Press

In the auto industry, we recently learned that industry-wide 36 percent of customer inquiries over the Internet remain unanswered after 24 hours. Granted, that is a car business figure, but when we measured the same figure for the motorcycle industry back in 2008, we found that the motorcycle industry responsiveness to Internet inquiries was roughly one-half of the auto industry's performance.

Think about what that means. … Imagine if your salespeople paid absolutely no attention to every third customer who walked through the door of your showroom, or if your service writer ignored every third service customer. A dealer principal would never knowingly accept that sort of performance for “in-person” activities, yet it happens every day to customers reaching out through dealership websites.