Think of it as your car’s motoring fitness check and even though it’s simply a safety snapshot on the day, it’s good to have the MOT milestone done and dusted for the year ahead. And to know that you can have it done a month earlier than its expiry date without the garage altering its 12 month validity.

I’ve just received a reminder from SB Motors in Hove that the Citroen’s MOT is due. I had hoped we’d have exchanged this car for a younger one by now but it has never faltered, has the 2.0HDi engine which gives us 60+ mpg on combined motorway and urban use and so we haven’t got round to it yet. At least it’ll have a fresh MOT when we do. We’ve acquired a second Citroen, an XM, in the meantime but goodness knows what the plan is for that other than a quirky mechanical challenge for the helpdesk team!

We are seeing some fantastic motoring offers for Club members but where these are for garage services, how can non member women drivers tell who the best and therefore safest garages are?

Well I’m likely biased as far as SB Motors is concerned because we’ve been working with them from FOXY’s very early days and they are now a FOXY approved female friendly garage in Hove and listed at FOXY Choice. Another factor that matters is that they are a Unipart Car Care Centre which means a no quibble 12 month parts guarantee should any repair fail and you’re travelling the country or on holiday. You can count on Unipart even if it’s better known in the trade than by women.

But if you want to know what your quality garage choices are, I suggest you read our Good Garage Guide although it’s a far too complicated choice I’m afraid. Or join the Club and we’ll help you on a 1:1 basis.

Just for the record, if you are in Hove, here are SB Motors’ latest offers which all include 20% VAT of course.

• Half price MOT with any service
• MOT for just £35 – RRP £54.85
• Low mileage minor service for £70
• Air con and regas £39
• Free fitting of wiper blades and most bulbs

All in all we’ve a great selection of deals like these, for members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club to share with their family knowing their motoring and female friendly garage choices can be trusted and relied upon.

FOXY Steph

It makes compelling business sense to be different, especially in an industry like the UK’s garage one where it’s hard to single out measurable quality with so many competing codes and trade acronyms.

So why not use genuine customer service differentiation to bring you new business that can then introduce new customers? The secret is surely to understand female shoppers needs first then get things right for them; particularly in an industry with such a lacklustre image for quality and a colossal number of complaints each year.

In short, given a choice women expect and certainly prefer to deal with female friendly businesses – ones that recognise their special antennae when it comes to customer service.

Yet some businesses think that what they do for men should be good enough for women without realising we don’t want to be treated as men! These businesses often say “isn’t that what equality is all about?”.

Well no actually. Exceeding expectations for the gender that is responsible for the lionshare of all purchases (the woman) makes business sense and has nothing at all to do with any perceived feminist agenda. You want to delight all customers, not expect them to put up with service levels that don’t meet their needs. And if you start with female friendly standards you’ll get it right for most men in a big way…

A good example of businesses getting service levels wrong for all motorists is in the area of give-away price discount promotions. Meeting up with multiple-business entrepreneur Caroline Baxter of FOXY approved female friendly SB Motors in Hove recently we discussed the practice of UK garages selling  short term eye-catching discounts intended to bring them immediate MOT and servicing business. And how quickly this backfires when the plunderer uses the offer as an evident ‘sprat to catch a mackerel.’

Caroline was able to quote chapter and verse about this happening from her experience in the motor trade. Big discounts work in tough economic times of course and are often a salutary lesson for those who return to their original garage suspecting that the ‘you need this, that and the other work done’ prognosis cannot always be trusted. And they were right to question this because in too many cases the work didn’t need doing anyway.

This is outrageous and allowed to happen because few female or male motorists realise that the UK garage industry isn’t regulated, that anyone can set up a garage regardless of background and that mechanics don’t have to be qualified or accredited to today’s standards. To repair a major safety fault perhaps? Which many don’t spot of course. That’s the frightening bit.

And often because the garage industry is more interested in promoting a swift and straightforward complaints procedure than pitching industry code standards high enough in the first place.

One way women drivers can feel confident is to shop for businesses that sign the female friendly FOXY Promise to ‘never overcharge, patronise or sell women services they don’t need’. If a subscribing garage or dealership signs this then offends in any way, women can tell FOXY Choice who will then add their independent opinion and help sort things out with the garage or dealership and the motorist (we don’t take sides we just say how we see it…).

As you might expect, the businesses that sign up to the FOXY Promise are usually the ones that

• have already taken that extra step towards being better and more female friendly than the rest

• see FOXY approved female friendly status as an endorsement of that investment of time, care and/or money

• wouldn’t want FOXY to spread the word to local women drivers within FOXY Lady Drivers Club; which we wouldn’t assuming things are sorted out fairly and pronto

As FOXY sees it, a female friendly garage or dealership carrying out garage services is better than the rest when it comes to measurable quality workmanship standards, perceived value for money (not to be confused with being the cheapest), cleanliness and a genuine female friendly welcome with facilities to match.

This all makes business sense when you remember that a significant proportion of women see garages as ‘too blokey’ and postpone their visits. Make them feel more welcome by delivering excellent value for money and chances are they’ll visit more often and spend more in so doing. Then tell their friends.

I hope the motor industry soon recognises that being seen as female friendly is their opportunity to stand out in a crowd for the right reasons in very difficult trading conditions.  For certain, the FOXY Promise cannot be signed by businesses who are often branches of a nationwide chain that actively encourages them to sell on the basis of commission. Think about it – this means they are being asked to sell garage services like tyres, batteries, windscreen wipers and other quick fit motoring commodities regardless of customer need. Which is an alternative way of saying that their staff are being incentivised to ‘rip motorists off.’

A message for motorists in 2011 – be wary when garage shopping for MOTs, repairs and car servicing and look for quality indicators that independent businesses like FOXY Choice are monitoring.

FOXY Steph

Our family bus, the wonderful long suffering Citroen Picasso, needed its MOT doing this week. The nearest FOXY Choice subscriber was female friendly SB Motors garage in Hove run by foxy lady Caroline Baxter so off I trotted for a chat whilst the job was being done.

Caroline told me that despite trading better during the recession than in 2008 (in which she is bucking the industry trend) the Bank says she is in a high risk area (garages presumably are discretional income?) so she can’t expect to borrow from them and must fund business growth herself. Whilst I am waiting for my car in the nice and warm reception area there is a steady flow of MOT, car servicing and repair business coming and going which certainly looks healthy to me.

My car then fails its MOT (I seem to recall a recent ‘grounding’ that may have caused this which my husband is unaware of until he reads this…) and needs a central exhaust part <not discretional income in any way Mr Bank Manager> so off I trotted again yesterday to get the job finished.

Whilst I was there I finalised a special offer for local members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club and talked Caroline into being FOXY’s first Female Business Ambassador; a new network to recognise female friendly garages who employ and/or are run by women, giving them the opportunity to describe a typical day for the benefit of other females who might want to know what is involved.

In my experience this means they are more likely to understand and appreciate what women want and many women see this as a sign of reassurance BUT it is by no means compulsory to employ women to be a female friendly business so this is not sexist thing and in fact most of the men I have spoken to quite like the idea too .

More about this later as the Female Business Ambassador network is under wraps and not quite ready to launch yet… hopefully by early February.

FOXY Steph