, Mich. -

Veteran salespeople might remember how the process unfolded 25 years ago when a friend of a friend suggested the buyer go to a certain dealership. Then, shoppers looked over printed vehicle brochures, walked the lot with store personnel and spent the better part of the day finalizing the delivery.

Well for today’s dealership customers who might have just been born about two decades ago, smartphones and tablets have replaced pamphlets and online review sites have replaced phone calls or face-to-face recommendations. Still, the dealership, finance companies and what they all can do for consumers remain paramount to entire buying process.

Foresight Research’s recently published 2015 Dealership Immersion Report showed millennials — individuals born after 1980 — bring a different set of criteria to dealer selection. Foresight Research president Chris Stommel explained these individuals more often value a comfortable environment for browsing and shopping and are particularly concerned with price and value as well as financing.

But with many being first-time buyers, Stommel pointed out millennials less often choose a dealer based on prior experience with a particular dealership or salesperson. Instead, they use digital tools including the dealer website and online reviews.

“Perhaps most telling that auto shopping is evolving is the differences in what younger buyers seek from a dealership in their next vehicle purchase,” Stommel said.

“Much more so than Baby Boomers, millennials are open to online or ‘on-my-own-time’ options like virtual showrooms and online price negotiation,” he continued.

Perhaps millennials are in a position to haggle over vehicle price if they’re in a good financial position. But FactorTrust indicated that situation might not always be the case.

In fact, FactorTrust determined millennials make up the largest percentage of non-prime auto applicants at 43 percent. Of course as dealers know, getting the deal bought for someone with less than perfect credit can be a bit more complicated than for an individual whose credit score is in the high 700s or even 800.

But if the sales and financing processes go well for millennial customers, both dealerships and their network of finance companies could have a customer for a long time. Foresight Research’s report pointed out that more than three out of five new-vehicle buyers reporting their experience at the dealership highly influenced their recent purchase decision.

“While millennials are certainly digital-savvy buyers overall, for more than half of them this is their first new-car purchase and they are just as reliant on dealers as older buyers,” Stommel said.