I’ve had very mixed experiences over the years. I tend to find that if they say someone will phone me back, it never happens. If I’m there in person the experience is usually fine. Email seems to work as well, the ordering of the new car was mainly done via email with perhaps 2 phone conversations. Didn’t have to go in at all.
We did have one occasion at a Seat dealership where the sales woman was very helpful over the phone but once we got there at the time agreed she literally gave us the keys to have a look at the car and vanished. I only saw her again when I went looking for her to hand them back. She seemed to have zero interest in us or the car.
Worst experiences were a Ford dealership that I couldn’t arrange a test drive with, they repeatedly wouldn’t get back to me so we gave up and an MG dealership that I had booked a test drive in a specific car at a specific time. I drove nearly an hour to get there at the agreed time to find they’d given the demonstrator to someone else with no set return time. They ended up letting me try a newly delivered one that hadn’t been inspected and was covered in plastic. I couldn’t see any of the interior and for some reason it didn’t want to accelerate, I think I read once that cars are put in some sort of shipping mode which also affects the engine and it has to be removed? I can only assume it hadn’t been done yet. It was heavily raining, the windscreen had an oily film on it that I was having to wipe with my sleeve because it refused to demist, the temporary plate they put on the dash was creating so much reflection I could barely see and they wouldn’t come with me despite me not knowing the area. Worst test drive of my life ever. Never had a bad one until that point.