Generic Follow-Up Is Quietly Killing Your Leads

If a shopper submits a lead to three different dealerships, who wins the deal?

In 2025, DAS Technology studied responses from 1,700 dealerships and found that 78% of car buyers choose the first dealer who responds, yet only 61% of dealers respond within 15 minutes.

While one store is “thinking about the perfect email,” another is setting the appointment.

Speed is the first problem. The second is what you send.

Too many responses still look like this:

“Thank you for your interest in our dealership. A representative will contact you shortly.”

No name. No vehicle. No answer to the shopper’s question. It feels like it came from a robot and shoppers treat it like spam.

Multiple automotive email/CRM benchmarks show that even basic personalization changes the outcome. One analysis of automotive email performance found personalized emails achieve 44% open rates vs 39% for generic messages and can generate up to six times more transactions overall. (Demand Local, Inc. 2025)

Another dealership-focused study notes that messages sent from a real person’s name (not a generic dealership account) can increase click-through rates by 35%, and that personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. (Keybe 2025)

When you combine:

• Fast response (minutes, not hours), and

• Relevant, personalized content tied to the shopper and the vehicle

  
  

…you stop sounding like “just another dealer” and start sounding like the one worth talking to.

The bottom line: Generic follow-up makes you forgettable. Personalized follow-up makes you the obvious first choice.

Let Applied Concepts evaluate your follow-up responses.  Contact us today for more information.