Press

Monterey, California, USA – May 3, 2021 – Harley-Davidson dealerships ranked highest in the 2021 Pied Piper PSI® Internet Lead Effectiveness® (ILE®) Motorcycle/UTV Industry Study, which answers the question, "What happens when motorcycle or UTV customers visit a dealer website and inquire about a vehicle?" The Indian motorcycle brand was ranked second, followed by BMW and Polaris.

Dealers for top brands improved their website response behaviors dramatically over the past two years, while dealers for other brands failed to improve. For example, the 2021 ILE study results show that dealers selling Harley-Davidson, Indian, BMW or Polaris sent an email or text answering a website customer's question about 50% of the time on average. 50% leaves plenty of room for more improvement, but in 2019, the figure for the same dealers was only about 35% of the time. In contrast, Honda, Kawasaki, Triumph or Yamaha dealers sent an email or text answering a website customer's question only about 30% of the time on average in both 2019 and 2021.

To complete the 2021 ILE study, Pied Piper submitted customer inquiries through the individual websites of 6,407 dealerships between July 2020 and March 2021, asking a 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. Twenty different measurements generate dealership ILE scores, which range from zero to 100. 17% of dealerships nationwide scored above 70, requiring a quick and thorough personal response, while 44% of dealerships scored below 30, showing failure to personally respond in any way to their website customers.