Race Against the Competition: While You're Taking Hours to Respond, Your Competition Is Closing Deals
- Anthony Sudon
- Nov 4
- 3 min read
30-Second Takeaway: The 2025 DAS Technology study of 1,700 dealerships revealed a brutal truth: 78% of car buyers choose the first dealer who responds, yet only 61% of dealers respond within 15 minutes. While you're crafting the perfect follow-up email, your competitor across town is booking the appointment. The speed gap isn't just costing you leads; it's handing your competition a systematic advantage you might not even know exists.
The Digital Response Reality Check
Here's what happened when mystery shoppers tested 1,700 dealerships in late 2024: 19% took over an hour to respond to leads, and 4% never responded at all.
Think about that. Nearly 1 in 4 dealerships either ignored potential customers or responded so slowly that those customers had already moved on.
Meanwhile…
78% of automotive leads go with the first dealer who responds.
Not the best price. Not the biggest inventory. The first to reply.
Your Competition Is Playing a Different Game
While you're worrying about having the perfect email template or the most detailed pricing information, dealerships that understand speed-to-lead are booking appointments and selling cars.
The data is unforgiving:
Responding within 5 minutes makes you 10x more likely to connect than waiting just 10 minutes
Calling within 1 hour makes you 7x more likely to have a meaningful conversation
74% of dealers still don't include pricing in their initial responses. The ones who do gain an immediate competitive edge
The Competitive Blind Spot
Most dealers have no idea how they stack up against their local competition on digital response. You might think your 2-hour average response time is acceptable—until you discover the dealership down the street is responding in 15 minutes with complete pricing and availability.
Recent industry mystery shopping revealed that top-performing dealerships consistently outperform the competition in five critical areas:
Response Time - How quickly they acknowledge inquiries
Response Quality - Whether they actually answer the customer's questions
Information Completeness - Pricing, availability, next steps
Channel Optimization - Text-enabled lines, branded caller ID, mobile-friendly forms
Process Consistency - Same high standard across all channels
The November Challenge
Right now, while you're reading this, potential customers are submitting inquiries to you and your competitors. The ones who respond first, with quality information, are winning deals you don't even know you lost.
The dealership that consistently beats you to the inbox doesn't just win more leads. They train customers in your market to expect fast responses, making your delayed replies look even worse by comparison.
Don't Compete Blindfolded
You can't win a race when you don't know the other runners' times. Most dealers operate with zero visibility into their competitive landscape for digital engagement. This is the very area where customers make their first impression decisions.
Ready to see where you really stand? For a limited time, when you purchase an Applied Concepts Engagement Intelligence assessment for your dealership, you'll receive a complete competitive analysis of one local competitor absolutely free.
Discover exactly how your digital response speed, quality, and process stack up against the dealership that's been stealing your customers.
Or
Call 800-393-CARS (2277)
Join Applied Concepts at NADA 2026
Sources:
· DAS Technology 2025
· Harvard Business Review
· InsideSales studies
