Press - automotive secret shopping

Fran O'Hagan recalls when his vice president of operations, Miles Stearman, phoned him with a sudden realization about selling cars in the digital age.

“Miles called from a dealership he was visiting and said, ‘The Internet is no longer incremental business at dealerships; it is the business,' and that's so true today,” says O'Hagan, president and CEO of Pied Piper Management, a firm that consults with dealers on boosting sales.

Ninety percent of internet customers received some sort of response, but usually it's the e-mail equivalent of a form letter, according to a survey by Pied Piper Management Company of Monterey, California.

Lexus, Honda and Toyota dealerships ranked highest in a study to measure how dealerships treat car customers online. Pied Piper tracks dealerships' performance with mystery shoppers, but in this case, online mystery shoppers.

A new study, released by Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index (try saying that with a full mouth) turned up some interesting findings, specifically when it came to what's called Internet Lead Effectiveness rankings.

The study measured average dealership performance for all brands selling vehicles in the US and discovered that it varied widely depending on the brand. Toyota, Lexus and Honda dealerships were shown to rank highest in terms of responding to customer inquiries over the internet.

Pied Piper's study uses a patent pending process to tie ‘mystery shopping' measurement and scoring to actual sales success; with 19 different ‘Internet Lead Effectiveness' questions that generate scores on aspects such as Timeliness in response to customer inquiries, dealership and sales person identification, quality of communication and forwarding the sale.

Lexus, Honda and Toyota dealerships ranked highest in a newly released Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index Internet Lead Effectiveness study, which measures dealership responsiveness to customer inquiries over the internet. But industry wide, dealers' internet efforts lag their in-person customer service.

Industrywide: 36% of customer internet inquiries remain unanswered after 24 hours

Lexus, Honda and Toyota dealerships ranked highest in a newly released Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index(R) (PSI(R)) Internet Lead Effectiveness(™) Benchmarking Study to measure dealership responsiveness to customer inquiries over the internet. The study measured average dealership performance for all major U.S. automotive brands, showing a wide variety in performance by brand. Pied Piper conducted the study as an independent benchmarking service to its Internet Lead Effectiveness clients, who receive monthly internet "mystery shops" to measure and improve dealership response to internet inquiries.

Mystery shoppers are nothing new, but Internet mystery shoppers are.

That's part of the expansion plan for Fran O'Hagan as CEO of Pied Piper, which tracks not whether customers enjoyed their shopping experience but whether dealership salespeople did the things that would lead to a sale.

Toyota is among the best-loved car brands in America, according to our analysis, joining a couple of domestics brands--Ford and Chevrolet--in a race to the top.

To compile our list of America's Best Car Brands, we looked at data from Consumer Reports that rated each brand based on safety, quality, value, performance, design/style, technology/innovation and environmental friendliness. We also considered scores from the 2010 Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index U.S. Auto Industry Study, a national benchmarking study that uses mystery shoppers to measure and compare how consumers are treated at car dealerships.

Mercedes ranked number one—just above Lexus—in the 2010 Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index. The results come from more than 3,600 anonymous mystery shoppers nationwide.

If car buyers want to be treated well, they should head to a Mercedes-Benz dealer. So says a survey by automotive retailing consultants, Pied Piper Management. It named Mercedes-Benz as the brand that handles customers best, followed closely by Lexus, Land Rover, Acura and Jaguar.

The survey was carried out by more than 3,600 "mystery shoppers" who visited dealerships across the United States and measured how they were treated by sales teams. They measured staff personalities in categories ranging from friendliness to high-pressure attitude, while also taking note of sales traits like discussions of financing options, introduction to sales managers and follow-up.

Perhaps the most interesting finding is that the stereotypical aggressive, pushy car salesman appears to be a dying breed. According to Pied Piper, this type cropped up just six percent of the time, far less than the opposite end of the spectrum ? an inattentive, unhelpful salesperson ? who made 18 percent of those under scrutiny. Pied Piper CEO, Fran O'Hagan, thinks the internet is behind the decline of such high-pressure selling.

"The internet has shifted the balance of power to customers who now know a lot about products and prices because of their online research," said O'Hagan. "Smart salespeople have figured out that there's still a lot for them to do that involves being helpful, but not leading customers down a road determined by the salesperson."