Please see our latest interview with FOXY Choice’s Female Business Ambassador, Eileen Jack, who runs female friendly Lambert Street Garage in Halifax.

Eileen has been a supporter of the FOXY Choice approved garage scheme since its very early days.

Unlike some opportunistic garage owners who want to see if what we do means foxy ladies queuing at their door without any effort on their part, Eileen takes the female friendly business agenda very seriously.

She understands the female dynamics of course and that it’s often the very sight of a female in the business that reassures wary females; convincing them to visit Lambert Street Garage rather than another local garage. Right or wrong, many women are distrustful of males in the motor industry either based on their past experiences or the stories they have heard from others.

But it’s only when you interview someone that you start to get a feel for the person, their business principles and the other loves in their lives.

It is clear that Eileen loves horses as well as engines and we now know Lambert Street Garage is a female friendly family business which she runs with her son. Her husband brought her into the business and it’s equally evident that she does her job well and it’s sorting out her customers’ motoring problems that really turns her on.

And that is what makes a successful business of course. We’re not just here to make money on one-off sales, we’re here to make a difference through customer relationships. Get things right for the customer – exceed her expectations wherever you can, and she’ll pay back in spades through loyalty, referrals and by acting as your brand ambassador whenever she can.

Which is why having a Female Brand Ambassador in any business (but particularly in one with such a male dominated image) makes such good sense. And why, if you are female, it makes good sense to promote your existence and the fact that any wary customer (male or female alike) can speak to you about their car if they’d prefer.

And if the Female Business Ambassador isn’t the business owner, who is likely to do all this sort of thing instinctively, it surely makes business sense to appoint the right female to represent women’s best interests in this business. And to back her judgement and ideas to bring you more female business in future.

FOXY Steph

“I don’t mind living in a man’s world if I can be a woman in it.” Marilyn Monroe

There are times when a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do…in this case move bank to a female friendly one.

I live in a Sussex town called Steyning, mid way between Worthing and Brighton. We had all the usual bank suspects until recently when my bank, the Halifax, closed its branch here last month leaving their coalition colleague Lloyds across the road.

In between a raft of banks we have a vibrant High Street full of more than the average share of shops that are clearly vying for the female purse. Multiple fashion shops, beauty salons, lingerie, hair, children’s clothing, jewellery shops are dotted among the likes of local butchers, bakers and rural candlestick makers. And whilst this isn’t a scientific calculation I’d lay money on the fact that there seem to be more small businesses in Steyning owned or run by women than men. So they will probably have more than one bank account like me – for personal and/or business in addition to influencing where any children open savings accounts of course.

The point is that Steyning is a place where women (including Mums with children at our biggest business, Steyning Grammar School)  undoubtedly represent the lionshare of High Street shoppers; by and large we’re independent souls, relatively wealthy and choosing to stay in Steyning and support the local economy which should be encouraged.

We should therefore figure large when it comes to marketing financial services to women but I’m not convinced we are being looked after as well as we could be in this instance.

When my bank the Halifax wrote a round-robin letter to me in December to say they were closing my Halifax branch of 20+ years, they didn’t see this from my point of view.  I expected some sort of reciprocal arrangement with Lloyds across the road, at least to pay in cheques which my parents often send me at birthdays and to pay for things I organise for them. A perfectly reasonable assumption and what I would have arranged if I had been in charge .

But I was wrong. I can’t pay in a cheque across the road but I can use my expensive time to be interviewed by the Lloyds Bank manager to open a new account with them. I was surprised to find this sibling rivalry when

1   I didn’t want to move banking brands and
2   This doesn’t make things easy for Halifax customers in Steyning.

And if I want to pay in a cheque now, which is what I went to do remember, I can do this via the Post Office.  Excellent. But this will add a 4 day handling period to their normal clearing period, I need a specially designed paying in book (why?), it will take  28 days to send these to me (what??) AND they need my address (I’m speechless…) after I have banked with them for so long.

On reflection, if I have to set up a new bank account with all the time and inconvenience involved (for me) I don’t feel inclined to stay with a banking group that hasn’t troubled to think through its financial service levels for me. They should have agreed a more customer friendly handover service plan I’d say.

Now, where should I move my account to? Then my husband’s and my son’s before he heads off to University. And if my Mum moves her bank account from Halifax, and her savings account too, to one that’s in Steyning that’d be easier for me and should complete the suite of bank accounts I can influence in my private life. And then there’s the Club of course.

That’s the point of being seen as a female friendly business of course. Women are more demanding, we have this shopping influence (think Mary Portas) and, despite our understandable reluctance to move banks because of the hassle barriers, there are times like this when we will take our considerable business elsewhere to make a female point.

Were it not for the hassle factor of course. This is why the banks often get away with similar service level faux pas. Perhaps they do see things from a female point of view.

FOXY Steph

Given a choice of addresses, if I wanted one to sound friendly and different I’d probably pick Greetland as a great indicator of a warm and female friendly business.

Last week I spoke to Eileen Jack at Lambert Street garage in Halifax and there it was, a female friendly garage in Greetland which is a district of Halifax.

And whilst carrying out her marketing review with FOXY Choice  I learned that Eileen has been dealing with a business that had bought a domain name for her so she would then pay them to advertise her business with them. They then used her domain name to promote their business not hers and where there was a listing of garages hers appeared in sixth place not first. Remember she had paid for this ‘marketing service’.

How stupid do these people think female business owners are, simply because they are too busy running a successful business to know all there is about internet matters?

Increasingly we find a lot of these advertising sharks around giving the likes of FOXY Choice a bad name even though we are selling a female friendly marketing service, not just advertising.

And really awful to take advantage of a female friendly garage like Lambert Street Garage in Halifax Greetland, run by a foxy lady herself who is busy looking after local women drivers and doing a great job at MOT, car servicing and repair times.

When will the motor industry get its female friendly marketing act together and realise that women are the future entrepreneurs representing the lionshare of female influencers of cars and garage services. We know what we want and I am sure that Eileen will have made that point very clear…

FOXY Steph