Translate
Previous
Source: businesswire | Published on: Monday, 03 March 2025
MONTEREY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Subaru dealerships ranked highest in the 2025 Pied Piper PSI® Internet Lead Effectiveness® (ILE®) Auto Industry Study, which measured responsiveness to internet sales leads coming through dealership websites. Following Subaru were Infiniti, Acura, Toyota and Lincoln.
Pied Piper submitted customer inquiries through the websites of 4,023 automobile dealerships representing all major brands. Each inquiry asked a specific question about a vehicle in inventory and included a customer name, email address, and local telephone number. Pied Piper then evaluated the speed and quality of dealership responses by email, telephone, text message and chat over the next 24 hours. ILE evaluation of a dealership consists of over 20 differently weighted measurements, based upon best practices that are mathematically most likely to generate sales, which combine to generate an overall ILE score ranging from 0 to 100.
Subaru Ranked Highest for the First Time: How Did It Happen?
2025 marks the first year Subaru achieved the top ranking in an ILE industry study. The Subaru brand performance improved by nine points for 2025, reaching an average ILE score of 77, the new highest auto brand ILE score to date. Subaru dealers this year were much more likely to reach out to website customers through multiple communication paths, doing so 71% of the time on average, compared to 49% of the time for the overall industry. Subaru dealers were also much less likely to score below 40 – failing to personally respond to website customers – only 8% of the time on average, compared to 19% of the time for the industry overall.
How Did Industry Performance Change Over the Past Year?
The overall auto industry average ILE performance increased three points to 65, the highest average to date. Acura, Hyundai, Subaru, Lincoln and Fiat were the brands with the largest improvement compared to last year, each improving their ILE average score by nine or more points. Looking at the past five years, the auto industry has maintained a steady upward trend in performance. For example, in the 2025 study, 28 brands achieved ILE scores of 60 or higher, compared to only eight meeting the same benchmark in 2021.
Behaviors that improved:
The average dealer achieved a net improvement in measured behaviors this year, including the following: Dealers responded to a customer through multiple paths (email, phone, text) 49% of the time on average in 2025, up from 44% of the time last year. Dealers this year were also more likely to answer a customer’s question by email or text: 69% of the time on average vs. 59% of the time last year. Email responses in the 2025 study were also more likely to suggest next steps (73% vs. 67%) and give compelling reasons to buy from their particular dealership (27% vs 22%). Overall, dealers this year were more likely to answer customers’ questions and on average did so in less time.
Behaviors in decline:
While many key dealer behaviors improved in the 2025 study, some measurements declined: The rate of texting a customer dropped from 70% in 2024 down to 64% this year, however, this drop was offset by a marginally higher rate of texts answering the customers question (38% this year vs 34% last year). The rate of dealers phoning a web customer experienced a small drop from 68% of the time on average in 2024 to 66% of the time this year.
What is the “80/40 Rule” and Why is it So Important?
Each brand’s industry study ILE score represents an average that includes top-performing dealers as well as poor performers, each with a score ranging from 0-100. In the 2025 auto dealer study, 40% of all dealerships measured scored above 80 (providing a quick and thorough personal response), while 19% of dealerships scored below 40 (failing to personally respond to their website customers). The “over 80” and “under 40” segments shifted +6% and -2% respectively since last year. Cameron O’Hagan, Pied Piper’s Vice President of Metrics and Analytics said, “The effort to improve is worth it. Historically, dealers who improve their ILE performance from scoring under 40 to scoring over 80 on average sell 50% more units from the same quantity of internet leads.”
What is the Auto Industry’s Greatest Opportunity for Improvement?
The behavior mathematically most likely to boost auto sales is embracing a multi-channel communication strategy instead of responding to customers using only email, only phone, or only text. Many customers miss emails, ignore calls, or get overwhelmed by texts. Most auto dealers today reliably respond through at least one channel, but the next step is to master communication through multiple paths to improve their chances of reaching customers. Once contact is established, they should adopt the method chosen by the customer for future interactions. In this year’s study, 85% of dealers responded to a customer through at least one path, while only 49% used multiple paths. “A consistent multi-prong response to every customer is critical,” said O’Hagan. “You never know in advance which communication method will be most effective at reaching a specific customer.”
2025 Brand Performance Compared:
Response to customer web inquiries in 2025 had large variation by brand, as shown by these examples:
“We all agree that customers today visit dealer websites first, and how dealers respond to those customers drives today’s sales success,” said O’Hagan. “The trouble is that website customers can be invisible in day-to-day operations which makes them too easy to overlook.” Pied Piper has found that the key to driving improvement in website response is showing dealers what their website customers are really experiencing – which is often a surprise.
About Pied Piper Management Company, LLC
Monterey, California, based Pied Piper helps brands and national retailer groups improve the omnichannel sales & service performance of their retailers.
Pied Piper’s Prospect Satisfaction Index® (PSI®) process applies data science analytics to determine the omnichannel sales and service best practices most likely to drive unit sales and loyalty. PSI then uses a combination of artificial intelligence, machine learning and human actors to measure and report how effectively retail locations follow those best practices.
Clients order ongoing PSI measurement and reporting – internet, telephone or in-person – as tools to improve and maintain the omnichannel sales and service effectiveness of their retailers. Through Pied Piper’s industry studies, clients also learn how their performance compares to others within their industry, as well as to other industries.
Examples of other recent Pied Piper PSI studies include the 2024 Service Telephone Effectiveness® (STE®) Auto Industry Study (Honda’s Acura brand was ranked first), the and the 2024 Internet Lead Effectiveness (ILE®) Auto Dealer Group Study (Napleton Automotive was ranked first.)
For more information about Prospect Satisfaction Index® study results or to apply ongoing PSI measurement and reporting to improve performance, go to www.piedpiperpsi.com.
This press release is provided for editorial use only, and information contained in this release may not be used for advertising or otherwise promoting brands mentioned in this release without specific, written permission from Pied Piper Management Co., LLC.
