“The powersports industry is facing some tough conditions following COVID,” concedes Pied Piper CEO Fran O’Hagan as a preface to the 2024 Pied Piper PSI Internet Lead Effectiveness (ILE) Study which measured responsiveness to Internet leads coming though powersports dealership websites. “But for many brands, dealership web response behaviors have deteriorated. Why? It’s not malicious. There aren’t many powersports principals or GMs who would knowingly ignore web customers today.” But with the industry average declining dramatically compared to last year, it is clear money is being left on the table.
Pied Piper submitted mystery-shopper customer inquiries through the individual websites of 3,718 powersports dealerships, asking a specific question about a vehicle in inventory, and providing a unique 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. Twenty different quality and speed of response measurements generate dealership ILE scores, which range from zero to 100.