Press - automotive

MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA – July 9, 2012 –Mercedes-Benz dealerships ranked highest in the newly released 2012 Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index(R) (PSI(R)) U.S. Auto Industry Benchmarking Study, which measured dealership treatment of car-shoppers. Study rankings by brand were determined by the patent-pending Pied Piper PSI process, which ties “mystery shopping” measurement and scoring to industry sales success.

Acura, Infiniti and Lexus dealerships, the luxury brands from Honda, Nissan and Toyota respectively, finished in a tie for second. Overall auto industry performance improvement was widespread, with twenty-four of thirty-four auto brands improving PSI performance from 2011 to 2012. Industry-wide improvement led to a new highest recorded industry average PSI score of 105.

There are studies that show facilities actually have little to do with whether a customer buys a vehicle from a dealership. One such study is Pied Piper Management LLC's annual Prospect Satisfaction Index, which sends anywhere from 3,500 to 4,000 mystery shoppers into dealerships each year to determine what's most important to customers.

And yes, the facility ranks low on importance. In fact, it's the dealership's people that are the most important. Says Fran O'Hagan, Pied Piper's founder, "The sales team is what makes much more of a difference than the facility. That's not to say the facility doesn't make a difference, just that if you and I owned a dealership and had to pick between a great sales team and a great facility; we would pick the great sales team every time."

(For the record, the Pied Piper study is the most comprehensive and provides the most accurate picture of what's going on in the dealership that I've seen. O'Hagan has been in the business for a long time -- much of it as an OEM guy.)

So what role does a facility play in either the vehicle purchase or service for a customer? According to Pied Piper, there are five key points:

Mercedes-Benz dealerships ranked highest in a study by Pied Piper Management Company to measure how effectively dealerships sell cars. Jaguar and Lexus tied for second.

As U.S. auto sales gradually rebound, it would seem that dealerships and showroom salespeople would be eager than ever to let the good times roll once again. But could some brands be slowing their sales recovery due to understaffed dealerships that aren't making every effort to inform shoppers about the vehicle, get them in it, be straightforward, and complete the sale?

It's a question that automakers might find worth looking into. According to a major study from Pied Piper, a California sales and marketing company that also runs programs to improve dealership performance, a number of dealerships aren't performing as well as they could—or as well as they were—when it comes to the basics required to sell vehicles.

Annual auto industry benchmarking study shows industrywide decline in dealership treatment of car shoppers

MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA – July 11, 2011 – Mercedes-Benz dealerships ranked highest in the newly released 2011 Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index(R) (PSI(R)) U.S. Auto Industry Benchmarking Study, which marked three years in a row of top rankings for the U.S. Mercedes-Benz dealer network.

The independent Pied Piper PSI study sent 3,524 hired anonymous “mystery shoppers” into auto dealerships nationwide, then used the patent-pending PSI process to compile the results into an accurate measurement of how each brand's dealerships treat car shoppers.

According to mystery-shopping consultancy Pied Piper of Monterey, Calif., although Toyota's sales practices are near the industry average, Scion's are the third-worst.
Scion trailed other youth-oriented brands such as Volkswagen, Kia and Mazda mostly because the brand's low-pressure sales techniques don't give customers a reason to buy now or return for a future visit. Scion salespeople fared well in product knowledge, not overselling, and having power over negotiating the selling price.
"We are improving the customer experience, the shopping process, the in-dealership, service," said Dawn Ahmed, Scion corporate manager. "There are lots of opportunities there."

If auto dealerships respond slowly to Internet sales leads, don't blame customer-relationship management software, says Fran O'Hagan. He is CEO of Piped Piper, a consultancy that does an annual study using mystery shoppers to gauge Internet lead effectiveness of dealerships by vehicle brand.

CRM systems help dealerships track and manage leads. But the systems only are as good as the people using them – if they use them at all. “CRM is great” and does what it is supposed to do, O'Hagan says. When Internet mystery shoppers encounter a problem, “it isn't a problem with the CRM systems. The dealership process is broken.”

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.