Recent Press - Wards Auto (Page 3)

I ask Fran O'Hagan for a point of clarification after he says he would have been impressed if his consulting firm's study showed Tesla dealerships were consistent “regardless of whether I believe they're doing the right thing.” Wait? Does that mean he might think it is wrong for Tesla to bypass the traditional franchised dealership system and instead run its own stores? A lot of state dealer associations think it's wrong. They cite various state ... Read More >

March 2014 In a perfect world, every dealership would act on every Internet lead, responding quickly and following all the right steps leading to a sale. Some individual dealers currently do all that all the time, and their high Internet-related sales serve as evidence. But when it comes to groups of dealers representing particular auto brands, it's an imperfect world, according to a Pied Piper annual mystery-shopping study measuring dealership ... Read More >

Ask car shoppers how a dealership salesperson should act, and they'll tell you this and that. Trouble is, they might not really know what makes for good salesmanship. Henry Ford said if he had asked his original customers what they wanted, they would have requested a faster horse. “The same could be said of asking people about their car-buying experience,” says Fran O'Hagan, CEO of Pied Piper Management. His consultancy recently completed its ... Read More >

Most-improved player Mercedes-Benz again leads an annual ranking that measures the sales effectiveness of different auto brands' dealers. This is the third year in a row Mercedes has topped Pied Piper Management's independent Prospect Satisfaction Index. The consultancy sent 3,524 mystery shoppers into dealerships. The covert operatives recorded how sales personnel did on matters ranging from product knowledge to whether they gave compelling ... Read More >

If auto dealerships respond slowly to Internet sales leads, don't blame customer-relationship management software, says Fran O'Hagan. He is CEO of Piped Piper, a consultancy that does an annual study using mystery shoppers to gauge Internet lead effectiveness of dealerships by vehicle brand. CRM systems help dealerships track and manage leads. But the systems only are as good as the people using them – if they use them at all. “CRM is great” and ... Read More >

Fran O'Hagan recalls when his vice president of operations, Miles Stearman, phoned him with a sudden realization about selling cars in the digital age. “Miles called from a dealership he was visiting and said, ‘The Internet is no longer incremental business at dealerships; it is the business,' and that's so true today,” says O'Hagan, president and CEO of Pied Piper Management, a firm that consults with dealers on boosting sales. Read More >