Press

• No improvement for industry-average vs prior year
• Only half of customers receive answer to questions within 24 hours

MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA – March 10, 2014 – Lexus, Porsche and Land Rover dealerships ranked highest in the 2014 Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index® (PSI®) Internet Lead Effectiveness(™) (ILE™) Benchmarking Study, which measured auto dealership responsiveness to customer inquiries received over the internet. Study rankings by brand were determined by the patent-pending Pied Piper PSI process, which ties “mystery shopping” measurement and scoring to dealership sales success.

After improving annually from 2011 through 2013, industry-average performance was unchanged from 2013 to 2014. 21 of the 33 auto brands recorded higher scores in 2014. Brands achieving the greatest improvement were Scion, Lexus, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar and Land-Rover. Only two brands, Lexus and Subaru, have remained in the top one-third of the rankings every year from 2011 to 2014. Luxury brands accounted for most of the top ten ranked brands, but non-luxury brands Subaru, Fiat, Honda and Ram were also ranked within the top ten.

On average, a brand's PSI-ILE ranking has accompanied the brand's relative sales success. For example, of the ten brands ranked highest last year in the 2013 PSI-ILE study published in March 2013, 8 of 10 went on to gain market share in 2013. Of the ten brands ranked lowest in the 2013 PSI-ILE study, 6 of 10 went on to lose market share in 2013.

“Today's most successful brands and dealerships tend to be the ones that thrive on customer internet inquiries,” said Fran O'Hagan, President and CEO of Pied Piper Management Company LLC. “The days of considering the internet as a separate piece of the car business are gone. Today the internet is as much a part of the car business as the showroom.”