Press

Monterey, California, USA – September 11, 2017 –  BMW motorcycle dealerships ranked highest in the 2017 Pied Piper PSI^® Internet Lead Effectiveness^® (ILE^®) Motorcycle Industry Study, which measured how dealerships responded to customer inquiries received through dealership websites. Study rankings by brand were determined by the Pied Piper PSI process, which ties “mystery shopping” measurement and scoring to dealership sales success.

Pied Piper sent customer inquiries through the individual websites of 2,197 motorcycle dealerships, asking a question about a vehicle in inventory, and providing a contact name, email address and local telephone number.  Pied Piper then evaluated how the dealerships responded over the next 24 hours.  Nineteen different measurements generated a dealership’s PSI-ILE score.

Although the motorcycle industry average PSI-ILE scores were similar in 2016 and 2017, behind the scenes there were substantial changes in behavior. Industrywide, dealerships were more likely in 2017 to respond in any way, which climbed to 91% of the time on average, up from 89% in 2016.  Personal responses (disregarding automated responses) on average occurred 46% of the time, up from 41% in 2016.  Salespeople were also more likely to answer a customer’s question, which increased from 27% of the time in 2016 to 37% of the time in 2017, and were more likely to attempt to contact a customer by telephone, which increased from 45% of the time in 2016 to 48% of the time in 2017.    

However, the motorcycle industry remains heavily reliant on “auto responder” messages sent by customer relationship management (CRM) software, and on average the quality of automated responses deteriorated from 2016 to 2017. Simple, generic automated text responses were more common in 2017, often unchanged from the CRM system’s sample template, such as, “Thank you for contacting our dealership, a salesperson will be back in touch soon.”  In 2017, 28% of these automated dealer emails failed to identify the name of the dealership (vs 9% in 2016), and 60% failed to identify the dealership’s physical address (vs 49% in 2016).

Those involved with the motorcycle industry 20 years ago remember a time when shoppers visited four or five times before buying, and customers needed to visit a dealership if they were interested in learning about a new motorcycle.  In those days, salespeople would often conclude, “He’s not ready to buy, so I’ll just let him look around since he will be back again.”  Today motorcycle shoppers can access as much product information as they wish on-line without ever visiting a dealership, and as a result shoppers visit only one or two dealerships before buying.  Fran O’Hagan, President and CEO of Pied Piper said, “Regardless of whether today’s customer contacts a dealership by web, by phone or in-person, a dealership today must assume that it’s their only chance to meet a shopper, encourage them to visit the dealership, and help them become an owner of a new motorcycle.”

About Pied Piper Management Company, LLC

Monterey, California company Pied Piper Management Company, LLC was founded in 2003 to develop and run sales and service programs to maximize the performance of dealer networks.  Go to www.piedpipermc.com.