Through a new project by the firm, the 2022 Pied Piper PSI Internet Lead Effectiveness (ILE) Study measured responsiveness to internet leads coming though dealership websites.

Topping the ranking among 15 national dealer groups evaluated was the Napleton Auto Group, followed by Penske Automotive Group in second and Berkshire Hathaway Automotive in third.

Pied Piper said it has been measuring and ranking ILE performance annually for all major auto brands since 2011, but this year marked the first time the same criteria was used to measure and rank the national dealer groups.

Researchers found the top three national dealer groups all achieved higher ILE average scores than the highest scoring auto brand, and 12 of the 15 national dealer groups achieved higher ILE average scores than the overall auto industry average score.

Pied Piper president Fran O’Hagan pointed out that nearly all vehicle shoppers today begin their shopping online, O’Hagan maintained that quick and effective response to those shoppers directly drives sales.

“Our measurements show that dealers who respond quickly, personally, and completely to website customer inquiries on average sell 50% more vehicles to the same quantity of website customers as opposed to dealers who fail to respond,” O’Hagan said.

“We also found that customers of a top performing dealer group were three times more likely to get a speedy reply to their website inquiry than customers of a poor performer,” he continued.

Pied Piper explained that it submitted mystery-shopper customer inquiries through the individual websites of 1,631 dealerships, asking a specific question about a vehicle in inventory, and providing a customer name, email address and local telephone number.

Pied Piper then evaluated how the dealerships responded by email, telephone and text message over the next 24 hours. All dealerships for each of the 15 dealer groups were evaluated, except for Automotive Management Services, for which a sample of 50 dealerships were evaluated, according to Pied Piper.

Researchers noted that 20 different measurements generated dealership ILE scores, which range from zero to 100.

Dealerships which score above 80 provide a quick and thorough personal response by email and phone, and often text too.

In contrast, dealerships which score below 40 fail to personally respond in any way to their website customers.

For the top scoring dealer group, Pied Piper indicated 63% of Napleton Auto Group’s dealerships scored above 80, while only 11% scored below 40.

Meanwhile, researchers discovered that only 26% of dealerships scored above 80 while 35% scored under 40.

The firm went on to mention that response to customer web inquiries varied by dealer group, and the following are examples of performance variation by company:

How often did the company’s dealerships email or text an answer to a website customer’s question within 30 minutes?

—More than 50% of the time on average: Napleton, Penske, Morgan, Serra

—Less than 35% of the time on average: Ken Garff, AutoNation, Lithia, Victory

How often did the company’s dealerships use a text message to answer a website customer’s inquiry?

—More than 35% of the time on average: Asbury, Automotive Management Services, Napleton, Morgan

—Less than 20% of the time on average: Ken Garff, Penske, Greenway, Berkshire Hathaway, Victory

How often did the company’s dealerships phone the web customer within 60 minutes?

More than 75% of the time on average: Napleton

Less than 30% of the time on average: Victory, Greenway

Although not part of ILE scoring, Pied Piper said it also measured dealer-website responsiveness to a site’s chat function (if offered).

How often did a “human” respond to a customer question within 30 seconds?

—More than 80% of the time on average: Berkshire Hathaway, Sonic, Penske

—Less than 40% of the time on average: Napleton

The 2022 Pied Piper PSI Dealer Group Internet Lead Effectiveness (ILE) Study was conducted between June and August by submitting website inquiries directly to a sample of 1,631 dealerships nationwide representing 15 national dealer groups.