Autonomous Cars Push Need for Smarter Technology in Dealerships

Hyundai recently announced plans to have driverless cars on the market by 2020. The company is heavily investing in technology for driverless cars — by planning on hiring over 7,000 researchers, and shelling out $73 billion for their smart car program over the course of four years. Hyundai plans to phase in automated cars starting in 2020, and predicts that they will offer cars with fully autonomous driving in 2030. With plans to have self-driving cars on the roads in five years, Google sends their self-driving car across the West for testing. Volvo’s going to test autonomous cars with 100 real customers in 2017. As the technology in cars becomes more sophisticated, other parts of the automotive industry need to keep up with the trend.

Car dealerships are one facet of the automotive industry that can benefit from upgrading to sophisticated technology. When people go to buy cars at a dealership, they are often stuck waiting for a salesperson to scan and make copies of their documents. Salespeople are pressed for time, and the last thing a customer wants to do is spend an entire Saturday afternoon at a dealership. Customers who are itching to go out for a test drive have to wait for their licenses and insurance documents to be verified. Even when buyers know exactly what they want, they’re still stuck waiting at the dealership as their paperwork gets processed.

Acuant’s technology is designed to make the process of buying a car easier for both salespeople and potential customers. With Acuant, salespeople can maintain the rapport they’ve built with their potential buyer by being able to capture information from the customer’s driver’s license right on the floor, instead of disappearing into an office to scan the document. Information from driver’s licenses from all 50 states can be captured within seconds, using either Acuant’s line of hardware or a mobile device (e.g. smart phones and tablets). The information can then be submitted for further verification. This also benefits the customer because they’re not stuck waiting around for their documents to be scanned and verified. By automating the process of gathering documents, scanning them, and then making copies, salespeople and customers can save time at the dealership.