New Study Says Subaru Is The Most Responsive To Customers In This One Key Area

How does Subaru interact with new car shoppers looking for a 2023 Subaru Forester, Outback, or Crosstrek shopping online? Subaru is among the best mainstream car brands. Check out where all automakers rank.

Which car brands are the most responsive to your online car search? According to the 2023 Pied Piper PSI Internet Lead Effectiveness (ILE) Study, Subaru is now the fourth-best car brand in customer responsiveness. Subaru moves up from last year's fifth-place ranking.

Cadillac is number one, followed by Infiniti, Volkswagen, Subaru, and Toyota to round out the top five automakers. Subaru improves by five points for a score of 66, while the industry average is 58 points.

photo credit: Cross Creek Subaru

What does it mean for Subaru shoppers?

Most, if not all, of today's millennial customers first use their smartphone or tablet to shop before visiting a dealership in person. Yet, Subaru still ranks highest among car brands in responding to customers who visit retailers' websites. The new report says that Subaru retailers respond faster by text, phone, and email than other mainstream brands.

With Subaru's tight inventory, quickly responding to customers' questions is more important. Fran O'Hagan, CEO of Pied Piper, says, "The top-performing dealerships reach out to a customer using multiple paths, then when the customer responds, they follow up using the same path used by the customer."

photo credit: Cross Creek Subaru

Subaru retailers email or text answer a website customer's question within 30 minutes. Subaru was more than 50 percent of the time on average. How often did Subaru's retailers respond by phone to a website customer's inquiry? Subaru was more than 65 percent of the time on average.

Previous studies reveal that text messaging grew to 48 percent of customers receiving retailer text messages in response to website questions. This affects millennial shoppers (24-35), who are likelier to grab their cell phone and look up information on a Subaru retailer's website.

Subaru has the tightest inventory of any automaker in the U.S., and it's even more critical now that retailers communicate well with customers. O'Hagan says, "If a car brand or dealership is not evaluating its effectiveness at web responses, then the only one who is measuring it is their customers."

Shoppers looking for a 2023 Subaru Forester, Outback, Crosstrek, or another new model should find the Subaru of America and retailer website easy to use. More importantly, the local retailer will be quick to respond to inquiries. As a result, Subaru ranks number four overall in responsiveness in the new Pied Piper PSI Internet Lead Effectiveness Study.

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Denis Flierl has invested over 30 years in the automotive industry in a consulting role working with every major car brand. He is an accredited member of the Rocky Mountain Automotive Press. Check out Subaru Report, where he covers all of the Japanese automaker's models. More stories can be found on the Torque News Subaru page. Follow Denis on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

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Photo credit: Cross Creek Subaru