Nissan Motor will double the proportion of females in its Japanese sales force over the next two years because the public “would prefer to have a woman sell them a car,” chief executive Carlos Ghosn said on Friday.
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According to the Associated Press (AP), Ghosn said Nissan will boost the proportion of women on showroom floors to 10% from 5% by the fiscal year ending March 2008 and raise that of female technical advisers to 20% from 11%.
The move reportedly came after a slump in October sales and is a response to customer surveys showing that buyers in traditionally male-dominated Japan respond better to female salespeople than to their male colleagues.
“The bottom line is that – statistically – more than half the public say they would prefer to have a woman sell them a car,” Ghosn reportedly said while unveiling the plan to a group of 100 saleswomen at a seminar in Tokyo.
“In business, when you encounter a statistic like that, you had better sit up and listen,” Ghosn said.
Tokyo-based Nissan has 142 dealerships in Japan and started the drive for more saleswomen there because it owns about 50% of the showrooms, the news agency noted.
Ghosn reportedly said market research shows that buyers respond better to women staff because females are more skilled in showing empathy and in connecting with customers and understanding their needs.
According to AP, Ghosn said the decision to recruit more saleswomen was in response to public demand, not the 19% October drop in Japanese market sales.
He offered no figures on how the move might impact sales, but said it was taking Nissan “in the right direction.”
Nissan has about 30,000 employees in Japan, and 18,000 in sales, where women hold about 800 of the posts, The Associated Press said.
A recent undercover survey by a UK car magazine found that women were generally charged more than men when buying the same car.
