Fran O'Hagan

NEWS | VW dealers are leading the industry in service scheduling effectiveness: Volkswagen topped Pied Piper's 2026 Service Scheduling Effectiveness study with 73 points, setting appointments 91% of the time over the phone. That matters because two-thirds of service customers still prefer calling, and independent shops answered the phone in 38 seconds vs. dealers' 66. The industry average did climb 7 points, driven largely by fewer website tech failures, which dropped from 9% to 5%. "Make it hard for them and you lose them, and their revenues, forever." The takeaway: “People, AI, and internal systems have to work together, and unless you're measuring and tracking the end results, the only ones aware of your failures may be your customers,” said Fran O’Hagan, CEO of Pied Piper. Read today's top automotive stories, presented by CarMax Auctions: carguymedia.com/4A3AGOO (Source: Pied Piper)

NEWS | Consistency is leading MileOne to top of service scheduling effectiveness study: Pied Piper ranked the 31 largest dealer groups on how easy it is for customers to book a service appointment by phone or online. MileOne scored 80 out of 100. Group 1 Automotive came in at 79. Most groups scored well below 75. But the real headline is who outperformed dealers entirely: Midas, Pep Boys, Firestone, and Meineke all beat the industry average on call quality, scheduling success, and speed to reach an advisor. And AI is not the differentiator. Several top-five performers use no AI at all, while roughly 1 in 3 AI-to-human transfers ended in voicemail, a disconnect, or a hold. What this means for dealers: Customers shopping service are one bad phone call away from Pep Boys permanently. And the groups winning this study obsess over process consistency, not technology shortcuts. Read today's top automotive stories, presented by @PodiumHQ : carguymedia.com/4fiS0WE (Source: Pied Piper)

[NEWS] Napleton Auto Group is outclassing field on internet lead response rate: Napleton Auto Group just claimed its fifth straight top score in Pied Piper's Internet Lead Effectiveness study, beating 30 other large dealer groups. 92% of their leads get a "perfect" response. The industry average is 56%. 87% of internet leads receive a phone call within 15 minutes. The CEO of Pied Piper credits AI as a factor but warns it is not set-and-forget: humans still have to close the gap when automation hits its ceiling. The takeaway: Lead response is something Napleton treats as an operational discipline with daily accountability, and the scoreboard shows what that gap looks like at scale. Read today's top automotive stories, presented by @OPENLANEUS : carguymedia.com/3R5saNm (Source: Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index)