Honda has revealed a target to have at least one female sales person in each of its 200 dealerships across Britain – it currently has 90.
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“We are now actively trying to recruit more female staff,” spokesman Paul Ormond told the Daily Telegraph. “It is important to treat women with the respect they deserve and not to make stupid remarks, patronise them or talk down to them. We have certainly been guilty in the past of condescending attitudes.”
Ormond reportedly said female sales staff tended to be seen as more honest, more inclined to be realistic and less flamboyant than male counterparts.
Honda has shown its 200 dealership managers a video as a training exercise, highlighting the experience of a female barrister and businesswoman at a showroom, the paper said.
“Because of the way they were treated, they did not buy the cars,” Ormond told the Telegraph.
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By GlobalData“They had the money and were set on buying. But they were asked silly questions, such as what did their husband think? It is so easy for male chauvinism to kick in.”
There are 14.4 million women drivers in Britain, compared with 17.7million men, according to the Department of Transport.
They are catching up fast, by about 300,000 a year. Only 30 years ago, women made up less than a third of driving licence holders, the Daily Telegraph said.
Ford reportedly has a women’s product panel which serves as the company’s sexism watchdog. As part of its work, the panel embarks on “mystery shops” at car salesrooms, where women test the car-buying experience anonymously.
“When we first started, our initial findings were disastrous,” Angela Savage, the chairman of the panel, told the paper. “But things have moved on. In the early 1990s, I don’t think anyone realised quite how much influence females had in the purchase of the family car, or the spending power that the independent women had. Car dealerships are much better nowadays.”
The RAC Foundation reportedly accepted that there was a lack of female sales staff, and admitted that most women employed in salesrooms act as secretaries. But its spokesman said women should not have to fear visiting salesrooms on their own.
“There is absolutely no reason why a woman should need a man with her,” Kevin Delaney told the Daily Telegraph. “Is a man going to get her a better deal? I don’t think so.”
