Sun Tracker ranked highest in sales call effectiveness study

Pied Piper has released the results of its 2025 PSI Telephone Lead Effectiveness (TLE) study, which measured how effectively boat dealerships responded to sales customers who phoned to inquire about purchasing a pontoon boat. Bass Pro Shops’ Sun Tracker dealers ranked highest, followed by MasterCraft’s Crest, BRP’s Sea-Doo, Winnebago’s Barletta and Brunswick’s Harris pontoon boats.

To complete the study, Pied Piper submitted 849 sales phone inquiries to dealerships representing the seventeen largest pontoon boat brands. Each dealership received a TLE score ranging from 0 to 100, based on their performance across 25 best-practice measurements proven to drive sales revenue and customer loyalty. Each brand’s overall TLE score reflects the average performance of their dealerships in the study.

Bass Pro Shops’ TLE Score

Bass Pro Shops’ Sun Tracker brand achieved an overall TLE score of 51, the highest average score in this year’s study and 7 points higher than the pontoon boat industry average. Sun Tracker locations more reliably met customer expectations, avoided dissatisfying call outcomes, and provided more solutions to inventory issues than competing brands.

• Highest Rate of “Mission Acceptable” – On average 84% of customers callingSun Tracker locations had a “mission acceptable” experience (calls that reached a salesperson within 1 minute, had their question answered, and received either an appointment or invitation to visit), a rate 20% higher than the industry average.

• Reliably Avoided “Mission Failure” – Sun Tracker locations had the lowest rate of “Mission Failure” calls (instances where a customer’s question was not answered and no appointment or invitation to visit was offered), occurring only 2% of the time on average. In comparison, the overall industry had 11% of calls on average result in “mission failure”, with some brands having failure rates as high as 22% of the time.

• Salespeople Overcame Inventory Issues – Only 6% of Sun Tracker locations did not have the desired boat in stock, and during calls when the boat was not available, the salespeople provided solutions 100% of the time by indicating they could order the desired boat or suggesting an alternative model from the same brand. In contrast, the average location industrywide had the caller’s desired boat in stock only 79% of the time and salespeople with availability issues suggested solutions only 80% of the time.

“One in four buyers start by calling a dealership,” said Cameron O’Hagan, vice president of metrics and analytics for Pied Piper. “That first phone interaction often determines whether the customer visits and buys, but what happens during those calls is usually invisible to management.”

Pied Piper has found that the key to driving improvement in telephone interaction and in turn higher sales is showing dealers what their telephone customers are really experiencing.

Opportunities for improving telephone sales

“Boat buyers’ expectations are shaped by previous experiences shopping for cars or powersports equipment,” said O’Hagan. “By comparison, the boat industry struggles to meet those expectations.”

• Low rates industrywide for scheduling appointments

A top priority for a salesperson encountering a phone customer is to communicate effectively and get that customer to come into the dealership, where the sales close rate is highest. Data shows appointments have a higher success rate of getting a customer through the door compared to informal invitations. The pontoon boat industry significantly trails the powersports and automotive industries in rates of setting up appointments over the phone, occurring only 19% of the time on average for pontoon boats vs. 77% and 92% of the time for powersports and automotive industries respectively.

• More unsatisfied callers than other adjacent industries

Another key measure is the rate of “mission failure,” calls where the phone sales customer’s question is not answered and no appointment or invitation to visit is offered. These failures often occur when no one answers the phone or when a salesperson is unhelpful or unwilling to engage due to lack of inventory. On average, 11% of sales customers calling pontoon boat dealers today experience in a mission failure, compared with only 4% in the powersports industry and 2% in the automotive industry.

Comparing Pontoon Boat Brand behaviors

Each brand’s TLE score is determined by the average performance of their dealerships through multiple measurements tied to sales revenue and customer loyalty. The following are examples of how each brand’s average customer experience varied, in order of best to worst performers:

• “Quickly Reached Associate” – How often did customers of the brand’s dealerships reach a salesperson within thirty seconds?
  • More than 70% of the time on average: Sun Tracker, Manitou, Godfrey
  • Less than 50% of the time on average: Premier, South Bay, Barletta

• “Answered Question Unassisted” – How often when calling a brand’s dealerships did the salesperson answer the customer’s initial question, without putting them on hold or consulting another employee?
  • More than 80% of the time on average: Harris, Bentley, Barletta, Avalon, Godfrey
  • Less than 70% of the time on average: South Bay, Tahoe, Starcraft, Sylvan

• “Overcame Inventory Obstacles” – When a brand’s dealerships did not have the desired boat in stock, how often did the salesperson offer to order it or suggest an alternative model from the same brand?
  • 100% of the time in the study: Sun Tracker, Barletta, Godfrey, Avalon
  • Less than 70% of the time on average: Bennington, Crest, Sylvan

• “Encouraged to Visit the Dealership” – How often when calling a brand’s dealerships was the customer offered an appointment for a specific date and time or informally invited to visit the dealership?
  • More than 90% of the time on average: Sea-Doo, Sun Tracker, Crest
  • Less than 75% of the time on average: South Bay, Tahoe, Sylvan, Starcraft
• “Gave Incentives to Purchase” – How often when calling a brand’s dealerships did the salesperson mention current promotions, incentives, credits, etc.?
  • More than 15% of the time on average: Sun Tracker, Crest, Premier
  • Less than 5% of the time on average: Lowe, Bentley, Tahoe, Starcraft