What Is the “New Normal” Anyway? Which 2020 Dealership Changes Stuck

Larry Bruce wrote the first version of this post in December 2021 for his "2 Cents" column. He had just come back from Cliff Banks' Autovate 2021 event in Austin, Texas, and had read an Auto Finance News interview with Rick Ricart, dealer principal of Ricart Automotive Group, about the dealer's "new normal." His reaction: "this is the new NORMAL?!?!"

His argument was that none of it was new. In his telling, dealers have always changed only when a big event forced them to: fuel prices in the 1970s, new manufacturers in the 1980s, the incentive wars of the 1990s, a financial crisis that pushed dealers onto the internet, and then the pandemic. What customers wanted had not changed at all. He named three things: responsiveness, transparency ("clarity, honesty and trust") and convenience ("Make it easy for me to buy").

Nearly five years on, that view is worth testing. This article looks back from 2026 at what dealers changed in 2020, which changes stuck, which faded, and what the pattern tells a powersports dealer principal or sales manager about the next forced change. For where the evidence points next, see the future of powersports dealerships, read from OEM and dealer-group filings. Car-buyer research is labelled as car-buyer research. Powersports figures come from powersports studies.

Larry's point: the new normal was the old wish list

Larry's column made two claims that still hold.

The first is that the pandemic did not create new customer wants. It removed dealers' ability to ignore old ones. A buyer who could not visit the showroom still wanted a quick answer, a straight price and an easy way to buy, and stores that could deliver those things online kept selling.

The second is about who has to make the change work. He reminded dealers that "Dealerships are in the SERVICE business with a product to sell," and he told them to adopt "technology that makes it easier for my sales team to use, buy-in on and comply with." In other words, a change only lasts if the people doing the work find it easier, not harder.

That second point turns out to explain most of what stuck and what faded. Keep it in mind as you read the table.

What changed in 2020, and what stuck

The table below sets each 2020-era change against what the evidence shows in 2025 and 2026. Cox Automotive's Car Buyer Journey surveys car buyers, not powersports buyers, so treat those rows as a guide to habits, not a powersports measurement. Pied Piper's study measures powersports dealers directly.

Three patterns sit inside that table:

• Changes the customer pulled for stuck. Online research and online steps stayed because buyers kept using them, whatever dealers did.
• Changes that depended on scarcity faded. Pricing power and waiting lists ended when inventory came back. Our look at the powersports market after the pandemic boom covers that reset in detail.
• Changes that needed daily discipline from staff faded, unless a system carried them. Fast lead response and appointment setting are the clearest examples, and that is where powersports and car retail split.

Where powersports did not keep up

This is the part most "new normal" articles miss, because most were written in 2020 or 2021 and predicted the future instead of checking it.

Pied Piper, a firm that mystery-shops dealer websites, publishes an annual Internet Lead Effectiveness (ILE) score from 0 to 100 for powersports and car dealers. Its 2026 powersports study submitted inquiries through 2,133 powersports dealership websites, each asking about a specific motorcycle or side-by-side, and scored the responses over the next 24 hours. The year-by-year averages it published tell the story:

Car dealers turned the 2020 habit of fast, personal online response into a process and kept improving it. Powersports dealers, on average, did not. Pied Piper describes the powersports score as "stalled in the mid-40s for the fifth year in a row," and reports that more than half of powersports web inquiries still got no personal response within 24 hours. Only 24% of powersports dealers both answered the question by email or text and phoned the customer, against 62% of car dealers.

Pied Piper sells this kind of measurement, so read its advice with that in mind. Its explanation is still useful: Cameron O'Hagan, its vice president of metrics and analytics, said dealers "are twice as likely to be top performers if they commit to responding to web customers at least once each day and receive monthly web-response measurement."

Our reading, which is opinion rather than data: many powersports stores treated 2020 as an emergency, not a new process. When demand ran hot, buyers came anyway, so slow replies did not seem to cost anything. When the market cooled, the habits were gone. That is exactly the cycle Larry described. Dealers change when forced, then drift back when the pressure lifts. The next forced change may be a storm, an outage or a key person off sick rather than a pandemic, and a business continuity plan for dealerships is easier to write before it arrives.

For how buyer expectations changed over the same years, see how powersports buyer expectations have changed. For how the sales process itself has to change for a buyer who arrives researched, see traditional vs. modern dealership sales process.

Why the lasting changes were the easy ones

Look at the "stuck" rows again. Each one is something the customer does, or something a system does without a salesperson remembering to do it. The "faded" rows need a busy person to choose the harder path every day: reply now rather than later, propose a time rather than "come in whenever," keep the price clear when a discount would be quicker.

That is Larry's second claim in practice. A process that depends on willpower fades the first busy Saturday. A process that the tools make easier, or do on their own, lasts. It is also why sales technology can backfire: when a tool adds work instead of removing it, salespeople route around it, and the change fades again. Our companion piece, the opposite effect of empowering salespeople with technology, looks at that problem from the salesperson's side.

Five checks for your store's new normal

Use these to find which 2020 changes your store kept and which it quietly dropped.

1. Shop your own website. Have someone outside the store submit an inquiry about a specific unit in stock. Over the next 24 hours, record three things Pied Piper also measures: did anyone answer the actual question by email or text, did anyone phone, and did anyone offer an appointment for a specific date and time.
2. List the steps a buyer can finish online. Check credit application, trade value, price, deposit and appointment booking. Then check whether staff can see what the buyer already did, so nobody is asked to repeat it. Our guide to setting up digital retail at a powersports store covers the order to add them.
3. Read your prices the way a shopper would. Can a shopper see what a unit will cost, including your fees, before they call? If the answer changed when inventory came back, decide whether that was a choice or a drift. Start with your oldest units and compare each price with its days in stock; inventory management software that shows aging makes that a routine check.
4. Ask your salespeople which step they skip, and why. The answer is usually "it takes too long" or "I enter it twice." Fix the step, not the person.
5. Measure monthly and share the results. Pick the three numbers from check 1 and review them with the team every month, so the habit does not fade between busy seasons.

If you text customers, confirm your consent process for each kind of message with your counsel. This is general information, not legal advice.

Where PSX Ascend fits

PSX Ascend builds for the third pattern above: keeping the changes that depend on daily discipline by letting the system carry more of the work. The AI-powered powersports CRM is built to "Keep follow-up moving with less repetitive data entry while helping shoppers enter a two-way conversation faster," with real-time alerts so a reply reaches a salesperson quickly, and it is designed to "give managers a clearer way to coach execution."

ALMA, PSX Ascend's Automated Lead Management Assistant, works inside AMP, PSX Ascend's marketing platform. After salespeople have worked a new lead with several quick touches, ALMA does the repetitive work of re-engaging stalled prospects and brings them back to a live conversation with a person. ALMA does not use AI to call customers. The principle is "close deals, not chase them": salespeople do what they do well, and technology does the heavy lifting of chasing. For how that hand-back works day to day, see how an AI sales assistant helps salespeople win.

You can also see the same AI-powered powersports CRM on our sister site, PSXDigital's AI-powered powersports CRM page.

Sources

• Cox Automotive, 2025 Car Buyer Journey Study press release, January 13, 2026 (survey of 2,300 new- and used-vehicle buyers; car buyers, not powersports).
• Pied Piper Management Company, Indian Motorcycle Ranked Highest in 2026 Web Lead Response Study; Industry Enters 5th Year of Stagnant Performance, press release, March 23, 2026, including its 2022 to 2026 ILE score table.
• Polaris Inc., 2023 Annual Report and Form 10-K (dealer inventory commentary for 2023).
• Polaris Inc., 2025 Annual Report and Form 10-K (promotional cost commentary for 2025).