Group 1 Automotive tops Pied Piper’s 2025 service appointment rankings—with eight out of 10 dealer groups analyzed improving their average Service Telephone Effectiveness (STE) scores from last year.
The details: The STE scores were compiled from service calls submitted to 2,105 dealerships representing 26 of the largest U.S. auto dealer groups and 200 independent service centers.
Group 1 Automotive scored a 76 on a scale of 0 – 100 for service telephone effectiveness—a 12-point increase from 2024.
Napleton Automotive Group had the second highest ranking in Pied Piper’s 2025 analysis, with a score of 73—an eight-point increase from last year.
Berkshire Hathaway Automotive earned the third top ranking with a score of 72—also an eight-point increase, compared to 2024.
Ed Morse Automotive Group scored 70 in the analysis—followed by Ourisman Automotive Group with a score of 69 and Greenway Automotive with an STE score of 69, with Ourisman and Greenway increasing their scores by eight and seven points, respectively, from the 2024 analysis.
Why it matters: Dealerships with high scores for service telephone effectiveness are better positioned to lean into their fixed ops (like service and repair) to weather the looming headwinds associated with the current new vehicle market.
Between the lines: Industry-wide, the average STE score was 64, an increase of four points compared to last year and six points since 2023—with the higher score in 2025 being attributed to better customer service experiences.
Service customers placed on hold for two minutes or more dipped to 2% of the time (on average) in 2025, compared to 13% last year.
The share of service customers who hung up the phone without being offered an appointment was 9% this year, down from 13% in 2024.
Group 1 Automotive’s 12-point increase in 2024 was marked by major improvements in the number of service appointments scheduled—with only 4% of the dealership group’s service callers not being offered an appointment, down from 10% last year and less down time on the phone.
Digging deeper: One of the most intriguing revelations in Pied Piper’s 2025 analysis is the efficiency of AI when it comes to scheduling service appointments.
Service customer calls handled solely by AI were successful 91% of the time— including addressing the customer’s request to schedule an appointment.
Customers successfully scheduled a service appointment 86% of the time at dealerships that rely on AI, compared to 90% of the time at dealerships that rely on human interaction.
The average STE score when AI successfully handled the entire service call was 72, 8 points higher than the 2025 national dealer group average, and nearly as high as the average STE scores for top performing dealer groups.
However, Pied Piper’s analysis did find that when a service call is transferred from AI to a human associate (for various reasons), the STE scores were substantially lower.
Bottom line: As new car sales face uncertainty, high STE scores show which dealerships are best positioned to drive revenue from fixed operations—as service call experiences continue to improve, with fewer delays, more appointments scheduled, and better use of AI.
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