AIADA NEWS
Toyota Dealerships Rank No. 1 in Online Response Study
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March 2020
"This part of the car business is as important as ever — customers grabbing their phone and looking something up is just how any kind of shopping is begun now," Pied Piper CEO Fran O'Hagan said in an email to Automotive News.
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Wards Auto
Car Dealers Get Better at Responding to Digital Shoppers
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March 2020
A decade or so ago, the smartphone was relatively new, and many dealerships had separate Internet department to handle that part of the business. Today, nearly all consumers first use their phone's varied functions (including but certainly not limited to making a call) to research and shop vehicles before visiting a dealership in person. "The norm today is to whip out the phone and start shopping, which is amazing when you think about it, Fran ...
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Wards Auto
Luxury-Brand Car Dealers Best in Internet Effectiveness, Study Says
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July 2019
Luxury-brand car dealerships take the top five top spots of the 2019 Pied Piper PSI Internet Lead Effectiveness Benchmarking Study. The annual by-brand mystery shopping exercise uses various measurements to answer an essential question, “What happens when customers visit a dealer website and inquire about a vehicle?” says Pied Piper CEO Fran O’Hagan. Dealerships that field those leads the best – from responding quickly to answering a specific ...
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Automotive News
Plugging EVs just wasn't enough
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March 2019
Some of the most effective advocates for plug-in vehicles are being unplugged from the business. This month, Tesla said it would close most of its factory-owned stores as a cost-cutting move and switch entirely to online sales. Many employees of those stores and investors were pretty surprised to hear the news, Bloomberg reported, especially as it came just weeks after Tesla affirmed the value of its showrooms in a public filing, talking up its ...
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Auto Remarketing
Tesla salespeople rank highest in EV ‘prospect satisfaction'
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March 2019
Electric vehicle technologies are often new to many customers visiting an auto dealership, so the salesperson must also be able to introduce and explain the operation of EVs and the features and benefits of EV technology, such as understanding garage-charging options, according to Pied Piper Management Co. Success selling EVs depends on many of the same salesperson behaviors that customers find helpful when shopping for traditional automobiles, ...
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Automotive Design & Production
What Tesla Might Miss With Its Store Closures
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March 2019
“Imagine what it would have been like to sell a gas-powered automobile in the early 1900s,” said Fran O’Hagan, president and CEO of Pied Piper Management Company LLC. “Customers back then were buying their first car, and salespeople would have had to explain the basics, such as how to operate the vehicle or where to find fuel while travelling.” O’Hagan is talking about the experience back then in the context of what’s happening now, as customers ...
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Wards Auto
Survey Ranks Tesla Dealerships First in EV-Selling Effectiveness
Ironically, the electric-vehicle maker plans to shutter most of its retail outlets.
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March 2019
Fran O’Hagan sees a striking paradox in Tesla saying it will close down almost all its dealerships and switch to an online sales strategy. He is president and CEO of Pied Piper Management, a consultancy that today releases results of a mystery-shopping study on how effectively dealerships brand-by-brand handle electric-vehicle shoppers. Tesla scored first. “It’s so ironic,” O’Hagan tells Wards. Referring to the dramatic retailing pivot, ...
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CAR & DRIVER
Audi Dealers Do It Best, Tesla's Are Worst, According to Car-Shopping Study
The study measured how well dealerships are selling cars to potential buyers.
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July 2018
Audi topped an annual study called the Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index (PSI), which measures how well dealerships are doing at selling cars to potential buyers. Tesla finished last. Pied Piper Management (a real company, not the fictitious one on the Silicon Valley television show) said the results of its study, which carries the full name of 2018 Prospect Satisfaction Index U.S. Auto Industry Benchmarking Study, came after mystery ...
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Automotive News
Audi tops study of sales-prospect satisfaction
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July 2018
Audi, for the first time, landed atop an annual dealership study that evaluates brands based on how effective salespeople are at handling consumers and closing deals. The 2018 Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index measures how mystery car shoppers sent to 3,466 dealerships in the U.S. were treated and later surveyed by consultant Pied Piper of Monterey, Calif. The latest study was conducted from July 2017 to June 2018. Audi, whose score rose ...
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Wards Auto
Auto Dealership Mystery Shopping Indicates Which Brands Rock
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July 2018
For the first time, Audi dealers top the Pied Piper Satisfaction Index. In the cellar is Tesla. A by-brand mystery-shopping study of how well auto dealerships deliver customer satisfaction indicates top scorers had something in common: They helped customers more. “‘Helpful’ is one word that determines how dealerships did,” says Fran O’Hagan, president and CEO of Pied Piper Management, a consultancy that sent secret shoppers to 3,466 dealerships ...
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