Who owns the customer now? Why speed and data decide which retailers win

How long does your dealership take to reply to a new lead? 
 
Ask most dealers and they’ll say “instantly”. A year ago, the data told a different story. When DubiCars began tracking WhatsApp enquiries, the average UAE dealer took 20 working hours to respond. 
 
That gap between what retailers believe and what customers experience ran through the panel I hosted at Fusion Live Dubai 2026, “Who owns the customer now?”. I was joined by Craig Stevens, CEO of DubiCars, and Felix Weller, Managing Partner at QI Advisory, who has spent more than 20 years leading OEM brands across several regions. 
 
Their answer was uncomfortable but clear. Brand loyalty is weakening as new entrants flood the market, so retailers must win on two things they control: how fast they respond and how well they hold on to the customer. 

Leads go cold in 15 minutes 

 
Buyers aren’t waiting for anyone. For every lead created on DubiCars, the same buyer creates another five to seven, across a range of different cars. “There’s no loyalty to that ad or that dealer or that lead,” Craig said. “It’s whoever comes to me first.” 
 
If whoever responds first wins, car dealer response time is the most important number in the dealership. Few dealers measure it. 
 
When Craig and I spoke before the panel, he told me around 85% of DubiCars’ leads arrive through WhatsApp, and that dealer response times vary, to put it kindly. His team has set 15 minutes as the absolute maximum response window.  

On stage, I asked him what happens to a buyer when nobody replies. “After 15 minutes from creating the lead, you’re no longer in the mode to buy a car,” he said. The school run or the next scroll takes over. Miss that window and “it’s just completely wasted money.” 
 
The quality of the first reply matters less than its timing. “Even just saying hi within five minutes is more important than taking two hours to come back with a very detailed response,” Craig said. In a city where almost anything can be delivered in ten minutes, customers expect the same pace from their dealer.

Buyers are also changing how they ask. Google’s “I want to find” moments aren’t new, but AI tools have given them a new twist. I asked Craig whether buyers are bringing that habit into car search, and he agreed. More of them are asking questions rather than searching, and the most common ones are simple: is the car available, and can I test drive it? Those are exactly the questions technology can answer the moment they arrive. 
 
DubiCars is already acting on response times. Dealers who respond fast rank higher in its listings, and buyers who go unanswered are retargeted with similar stock from dealers who reply quickly. 

Own the customer, whatever the badge 

 
Felix sees the old fight between OEMs and dealers over customer data fading. Connected services mean customer data must reach the manufacturer too. In his view, the brand owns the lead, because it paid for the awareness that created it. But the retailer holds the relationship, and with buyers shopping several brands at once, that relationship is the asset that outlasts any franchise. 
 
“If you know that the customer will jump ship from one brand to the other, make sure that you have control of that customer data,” he said. That way, if a brand doesn’t deliver, the customer can “stay in your family” with another one. 
 
I asked Felix whether salespeople still see capturing data as a burdensome admin task. “100%,” he said. That’s why he believes data capture must be mandatory, not optional, and why incentive schemes should reflect it. Without it, “you can’t qualify the customer properly. You can’t choose the right car for the customer.” 
 
Craig added a reality check. DubiCars sends more than a million leads a year to dealers. How many of those buyers are kept warm, retargeted or offered something else after the first conversation? He suspects very few. Most of the market still runs on a transactional mindset: get the lead, do the deal, move on. That works while a market grows. It doesn’t when it tightens. 

Measure the inputs, not just the outcome 

 
So why is something as simple as replying to a lead still so hard? Felix pointed to habits formed in a growing market, when a missed lead was easily replaced. He also put part of the responsibility on OEMs, whose targets and dealer standards move far slower than the Chinese brands now competing for the same customers. 
 
The fix, he argued, is governance. Speed and lead quality KPIs are usually available, but rarely targeted. “A lot of OEMs and dealers are just looking at the month and how many cars will be sold,” he said, rather than at the levers that drive the result. 
 
When I asked each of them for one thing retailers should focus on in 2027, Craig’s answer followed the same line. “Look at the metrics that you’ve got in your business and how many of those are related to speed.” Output is easy to measure. Inputs are where the gains are. 

This is not a blip 

Felix’s answer was the one I’d take into next year. “This is not a blip. What happens in the market right now is not going to go away. It’s a structural change, and you’re not going to fix it just by slapping AI on something.” 
 
At Keyloop, we agree. It’s why we build the way we do. Car dealer lead response time and customer ownership aren’t separate problems. A retailer can only reply in minutes, and keep that customer when a brand changes, if their enquiries, stock and customer records sit on one connected platform.  
 
That’s the foundation for AI that helps, such as AIME, Keyloop’s AI communication agent for car dealerships, which answers enquiries the moment they arrive and launches in the Middle East in 2027. 
 
So, who owns the customer now? Whoever responds first and remembers them longest. 
 
See how the Fusion Automotive Retail Platform helps retailers respond faster and keep hold of every customer.