In an industry where nearly half of all online customers inquiries receive no personal response from dealers, Kubota stands out as the top brand actually doing things right. The annual Pied Piper PSI Internet Lead Effectiveness Compact Tractor Industry Study, which measured dealership responsiveness to internet sales leads, showed Kubota at the top, followed by TYM, Mahindra, John Deere, and Yanmar.
Pied Piper submitted customer inquiries through 772 compact tractor dealership websites representing all major brands. The study found that 47 percent of all tractor customer inquiries received no personal response, a rate 7 percent worse than last year. Overall, the 2026 results show that industry average performance has not improved since 2022, the first year this data was collected, while dealers in other motor vehicle industries have substantially raised their level of performance in that same span.
“The tractor industry has not improved in five years, and half of website customers receive no personal response,” said Cameron O’Hagan, Vice President of Metrics and Analytics at Pied Piper. “However, dealers receiving monthly web-response measurement and reporting dramatically outperform the industry, averaging an ILE score of 48, well above all compact tractor brands and also higher than the powersports industry average.”
Each of the 772 ILE evaluations completed for the study asked a specific question about a tractor in inventory, during normal business hours for each location, and provided a customer name, email address, and local telephone number. Pied Piper then evaluated the speed and quality of dealership responses sent by email, telephone, chat, and text message within the next 24 hours following each inquiry.
ILE evaluation of a dealership consists of over 20 different weighted measurements, linked to best practices mathematically likely to generate sales. These measurements combine to create an overall ILE score ranging between zero and 100.
Industry performance in decline
The compact tractor industry’s average ILE score fell to 29, a four-point decline from last year. McCormick Tractor and Case were the only brands to show improvement, increasing 4 and 2 points respectively. All other brands were flat or declined by as much as seven points. Notably, even brands scoring above the industry average underperformed compared to dealers from other motor-vehicle industries.
The following are key behavior differences this year causing the drops in score:
- Fewer personal responses — Dealers industrywide were 7 percent less likely to phone the customer or answer their question by email/text, occurring only 53 percent of the time on average this year.
- More crickets — Compared to last year, an additional 7 percent of customer inquiries submitted to dealer websites received no response, not even an automated response, occurring 27 percent of the time on average.
- Less follow through — Only 16 percent of the email responses received provided next steps for the customer or attempted to set an appointment, down 6% since last year.
What behaviors placed Kubota at the top?
Kubota dealers in this year’s study had an average ILE score of 37, eight points higher than the industry average score. Kubota dealers answered the customer’s question more often on average, were more likely to use a combination of calls, texts, and emails when responding to customers, and had the lowest rate of failing to respond out of the brands measured.
- More customer questions answered — Kubota dealers answered the customer’s question by email or text 49 percent of the time on average, the third highest rate among the brands and 7 percent more often than the industry average.
- Higher rate of “doing both” — Kubota dealers were more likely to utilize multi-channel responses – answering the customers question by email/text while also calling the customer – doing so 23 percent of the time, almost double the overall industry.
- Fewer failures to respond — Customers received no response only 16% of the time on average when contacting Kubota dealers, compared to 27 percent of the time industrywide.
2026 brand performance compared
- “Answered Question” — How often did the brand’s dealerships email or text an answer to a website customer’s question?
- More than 50% of the time on average: TYM, Yanmar
- Less than 40% of the time on average: Kioti, New Holland, Case, LS Tractor, Bobcat
- Industry averages: 42% Tractor vs. 48% Powersport & 69% Automotive
- “Phoned Customer” — How often did the brand’s dealerships respond by phone to a website customer’s inquiry?
- More than 30% of the time on average: Kubota, New Holland, John Deere
- Less than 15% of the time on average: LS Tractor, Case, Yanmar, McCormick Tractor
- Industry averages: 25% Tractor vs. 50% Powersport & 66% Automotive
- “Did at least one” — How often did the brand’s dealerships email or text an answer to a website customer’s question and/or respond by phone?
- More than 60% of the time on average: TYM, Kubota
- Less than 50% of the time on average: Bobcat, LS Tractor, McCormick Tractor, Case
- Industry averages: 53% Tractor vs. 73% Powersport & 85% Automotive
- “Did both” — How often did the brand’s dealerships email or text an answer to a website customer’s question and also phone the customer?
- More than 15% of the time on average: Kubota, John Deere, New Holland
- Less than 5% of the time on average: Kioti, Massey Ferguson, Bobcat, LS Tractor
- Industry averages: 13% Tractor vs. 26% Powersport & 49% Automotive
- “Failed to Respond” — How often did the website customer fail to receive a response of any type (email, text, or phone call)?
- Less than 20% of the time on average: Kubota
- More than 30% of the time on average: McCormick Tractor, Kioti, Case, LS Tractor
- Industry averages: 27% Tractor vs. 9% Powersport & 6% Automotive
