Used Car News
Study Names Top Dealers in Lead Effectiveness
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May 2026
Critical Shifts: Napleton’s Continued Dominance: Napleton Automotive Group secured the top ranking for the fifth consecutive year, achieving a record-breaking score of 93 and widening the gap between top-tier performers and the industry average. Industry-Wide Gains Driven by Multi-Channel Response: The average ILE score rose significantly to 74, fueled by a 20% increase in text message responses and an 11% improvement in multi-channel ...
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Press Release: NAPLETON AUTO GROUP RANKS HIGHEST FOR 5TH YEAR IN 2026 WEB LEAD RESPONSE STUDY
May 2026
Customer response hits all-time high: average ILE score jumps 7 points Same leads, very different outcomes: Dealer group scores ranged from 54 to 93 Napleton sets new record: 90% of their dealerships delivered “perfect” responses Austin, Texas, USA – May 11, 2026 – Napleton Automotive Group dealerships ranked highest for the fifth straight year in the 2026 Pied Piper PSI® Internet Lead Effectiveness® (ILE®) Auto Dealer Group Study, which compared ...
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Press Release: GROUP 1 TOPS PIED PIPER'S 2025 SERVICE APPOINTMENT RANKINGS; INDUSTRYWIDE A.I. OFTEN BEATS HUMAN STAFF
July 2025
2025 Service Telephone Effectiveness® (STE®) Study shows that 8 out of 10 dealer groups improved their average STE scores from last year A.I. now rivals — and often surpasses — human agents in service call quality, but challenges remain 51% of independent service centers outperformed dealers — and booked appointments three days sooner Monterey, California, USA – June 7, 2025 – Group 1 Automotive dealerships ranked highest in Pied Piper’s 2025 ...
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Car Dealership Guy – Daily Dealer Live
Napleton's Digital Dominance
May 2025
On the Car Dealership Guy Podcast: Napleton Automotive’s Preston Stewart, Variable Operations Director, and Brian Cole, BDC Director “Preston, what goes into this survey, and how have you guys achieved this (top ranked for four years in a row)?”
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Press Release: NAPLETON AUTO GROUP ACHIEVES RECORD SCORE IN 2025 DEALER GROUP STUDY MEASURING RESPONSE TO WEBSITE CUSTOMERS
Overall industry average score improved: faster email and phone responses and more use of texts to answer customer questions
Large variance in dealer group performance: 50-point spread in average scores, with 9 groups improving and 7 declining from the previous year
May 2025
Monterey, California, USA – May 5, 2025 – Napleton Automotive Group dealerships ranked highest in the 2025 Pied Piper PSI® Internet Lead Effectiveness® (ILE®) Auto Dealer Group Study, which measured responsiveness to internet sales leads coming through dealership websites. Following Napleton were Ciocca Automotive, Herb Chambers Auto Group, and Berkshire Hathaway Automotive. Pied Piper submitted customer inquiries through 2,105 automobile ...
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Wards Auto
Answering the Call for Service - Pied Piper study shows quick telephone engagement boosts loyalty
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September 2024
Each of Napleton Automotive Group’s 50 dealerships has a unique number to schedule a service appointment. Last year, it began routing those calls through its centralized business development center (BDC). Technology alerts the BDC specialist to which store the customer is trying to reach but any specialist can answer a call for any store, creating a seamless customer experience. It had another important result, as well. “It reduced the time to ...
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Used Car News
Pied Piper Ranks Dealer Service Telephone Effectiveness
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September 2024
Serra Automotive was ranked first out of 20 auto dealer groups in Pied Piper’s 2024 PSI Service Telephone Effectiveness (STE) Study, which measured the efficiency and quality of service telephone calls from a customer’s objective of quickly and easily setting up a service appointment. Following Serra Automotive in the rankings were Napleton Automotive Group, Berkshire Hathaway Automotive and Group 1 Automotive. “Successful service departments ...
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Auto Remarketing
Serra, Napleton take giant steps forward in responses to service appointment calls
September 2024
The results of Pied Piper’s 2024 PSI Service Telephone Effectiveness Study bear little resemblance to those of last year. At the top of the new list, which ranked 20 dealer groups by their efficiency and quality of service telephone calls in quickly and easily setting up a service appointment from the customer’s perspective, is Serra Automotive, with an STE score of 68 on a 100-point scale. In the 2023 study, Serra ranked in the middle of the ...
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Automotive News
Dealership service departments improve phone call handling but issues remain, study finds
September 2024
Napleton Automotive Group was honored by performance measurement firm Pied Piper Management Co. three years running for having the fastest and best response times on Internet sales leads. But Brian Napleton, the group's director of operations, was disappointed last year to finish last out of 17 large dealership groups in Pied Piper's Service Telephone Effectiveness study. Napleton said the group "felt we did a very good job handling service ...
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Automotive News Daily Drive Podcast
Pied Piper CEO Fran O'Hagan discusses the 2024 Dealer Group Service Telephone Effectiveness(R) Study results with Automotive News
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August 2024
We in the auto industry have been fixated on measuring service customer satisfaction. We've measured it all kinds of ways for decades, but if truth be told what we really care about is loyalty, and we've been using customer satisfaction as a proxy to measure loyalty. If you think about it what we really care about is what customers do rather than what customers say. You may say you're satisfied but really what I'm interested in is are you going ...
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