GMC, The General’s premium utility vehicle and pickup truck brand, ranked below the U.S. auto industry average in the 2025 Pied Piper PSI Internet Lead Effectiveness (ILE) Auto Industry Study, meaning its dealers are less responsive than the typical brand to online customer contacts.
GMC dealerships scored 60 on the Internet Lead Effectiveness Score ranking according to Pied Piper, a Monterey, California car sector data analytics company, while the industry average for 2025 is a 65 score.
Among the four main GM brands, GMC was tied with Chevy, which also achieved a score of 60 in 2025. Buick was even lower at 58, while Cadillac was tied with the average with a 65 rating in the study. The winners in the ranking overall were Subaru, Infiniti and Acura with rankings of 77, 73 and 71 points respectively.
GMC dealers performed worse in responding to customer Internet contacts in the 2025 study than they did in the 2024 study, dropping about 5 percent below the previous year’s performance (calendar 2023). However, overall, dealership responsiveness has improved solidly over the four years since 2021, climbing by 20 percent compared to that year.
Looking to previous years, GMC was average in the 2024 study, average in the 2023 study, and average in the 2022 study as well. Its drop this year was unusual in that the typical U.S. dealership (with a total of 4,023 dealers examined to determine the final results) improved its performance.
The ILE Study ranked dealerships in five areas, in four of which GMC was average. It was below average only in the “answered question” category, with less than 50 percent of Big Red brand dealerships sending an email or text message within 60 minutes to customers who submitted questions through the dealership website during normal business hours.
For the “phoned customer” category, GMC called back by telephone to a customer inquiry within 60 minutes between 45 and 60 percent of the time. Big Red dealers “offered an appointment” at a rate of 25 to 45 percent, while and “did both fast” – answering a question and phoning within 15 minutes – from 15 and 30 percent of the time. Like most dealerships, those of GMC showed a rate of 10 to 25 percent of “failed to respond” to a customer contact.
The Vice President of Metrics and Analytics at Pied Piper, Cameron O’Hagan, said that to turn contacts into sales, “a consistent multi-prong response to every customer is critical,” though only 49 percent of dealers used multiple communications methods to respond to Internet customers.
O’Hagan concluded that “you never know in advance which communication method will be most effective at reaching a specific customer.”
Comments
To much “come on in for a test drive” instead of giving info.
Despise the internet dept.
Buick’s ranking surprises me. It’s been my experience with the local Buick dealers that when I go to their websites to view the new inventory, someone immediately asks if they can help me. And lately, whatever model or photo I click on, they seemed to know (“Can I help you with that Envision?”) I don’t know how response they are with phone calls. Also, Buick often asks if I will respond to a survey about using their website.
I was on a website checking stock at a Cadillac dealership. They said sure, we have what you are looking for, come on in. Do they think we’re stupid? My laptop says one thing, and the salesman says another. Scratch that dealership off my shopping cart.