Toyota dealerships ranked highest in the 2020 Pied Piper PSI Internet Lead Effectiveness Benchmarking Study, which answers the question, “What happens when customers visit a dealer website and inquire about a vehicle?” Dealerships selling Cadillac vehicles were ranked second, followed by dealerships selling MINI or Subaru.

Brands with the greatest improvement from 2019 to 2020 were Dodge, Chrysler, Ram, Alfa Romeo and Lincoln, while Cadillac was the brand with the greatest improvement over the past five years.

Pied Piper submitted customer inquiries through the individual websites of 5,063 dealerships, and then evaluated how the dealerships responded by email, telephone and text message over the next 24 hours.

Industrywide, the largest changes over the past year included a 23 percent increase in dealer text messages and a 14 percent increase in emailed answers to questions.

The most meaningful measurement is whether the customer received a response – whether by email, text, telephone call - answering their question within 24 hours. Porsche, Jaguar and MINI dealerships were the most likely to email or text an answer to the customer’s question within 24 hours, more than 60 percent of the time on average.