Press

Monterey, California – March 6, 2023 – General Motors’ Cadillac dealerships were ranked highest according to the 2023 Pied Piper PSI^® Internet Lead Effectiveness^® (ILE^®) Study, which measured responsiveness to Internet leads coming though dealership websites. Following Cadillac were Infiniti, Volkswagen, Subaru, Toyota and Volvo. 

“Auto dealers industrywide were quicker on average to respond to their website customers this year,” said Fran O’Hagan, CEO of Pied Piper. “Dealers have learned that they meet most of their customers online today before anyone visits in person, and dealers who respond quickly, personally, and completely to website customer inquiries simply sell more vehicles.”

Pied Piper submitted mystery-shopper customer inquiries through the individual websites of 5,428 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.

Brands with the greatest improvement since last year’s study were Polestar, Rivian, Ford, MINI, Volkswagen, Jaguar and Hyundai. Only six brands failed to improve from 2022 to 2023: Lexus, Mazda, Kia, Lucid, Dodge and Mercedes-Benz. Industry average performance increased three points to a score of 58, an all-time high during the  thirteen years Pied Piper has measured and reported dealer web-response performance.