Tag Archives: Mumsnet

female friendly

MOT and a manicure anyone?

Carterton MOT and treatment-1

Would you buy an MOT and a manicure, or a massage, if they were attractively packaged and priced? I’d certainly consider it.

As you may know, FOXY Lady Drivers Club includes a network of garages that meet our standards in terms of quality, ethics, value for money, cleanliness and customer services.

We do this because few women realise that garages aren’t regulated and mechanics don’t have to be licensed to repair our cars. Which can make for dangerous cars and rip off practices which we know a lot about.

So we check out garage credentials for females and then promote them as FOXY Lady Approved ie female friendly, requiring regular female feedback to keep them on our network and their toes.

To the best of my knowledge one of our FOXY Lady Approved garages in Oxfordshire, called Carterton Auto Repair, is the first in the UK to offer women the combination of manicures and massages included in the cost of their MOT. As you might expect, this is a bit of light-hearted marketing fun but not everyone always sees gender marketing messages in this light.

Just for the record, this sort of initiative isn’t new in the US, France or Australia where women seem more relaxed about this choice of customer services.

What Mumsnetters think of Manicures in Garages

So where best to find out what UK women think about all this than that august barometer of female taste, Mumsnet. Posted under Feminism/Womens Rights this is what NotRealName wanted her fellow Mums to react to, followed by others taking similar and opposed stances.

notrealname

LassWI

Jen

enquiringminge

Mide

vestal

_______________________________________

All this makes for interesting insight for FOXY of course, because motoring services for women are what we do. But it just shows you how different women can be from each other, let alone men. And how unforgiving women can be when it comes to their gender…

Luckily Carterton services are optional and we know why they are doing this and I’m sure it’s a practice that’ll spread, even if you drop your car off and go next door for your manicure.

Men can be arsey too

And if anyone thinks it’s just women that can be arsey here, think again. In a garage in Kent last week the owner told me he’d had to remove his offer of a free Club membership for women drivers leaving feedback because the men wanted to know why they didn’t get one. The owner didn’t know to say ‘Sign your FOXY Lady up, Bill’ and you can likely share her offers and such like.

All this is ironic really. The garage industry has been run by men for men since WWII. Even today only a woeful 2% of staff in the retail motor industry are female. And now that the number of women drivers is about to outnumber that of men, men aren’t prepared to put up with female service levels today, after expecting us to do precisely this for 70 years…

And if men had sorted out the motoring industry during their 70 year reign, it wouldn’t be as dysfunctional as it is and there’d be no need for a motoring support service like ours for women. Which would be an all round good thing.

So let’s all grow up here.

Women are different from each other.

Men and women are different from each other.

Mumsnetters include mouthy and tolerant feminist views alike.

We all need to get on with it and let individual choice prevail.

Let’s celebrate well-intentioned initiatives like Cartertons (and FOXY) that are designed to give us choices that didn’t exist beforehand. It mightn’t be for you and it’s definitely not meant for everyone. But it’s called personal choice and I for one buy it.

FOXY

car dealerships, car shopping

Are women victims in car showrooms?

different_spinMaybe the automotive industry will read and react to the biggest survey so far into women’s perceptions of the car buying experience. But they haven’t got the message yet, hence this blog to help nudge this message further home.

Based on Mumsnet and Reevoo female customer data, this survey (by Good Rebels acting as Different-Spin.com) tells us what previous surveys have told us for ages – that women are critical customers for the automotive industry yet few manufacturers, dealer groups, garages or accident repairers are doing things well enough for us.

According to Good Rebels we are disenfranchised in this area. Yes, perhaps, but it’s an optional state of mind and if we want to do something about this we need to stand up for ourselves and be counted.

Which is what the not for profit FOXY Lady Drivers Club is all about of course, sharing feedback and handing out Red Cards as a last resort. I hate the very thought of women being victims here – or needing men to sort motoring matters out for us (which no woman does of course…).

Good Rebels research findings re women drivers

This research found..

+ 90 per cent of the women questioned would not visit a car dealership without a man in tow.
+ 56 per cent felt patronised by car advertising
+ 34 per cent felt that no car brand understands women

Looking for some good news, it seems that a few brands are deemed more female friendly than others but, in my experience, this doesn’t always carry itself into the dealership experience. Especially used car showrooms.

Hence the Good Rebels’ conclusions.

1/ It is time for the industry to start innovating.

2/ It is time for a consumer experience revolution in automotive.

Bring it on I say.

I’d then add

3/ It’s time to banish unfair haggling re car prices.

4/ It’s time for the industry to come together at the top to heal the bad image PR (like this and the perpetual proliferation of the male supremacy in all motoring and motortrade journalism) that makes women feel totally alienated from this shopping arena.

More women needed in the motor industry

But with an eye-watering statement at the IMI website over the weekend that only 2% of the motor industry workforce is female (even I was taken aback by this – can this possibly be true?) how can the motor industry in general be seen to represent its current and future VIP customers. And does it or the automotive press understand how they are making this worse by actively shoring up this boys car club?

When will the automotive industry start to heal itself here from the masculine Boardroom floors down?

I am writing this blog in my capacity as a consultant in this specialist area.

Steph Savill
stephsavill.co.uk

PS: I remain, as ever, resolutely enthusiastic about the future of the motor industry from a female perspective (it’s not as hard as it seems to remedy this) because benchmarking the genuinely female friendly businesses will surely lift the complacent laggards off the entry level floor. Or they’ll get left too far behind. And, trust me, there are many truly female friendly businesses out there, it’s just that they are not marketing themselves as the female choice.

PPS: If you’ve got this far, automotive businesses can buy this research. Let’s hope they do. And women can join FOXY Lady Drivers Club and help us get them (and more women) a better motoring deal in future.

women

Mumsnet Cars share female feedback

Mumsnet and What Car? have joined forces to launch Mumsnet Cars, a car review section of the popular Mumsnet website.

The section includes typical reviews and questions like: “Will it fit three child car seats?” “Is it easy to maintain?” “How much should I be paying for this?” and “Can I fit in my entire family and still have legroom?” along with insight from What Car?.

In a survey of car owners, Mumsnet users were presented with a list of celebrities whose influence might persuade them to buy a car. Despite the list ranging from Kylie to Clarkson to Cameron, nearly half of respondents (48%) said that they would not trust any celebrity recommendation.

In contrast, over three quarters (77%) say that a recommendation from a friend or a relation would be influential.

The Mumsnet survey confirms that car dealerships could be more ethical, that car advertising doesn’t always hit the spot for motoring Mums and that recommendations from friends are more reliable than those of celebrities.

* Nearly half (46%) felt that car dealership sales people aren’t honest
* Only 25% felt they could trust the advice given at car dealerships
* Just over three quarters (77%) find car ads unmemorable, complaining that they all seem the same
* Two out of three (67%) would be influenced by reading a recommendation or a positive review in a car magazine or online from other users
* Half (53%) say that both they and their partner are equally responsible for the researching, planning and the car buying decision for the family car (FOXY note: US research suggests that women influence c90% of car sales)
* 89% of parents responding to the survey agreed that their choice of car has changed as their family needs and lifestyle has changed

Justine Roberts, CEO and Co-Founder of Mumsnet, said:

“When it comes to buying cars, we know that priorities change once people start a family and that parents are looking for safe, economical and practical cars without the hard sell. 80% of our users seek advice or read reviews on Mumsnet when they are planning to buy a child-related product, and judging from the number of car discussions on the site there’s a clear need for similar advice when it comes to cars.”

Hear, hear says FOXY.

FOXY

female friendly, marketing to women, women

Let grown up girls be the women they want to be

Mumsnet’s recent campaign ‘Let girls be girls’ is supported by Asda, House of Fraser and Mothercare. Borne out of parental disgust that major stores like Primark were selling padded ‘show off’ bikini tops for 7 year olds, I am not at all surprised that Mums are upset.

I think this is an interesting debate for adults too. especially when it comes to marketing to women.

Why shouldn’t women be allowed to be women, to do what we want, rather than what society says or other women expect?

For example, if we aren’t mechanically minded women drivers, should we be expected to become so or could we not rely on professional mechanics in female friendly garages instead, to look after us and our cars when it comes to safe motoring.

Similarly, what right has any female to say that being a Mum isn’t a full time, rewarding and extremely hard job to do well. Or that a business career isn’t as worthy for that matter.

And in a motoring context again, are women drivers who can’t cope with a car jack (but have a breakdown policy to hand) any less foxy than a female motorist who is happy to change a wheel, check her tyres and top up her oil and water levels?  Good for her, of course, but perhaps she mightn’t spot signs of wear and tear that a garage professional would see immediately, in a female friendly business environment too rather than getting her hands dirty, all by herself?

Especially if car fitness checks were free, as they are for members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club?

I spent years competing with men to be seen as better than them. Where I succeeded it came at a price in terms of my home life and, with the benefit of hindsight, I am not sure it was worth it.

Why shouldn’t ‘girls be allowed to be girls’ and ‘women allowed to be women’ when all this means is giving us the choice between being like the boys (and men) or to be treated in a female friendly fashion; very often this is subject to the occasion.

One thing I have learned since setting up FOXY is that grown up girls can be very different from each other and most of us are poles apart from the boys when it comes to our shopping habits (and lots of other things too…).

Each to their own I say with lots of choices for all.

FOXY

‘There is a special place in hell for women who do not help other women’.

Madeleine Albright,  former US Secretary of State