More than a quarter of customer engagements with car dealers came over 48 hours after an enquiry, according to Impel’s analysis of online leads.
The automotive artificial intelligence (AI) company analysed 549,476 UK leads handled by its Sales AI platform in the 12 months to October 31, 2026.
The platform recorded 148,658 customer engagements and booked 15,853 appointments without human intervention, according to Impel.
Of those engagements, 28% occurred more than 48 hours after the original enquiry, representing 42,070 customers.
It took an average of 3.7 outreach attempts to generate an engagement and 4.9 to generate an appointment.
Being there when the customer is ready
James Leese, UK managing director at Impel, said: “Some want to engage straight away, some are doing it when the dealership is closed and others will go quiet before coming back days later.
“A lead going quiet and a lead being lost are not the same thing.
“For dealers, that means responding quickly still matters, but so does what happens next.
“You need to be there when the customer is ready and have the persistence to maintain the conversation when they aren’t.”
The findings follow Impel’s earlier After the Lead Lands mystery shopping research, which found that 34% of dealers stopped contacting a prospect after one attempt.
The remainder maintained contact for an average of 3.9 days.
The latest analysis also highlighted demand outside dealership opening hours, with 39% of engagements taking place outside business hours.
These engagements converted to appointments at the same rate as those during opening hours, at 11%.
Speed of response remains important
Speed remained important, with 38% of customers who engaged doing so within 15 minutes.
SMS accounted for 53% of engagements and 66% of appointments where a communication channel was attributed. Some 13% of SMS engagements generated an appointment, compared with 8% for email.
The analysis covers leads handled by Impel’s platform, rather than all UK dealership enquiries.
Leese said: “The lesson is to meet customers where they are.
“Some will want to speak to someone, while others are perfectly happy to progress digitally. And if they don’t respond immediately, that doesn’t mean they’ve disappeared.
“Giving customers different ways to engage, then following up consistently and respectfully, gives them the opportunity to progress when they’re ready.”
Impel Sales AI handles responses and follow-up to online enquiries, answers customer questions and books appointments, handing conversations to dealership teams when needed.
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