Not Their Father's Dealerships
Ward's Dealer Business, an industry publiciation, recently published a good article on women-owned dealerships. Here's an excerpt:
"Women bring a different approach and style to something that has been a man's world," [Deborah Dorman, president of ENYCAR, Inc., the Eastern New York Coalition of Automotive Retailers] says. "And what they bring helps the industry to prosper because of some of the old traditional methods and styles commonly used in auto retailing today are not effective for today's workforce."
Few women dealers woke up one morning and decided to buy a dealership. Most women dealers became dealers because their fathers were dealers before them or their husbands were...
They learned the business the traditional way in many cases, learning through family need: filing, working the customer service desk, filling in the parts and service departments and otherwise helping out where needed.
Today women own a mere 8% of U.S. dealerships, but that should change as more women become aware of the opportunities.
To read the whole article, click here.
- Posted by
- Joanne Helperin May 7, 2008, 4:56 PM
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- Dealing with Car Dealers
Anything that improves the ghastly car-buying process is OK by me! Involve women, or ferrets or whatever - just make it less miserable.
Yeah! I hope the trend would result in better service, especially for women.
"Today women own a mere 8% of U.S. dealerships, but that should change as more women become aware of the opportunities."
So it took this article to realize that women can own car dealerships?
Sorry, but I hate these pieces that say 'women do things differently in a man's world' but fail to advance beyond generalities like women are kinder, more focused on family, etc.
Scott, I'm also not a fan of "women do things differently in a man's world" type statements, but there's little doubt that women are in many subtle ways different from men. Whether that would make dealerships' service better or not is debatable..........although I think women salesmen and dealers would probably treat women customers with more respect, and not as semi-idiots who don't know anything about cars.
Is that a RHD car?
The woman should be in the driver's seat for this story.
True, Steve, true. The original story didn't run with photos, and all I had on hand was stock.
It is a shame that women are still being taken advantage of at the service dept. I am a 54 year old woman that went to Andy Mohr Chevrolet for an oil change and they tried to concince me that I needed a new exhaust system at the cost of $550.00 and that was on an 05 Tahoe that I knew could not need that!!! They are like they say like a rock and I have 3!!!!! Needless to say I am furious at their attempt to railroad me and am trying to alert women to get 2 bids on car repairs.