The first is about a once tidy looking car which has been parked alongside the High Street in a Sussex village for a while and has been the subject of malicious vandalism. The owner doesn’t know who but the car has been dented, tyres damaged and paint stripper applied to devastating effect. Nobody has seen anything of course.

The car is a P reg Ford so she has scrappage options if she’s quick but she isn’t really in the market for a new car. And the tax runs out next month so it’s decision time and a distressed sale price likely…

The second story is the result of a car accident. The Renault Clio in question is shared by two young sisters in Surrey. One had a minor but expensive ‘bump’ and the girls now need a replacement car and a good deal for the sad looking Clio.

In cases like these, the whole family is affected, providing alternative transport, helping deal with tricky insurance claims and providing an occasional shoulder to cry on.

We can now do our bit to ease the load.

FOXY Steph

Find out how FOXY Lady Drivers Club can support women drivers with female friendly motoring advice and information at stressful times

This is worrying because worn tyres and faulty brakes can cause serious accidents and could lead to the car’s owner being held responsible for any damage or injuries caused.

Amazingly some 20% of drivers had known about the fault on their vehicle for more than six months but not bothered to do anything about it.

One in three said they could not afford to fix the problem whereas one in 10 said they did not have time to get their car repaired.

Try that as an excuse in law after an accident where someone was injured or killed.

Some 5% of vehicles in need of repair, says Britannia Rescue, had broken or missing wing mirrors, while about the same number had broken head or tail lights.

We find that some women drivers are so busy with family, domestic and job commitments that their car often loses out in terms of its regular care.

And the recent vehicle recalls by so many manufacturers, not just Toyota, tell us that nearly new cars are as likely as older ones to have serious safety issues so we need to remember to have our cars checked, maintained and serviced regularly to be sure they are safe.

Even those of us that do check our own car tyres, oil and water levels can miss important safety matters because we don’t know what else to look out for.

I’d worry that a dangerous car I owned might cause a serious accident that could kill or seriously injure my passengers, pedestrians or the occupants of other cars. Never mind the metal.

And increasingly we read that owners of poorly maintained cars have their insurance cover withdrawn when it can be proven that an accident was caused because the car owner had not carried out regular maintenance or had it serviced often enough.

I wouldn’t want to have that on my conscience for want of making an occasional hour to pop into my local garage for a free car check…

FOXY Steph

Find out how women drivers can save money on everyday motoring bills and enjoy free seasonal car checks.

Find out how to choose a good and female friendly local garage.

• The most common faults were worn tyres, defective brakes and faulty exhaust pipes. It goes without saying that worn tyres and faulty brakes cause accidents and could lead to a motorist being held responsible for injuries caused to another.

• One in five drivers had known about the fault on their vehicle for more than six months but not bothered to do anything about it.

• One in three said they could not afford to fix the problem whereas one in 10 said they did not have time to get their car repaired, neither of which would be an excuse in law if they caused an accident and someone was injured or killed.

• Some 5% of vehicles in need of repair had broken or missing wing mirrors, while about the same number had broken head or tail lights.

Steph Savill of female friendly marketing service FOXY Choice suspects that some motorists have become complacent about their cars, imagining that if they are fairly new they are probably safe.

“Just as the recent vehicle recalls by so many manufacturers tell us, even nearly new cars can have serious safety issues and we mustn’t treat our cars like household appliances, doing little to take care of them and expecting to throw them away when they get old. Even those of us who are competent at checking our car’s tyres, oil and water levels can miss important safety concerns because we don’t have the professional eye to spot the unusual.”

Steph recommends that all motorists have their cars checked by garage professionals on a regular basis and explains that

“A dangerous car can cause a serious accident that could kill or seriously injure the driver, passengers, pedestrians and the occupants of other cars. Those who own a poorly maintained car may find that their insurer withdraws cover if it can be proven that the accident was caused because the car owner had neither carried out regular maintenance nor had it serviced often enough.”

Find out where the good and female friendly garages are in your area.

Find out how women drivers can save money on everyday motoring bills including garage charges.

FOXY Steph

Thinking they are protecting their unborn child many motoring mums to be wear their seatbelt across the centre of their bump which is not, apparently, the right thing to do.

According to the IAM and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) motoring mums should

• Wear the lap strap below your bump, as low as possible, from hip-bone to hip-bone
• Keep the diagonal strap between your breasts, moving the strap around the side of your bump
• Adjust the fit to be as snug as comfortably possible
• You can push the seat back, as long as you adjust your mirrors accordingly and can reach the brake, accelerator and clutch. NB:You can buy pedal extenders for this purpose. Being an extra three inches away from the steering wheel makes a lot of difference in an accident.

Professor Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran, President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), said “Correct use of seatbelts by pregnant women is important, as incorrect use can cause harm to the fetus and fail to protect the woman in the case of an accident. Pregnant women should use three-point seatbelts above and below the bump, not over it.”

Women drivers can find out about motoring safety advice from FOXY Lady Drivers Club.

Motoring mums concerned about the competence of the garages in their area can find out more from the Good Garage Guide before singling out female friendly garages and dealerships from FOXY Choice.

FOXY Steph

Yet there has been very little in the trade press about this business move and, come to think about it, very little from Nationwide Autocentres’ about their business under normal circumstances, other than when they are pitching for industry awards of course…

Shouldn’t the garage and dealership industry want to know more about Halfords’ plans so they can compete with them more effectively? They are a national chain and many individual garages could be affected by their strategy. I posted a question about this very subject on a leading trade forum a week ago and nobody has responded yet.

It would be different if Halfords sold cars of course… aftersales and garage services are rarely top of the motor industry’s agenda despite a £9bn car servicing market.

Can’t help thinking of rabbits in headlights, frogs in hot water and ostriches practising familiar ‘head in sand’ antics…

Independent garages should be interested of course because Halfords seems to be offering several female friendly garage services that they are not. Like opening on Sundays and providing low cost fitting of bulbs and wipers so women drivers don’t get their hands dirty and/or have to pay over the odds for these routine but often tricky jobs. I speak as a convert here, having had an exploding windscreen wiper on a snowy Sunday motoring journey in Yorkshire recently when Halfords came to my rescue…

They should also be interested because Halfords admits to targeting the female purse and employing female mechanics, who are unlikely to be ATA qualified to begin with I’d imagine…

They should then be interested because Nationwide Autocentres do not, as yet, offer local car collection and/or courtesy car services so those independents that do, have a sales advantage that could work well if employed NOW.

And finally they should be interested because Halfords is planning to invest in posh reception facilities which [most??] old Nationwide Autocentre locations do not have now…so once again, female friendly independent garages with smart waiting areas, near shops and with car collection services and courtesy cars could steal a lead here if they got their act together NOW.

But the two main reasons why so many independent garages could lose out is because they are so complacent about their local female motorist business AND because few independent garages are genuinely computer literate and are failing to meet the demand for relevant information before women drivers choose who to give their business to.

Nationwide Autocentres are not unique in offering online bookings for MOTs and car servicing of course but they did take many years to introduce their system so it should be fairly robust. And whilst many female friendly FOXY Choice garages do offer online bookings, a significant percentage of small garages still don’t realise that a website is how women tell if they can trust them. Too many still can’t handle emails professionally, expecting customers to phone them and thinking they’ll have the same customers next year…

I wish them luck of course but they do not have a winning card to play in their hand…

From FOXY Choice’s female friendly point of view and on behalf of all women drivers too, we see most competition as good and healthy providing new garage initiatives raise standards for all and are not just attention grabbing headlines without genuinely sustainable quality substance.

I firmly believe that the garage industry must do more to raise awareness of quality standards so that male and female motorists alike understand how to stay safer on our roads by cherry picking businesses that clearly want to be better than others. They can demonstrate this by signing up to FOXY’s independent female friendly business Promise, by investing in regular technician training, by having the latest diagnostic equipment and by collecting informed and unbiased feedback about good garages, not just lacklustre testimonials that are often written to order…

FOXY Steph

“Find the good. It’s all around you. Find it, showcase it and you’ll start believing in it.”

Jesse Owens, Gold medal Olympian, 1913-1980

Not that I accept that we are any worse than men at doing either by the way but these (usually male driven) perceptions give women drivers a bad name and being peace makers by nature, we are more likely to accept blame for things we aren’t always responsible for… knowing that many men feel the need to believe/convince us that they are the better drivers

Parking sensors make sense to me (and I must say that it isn’t just women drivers who need these in our household…) because…

• Repairing a scuffed bumper costs £460 on average
• Bumps and scratches can reduce your car’s value by £00s
• 37% of all accidents are caused whilst reversing
• The majority of minor car repairs are likely to come out of your insurance excess

Well worth checking that your new car has these and to find out how much parking sensors cost to be fitted to used cars.

If you live near Peebles or Galashiels, female friendly Ford car dealership David Harrison lists costs from £270 on their website.

And female friendly Inchcape Ford car dealerships in Farnborough, Guildford, Wokingham and Guildford are advertising these from £234…

Needless to say you’ll also find some great new and used Ford car deals at both locations.

FOXY Steph

PS To check out female friendly garages and dealerships near you, use the FOXY Choice search finder on the home page…

Lethargy, apathy or a lack of online sales experience one wonders?

Sales business Optilead believes dealers are lagging behind the likes of travel and financial businesses who now know how to use the internet to their advantage.

To be sure, they carried out a survey based on mystery shopping via the internet at dealerships, contacting them via their website or by email to organise a test drive.

Most of us know that a test drive request suggests a customer is ready to buy and gives a salesman a very strong opportunity to sell that car…

Out of the dealers that Optilead contacted (no mention of survey size by the way) c25% called back within 24 hours, about half took between one and three days to call and the rest made no contact at all. That’s dreadful, especially when every sale counts in a recession…

Bearing in mind that some 80% of new car buyers do their homework online, and that women influence the majority of all car purchases, this is tantamount to dealers giving the driving wheel to a back seat driver who may then choose to go and buy from an online car retailer they don’t know to avoid the dealership experience altogether.

If the car buyer is female chances are she’ll be even more likely to buy online than her male counterpart to avoid being patronised and/or overcharged if she’s on her own.

This mightn’t be the case in some  dealerships but it is the perception of many women drivers and those that are not seen to be female friendly and efficient will steadily lose her custom as others strengthen their internet act and sales pull.

FOXY Steph

Find out more about how female friendly car dealerships can win more female business at FOXY Choice website.

Why bother making the industry more female friendly I can hear you ask? That’s the easy part! Because on a global scale women control about $20 trillion in annual consumer spending, and that figure could climb as high as $28 trillion in the next five years. And even more impressive – women represent a growth market bigger than China and India combined – more than twice as big to be precise. So you need to be there in her mind to get your share.

To be more female friendly, first and foremost, the retail motor industry MUST employ more females in all areas and levels of the business. At present some 20% of the retail industry are females and I read recently that c10% of females are in management jobs (which was higher than I had imagined…).

That’s pathetic of course but knowing that you must employ more women, how do you address the perceived chasm that the industry is not a female friendly employer alongside the self-perpetuating machismo that drives service levels and communications towards men. An example of this is where manufacturers focus on the performance of cars rather than their usefulness and when aftersales staff use unnecessary jargon and cause the female fog factor; in my experience this is common when it comes to car engines…

Yes, to employ a female she should be the best candidate for the job (as opposed to the only gender prepared to do it for so little?) so not anyone will do. If it is a business’s first female employee they may have to rethink their recruitment and employment policy too as well as staff amenities.

In many ways small garages are easier to make female friendly, especially when the often family owned business includes the wife, Mum, daughter or partner who gets involved on a daily basis. She makes it female friendly at customer level because she knows what women want and fear most.

The tricky cultural issue is more often in dealerships where the Dealer Principal is more likely to be a man and supported by male managers in the aftersales and car sales business units. Even if they wanted to employ females, few can work out how to do this or where to recruit them without falling foul of the equal opportunities lobby. Nor do many women read automotive job vacancies because they perceive this to be an unfriendly business to work in. So the male recruitment level is self-perpetuating and fulfilling…

There is a massive job to be done to encourage employers to recruit women and women to realise that their feminine talents can be used to add serious value to the balance sheet in future.

I have written the word ‘talents’ above and I can almost hear some males sniggering at this whilst they imagine the sort of feminine talents that are first to their mind ie we are not talking brains here. Having visited smart dealership and less smart garage workshops I know that both environments are equally as likely to have topless calendars and posters on show. I find them extremely demeaning and imagine I am not alone here.  If that is the business culture that is allowed in the workplace, no wonder female staff and customers alike would feel ill at ease and may well sense being patronised or treated as sex objects when they go to buy a car or garage services.

So what’s to be done, assuming the UK market finally gets its act together before we all go online and cut out the middle men.

Why not have a look at a new female friendly approved scheme including consultancy services, training and accreditation at femalefriendlyapproved.com.

And to find out about a unique range of female friendly marketing services for UK garages and dealerships, there’s always FOXY Choice providing you can meet the FOXY Promise© in real life.

FOXY Steph

So perhaps I am not surprised to read that female friendly law firms in the provinces are outperforming ones in the City when it comes to retaining, rewarding and appreciating female colleagues. This is what recent research by website magazine Legal Week confirms and that, over the last three years, regional firms promoted on average 37% of female partners, compared with some 20% in the top 10 City firms. And, on average again, across the UK’s top 30 legal firms, just under 28% of promotions have been female ie fewer than three vacancies out of ten have been filled by women.

While women make up less than 19% of the partnership on average across the UK top 30 as a whole, this figure falls to 16% at the top 10 City firms, but increases to nearly 24% in regional practices.

Shoosmiths has emerged as the most female-friendly law firm with women making up just over half of its recent promotions and a third of its partnership overall. Shoosmiths chief executive Claire Rowe said:

“The reason we have found it easier to retain female talent is that we have a transparent promotion criteria based on merit.”

Which is surely how it should be but perhaps Shoosmith is managing to bolster female confidence levels to positively encourage more women to apply for these senior jobs whereas Holman Fenwick Willan, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Simmons & Simmons presumably aren’t with only 12%, 13% and 13% respectively employing female partners back in May 2009.

Deirdre Walker, Group Head of Commercial, Real Estates and Disputes at Norton Rose believes that it makes good sense for more law firms to be female friendly and more flexible when women in their 30s and 40s, for example, may have children or other caring commitments to satisfy.

Deirdre explains that “At various points in a female career other events are going on outside of work – this should not mean that our career is over. To end a career just because you want to put it on hold does not make commercial sense.”

Yet the reality is surely that when corporate legal men are in charge (as in the majority of cases) they are less likely to see the need to be flexible to retain females if men are available instead and may seem less likely to take these career breaks.

Whereas if a woman is in charge, as at Shoosmiths, she will know just how hard the right female will work to balance a career and her family commitments. Which is why the right women with family commitments should always be allowed to secure the job… even if they may need some compassionate leave and support at certain and unavoidable times.

I’d add to this debate that in my experience, ambitious men were more likely to change employers than ambitious women ( is there any evidence of this…) yet it was more often the women that got criticised for having babies rather than the fast moving CVs that were invariably male.

FOXY Steph

To find a unique female friendly motoring association for women visit FOXY Lady Drivers Club.

To find the nearest female friendly good garages and dealerships in the UK  visit FOXY Choice.

I now realise that their research turns out to be based on 1194 motorists which they have extrapolated, for headline reasons perhaps, to suggest that over 14 million motorists ‘feel short changed by their local service and repair garage’.

On reflection whilst this is probably a highly misleading statistic no matter the qualifying asterisks in the Press Release if we assume that this is a sufficiently representative sample to be meaningful in any way, then the following findings are very worrying on their own:

• Almost half of UK motorists (45%) feel they have been ripped off by garages (allegedly representing some 14,063,614 motorists).
• UK motorists feel out of pocket to the tune of an estimated £2.4 billion
• Young drivers are hit hardest with 41% of 16-24 year olds feeling ripped off by local garages to the tune of £51 – £150… which could be explained if they ended up in dealerships without realising they are more expensive than garages of course – whose fault would that be?
• Some 30% of motorists aged 25-34 and over 55 were dissatisfied with their local garage
• Over a quarter of all motorists who felt ripped off believed they paid between £51 and £150 more than they needed to… which could be explained if they ended up in dealerships without realising they are more expensive than garages of course – whose fault would that be?
• 5% of motorists felt they had been ripped off to the tune of more than £300.
• Those who felt more than £500 out of pocket claimed to be on average £1,408 worse off following their latest service.
• The East feels the pinch the most where a third of motorists claimed to have been short changed, compared to just 17% of motorists in Northern Ireland.

If anything was to convince me that there is a case for regulating the UK garage industry, this research is surely it and may prove to be the tipping point for the likes of the Office of Fair Trading who will surely see that this is a quality hurdle too great for any Code of Practice to tackle, unless it’s compulsory…

Not serious at all according to Motor Codes however –  instead they think  it’s time to launch an upbeat Golden Garage competition using £16,000 prize money to reward the really good garages out there (and there are many, see the female friendly FOXY Choice website if you are in any doubt…).  Whereas I feel it’s time (and has been for some 50 years) to rid the industry of the really bad garages so that motorists can look forward to paying value for money prices for measurably good garage services in future, having understood the difference between dealership and garage standards and prices so they can choose the solution to suit them, their car and the occasion.

If that means regulation then so be it.

What I’d really like to know is the strategy behind this garage competition and how it will help outlaw the really bad garages who are as likely to cut safety corners to cut their costs as they are to rip off motorists.

Surely an industry scheme MUST DO MORE to ostracize those garages and dealerships that could be putting lives at risk and are certainly harming the image of this industry…

Yet by concentrating on good garages, Motor Codes seems intent on ignoring the cowboys.

FOXY Steph