Cadillac ranked third in the 2024 Pied Piper Internet Lead Effectiveness (ILE) Study, which evaluates dealer responsiveness to internet leads that are routed through dealers’ websites.
This year’s study analyzed data from mystery shopper inquiries submitted to the websites of 3,957 individual dealerships. In these inquiries, the secret shopper submitted a specific question about a vehicle in inventory. A customer name, email address, and local telephone number were also provided. Then, the dealers were evaluated by how well they responded by email, telephone, and text message over the next 24 hours. Automakers were then graded on a 100-point scale.
Cadillac was ranked third this year, positioned behind Infiniti and Volkswagen, respectively. While that does represent a drop from last year when the luxury marque was ranked first, the score of 69 indicates that its dealers are effective at personally following up on inquiries submitted via their websites. In fact, Cadillac only lost two points year-over-year.
Infiniti gained seven points to earn a score of 76 to finish first in the study. Second-place Volkswagen gained three points, earning a score of 70, outperforming Cadillac. Subaru scored 68 points for fourth, followed by Polestar in fifth with 66 points. Meanwhile, Cadillac rival Lexus earned 65 points, Genesis earned 64 points, Mercedes-Benz earned 60 points, while Audi and Lincoln both earned 59 points. For context, the industry average was 62 points.
The study found that this year, dealerships were more likely to respond to online customer inquiries by phone call or text message than in previous years. Additionally, the quality of email responses improved, and dealerships were more likely to reach out to a customer by both email and phone, or by both text message and phone.
“2024 is a more challenging business environment for car dealers,” said Fran O’Hagan, CEO of Pied Piper, “and many have responded by improving their interaction with online customers.”
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