More than one in 10 dealership staff are logging into more than 11 systems daily – with a massive 93% saying they spend more than two hours a day in front of a screen, instead of doing the job they were employed to.

The survey carried out by Cap HPI, focusing on technology used by motor dealers, also revealed that 36% of respondents felt they did not have sufficient training in the use of these multiple systems.

Many dealers are using multiple systems to meet a range of business needs such as CRM, email marketing tools, websites, lead management, accounting, sales presentation videos and vehicle health checks.

According to Dragon2000, staff typically don’t have the time to do the jobs they were employed for, because they become bogged down with maintaining separate systems and re-keying information.

Mark Kelland (pictured), Dragon2000 commercial manager, said: “Dealers are at risk of lost and inaccurate information from duplicate entry across multiple systems, leading to potential errors such as vehicle pricing and descriptions, as well as data protection compliance issues for the customer data. 

 “Dealers may be using generic or fledgling solutions with little support or forward development, which crucially, may not offer integration with existing systems.

“Without integration, very little data and information is shared and it can become a mammoth task to maintain them, resulting in errors and lost opportunities.

“With new data protection regulations being forced upon businesses next year, having customer data spread across multiple systems, will cause another headache for dealers. 

“They will need to ensure that they are following the rules within multiple systems.  It would be far easier for them to manage all the data and compliance in one place.

“There is also the important financial impact of multiple systems. 

“Dealers with multiple systems will also be receiving multiple invoices each month from those system providers, and possibly initial up-front set up costs (and hardware costs too in some cases). 

“It makes sense for dealers to look for one supplier who understands the motor trade inside out and can take care of their requirements, as they grow their businesses in the digital age.

“The alternative is trying to achieve this with a multitude of providers, with varying levels of support and forward development. These disjointed systems require duplicate entry, multiple logins to remember, training, and time and effort, which makes maintaining them all a costly exercise for dealers.

“Clearly the benefits of a single point of data entry with one supplier will be vast – not least in the time and cost savings.”