To be genuinely female friendly in my book any garage, dealer or dealership has to be one of the very best there are and be able to prove this to discerning foxy ladies in their area.
It’s all too easy to say ‘we are female friendly’ or ‘we are a good garage’.
What’s to stop bad and unfriendly garages, dealers and dealerships from using this as a marketing ruse? And some do, believe me 
without understanding what women want (which is not colouring a male product pink…).
Well I thought long and hard about this before I set up FOXY Lady Drivers Club and again before launching the female friendly FOXY Choice garage website last year because whoever sets out these standards must be totally independent and not influenced by an owner or sponsor that has a vested interest in spinning the marketing message in their direction. Which must be tempting.
You could say, for example, that Forte Oils has a vested interest in signing up any garage that will sell a lot of their oil and fill in gaps in their UK network. But they have a brand image to preserve so presumably they are weeding out any chancers as they go…
Similarly you could also say that the Motor Codes service and repair scheme, sponsored as it is by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders who represent the new car manufacturers, have a vested interest in promoting franchised dealerships over independent garages, which this scheme does in the ratio of some 80:20 still, despite knowing that dealerships carrying out garage services will charge motorists up to 30% more than they’d pay otherwise in a quality independent garage. But you could also say it was a brave attempt, they have tried (albeit long after the dealerships got their towels down first) and this ratio might be improving slightly by now…
But the real way to judge a quality or female friendly business is surely by giving the customer (in this context the female motorist) the information they need to make the right buying choice for them. I find that women drivers want to be reassured by ‘feeling’ the quality and customer service in advance, be this in terms of doing their homework online concerning business facilities, services, amenities, awards, values and other female satisfaction levels.
The only problem with testimonials, I find, is that they can so easily be written by anyone or those with a vested interest again, and to order. I know this happens because we follow up the many recommendations we get and very often the surnames are the same as the business owners so it isn’t rocket science to spot this!
The best way for the moment is surely through self-certification where the business promises quality performance which is much higher than just ‘work completed as agreed’, ‘invoices that match quoted prices’ or ‘we use a job checklist’ <yawn>. These should all be minimum standards in the motor trade and if one thing has shocked me as an industry outsider it was the low standards in this area when our personal safety is at risk, should a mechanic be one screw short in his personal tool kit for example.
What FOXY does instead is to ask garage and dealership subscribers to sign the female friendly FOXY Promise© to ‘never knowingly overcharge, patronise or sell women services they don’t need or want’. They then get marketing materials from FOXY Choice to prove this.
We also share female feedback within the Club, act as a backstop if anyone needs our female ‘welly’ to get things sorted out and ultimately we are prepared to eject any ‘couldn’t care less’ or worse behaviour from our network of female friendly garages and dealerships across the UK.
The next stage will be to prove that a business is female friendly, much in the same way as the OFT Code of Practice (stage one ‘I promise’, stage two ‘I can prove’) and this is what the femalefriendlyapproved.com website will do in 2010 including consultancy advice, female friendly training, a managed and approved status scheme and ongoing monitoring of standards including mystery shopping and a home for stressed out and confused women drivers – all looking for independent and trustworthy advice and tips about where the best value and female friendly businesses are to be found.
FOXY Steph
