'I want to speak to sales, not admin!' - female representation in automotive

[Franco Cozzo]

Come across this news article today which is about female sales crews at automotive retailers/industry and how male customers are refusing to deal with them - demanding to speak to one of the lads:

Female Autobarn airs frustration at male customers asking to speak to ‘one of the boys’

A female Autobarn employee has voiced her frustration at customers assuming she can’t help with their car problems.

A female Autobarn employee has voiced her frustration at customers assuming she can’t help with their car problems, gaining a bucketful of traction in a Tik Tok video shared last week.

Jansu, who is an auto enthusiast with thousands of followers across her social media channels, posted clips of her responding to calls from customers asking for car parts.

In one clip, she takes a call from a “prospective customer” who does not believe she can answer his question about needing “something” for his vehicle.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/o...cabb5b11c9628?

In the last 5 years there has been a huge increase in female representation in automotive parts, it used to be pretty rare to hear a female voice over the phone but these days it's real common, I've got no dramas with that.

I've got my very first female colleague in my crew at work who I manage and she cops a lot of **** from customers not wanting to talk to her even though she's more than capable of answering their questions. I end up getting tied up having conversations for basic requirements that they don't really need me to handle for them, which I don't really mind but from a business perspective it's not ideal.

We've got a couple women in our sales crew nationally, Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne all have female representation, with Brisbane being majority female.

Out of curiosity I reached out to them and their managers today about this and it doesn't matter where you are, story seems the same as our experience here in Melbourne, our customers don't want to deal with female staff members or just second guess everything they say, they'll demand to speak to one of the lads, who'll tell them the same thing that they suddenly believe.

Given we're a male dominated field and also hobby as car enthusiasts, are you comfortable dealing with female staff when you're chasing parts and service, or do you prefer speaking to and or seeing men at these businesses?

Could be an interesting discussion.

[Falcon SXR8]

I'll be totally honest and say i have had some apprehension talking to a female in an automotive parts role but i would never ask to talk to a bloke and i quickly pulled my head in and realized ive dealt with a lot of guys who are useless in that field. So now i let them, male or female, prove themselves before i make a judgement

[oldel]

I don't speak to anyone in real life

[prktkljokr]

I dont care if its Male, female or whatever they identify as, I find that a lot of these places employ anyone who can use a computer whether they have a automotive background or not, they cant answer any questions unless they have your rego number.

Gone are the days where every person behind the counter or phone had a clue about cars

Why pay an expert when you can use idiots to press buttons instead.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by prktkljokr

I dont care if its Male, female or whatever they identify as, I find that a lot of these places employ anyone who can use a computer whether they have a automotive background or not, they cant answer any questions unless they have your rego number.

Gone are the days where every person behind the counter or phone had a clue about cars

Why pay an expert when you can use idiots to press buttons instead.

That's to do with the big corporates driving down wages in the industry and relying on fancy big dollar electronic cataloging, realistically it can do 90% of what walks in the door or calls on the phone - if you fall in that 10% then good luck

From my perspective as long as we've got a couple of us who have some knowledge about cars, the rest can leverage that knowledge if need be.

[prktkljokr]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

That's to do with the big corporates driving down wages in the industry and relying on fancy big dollar electronic cataloging, realistically it can do 90% of what walks in the door or calls on the phone - if you fall in that 10% then good luck

From my perspective as long as we've got a couple of us who have some knowledge about cars, the rest can leverage that knowledge if need be.

I am sure you are more than capable, but it seems that people like you are becoming a minority in the industry.

We consume millions of dollars of parts every year where I work, that much we have a dedicated factory unit and parts manager, the amount of parts that come through that are wrong is mind blowing and the dealers that send it have the VIN number so they should know, or so you would think.

[oldel]

Yeah, usually a waste of time and I work out what I need myself. The people at the checkout, or the phone or who answer emails usually know less that me so there's no point talking to them.
Order what i want delivered, or click and collect and talk to whoever to get it - it doesn't matter if man or woman.

The only people that get upset on the phone or at the counter if there's a woman are the dunning kruger sufferers that don't really know anything themselves. They're the ones that need help but want to punch down due to embarrassment.

I've lost track of the number of times I've tried to apply at an autoparts store. They don't want anyone with knowledge really, whether guy or gal they're under 25 with little experience or knowledge. They want retail workers, not auto workers or ex trade etc.

Some like kinsella/auto one, autopro, some specialist parts have older people working there* but forget repco, supercheap and most autobarns. In WA the company that supercheap took over (marlows) had guys, but supercheap let them all go and hired youngsters which were useless. When the old owner saw out his non-compete he opened a new store (Malz) and only hired young retail workers too. Then they went broke, just like all the good employees marlows used to have ;(

* these are usually the owners/franchisees and their wives so doesn't mean much.

E: Of course there's napa now, I think it's supposed to be more trade sales than retail? I wonder who they hire, I bet just whoever's cheapest, like retail workers from supermarkets etc, like the rest.

EE: Correction, seems napa took over coventrys and kept their staff. Good on them.

[BENT_8]

Chick at my local Autobarn is a bit mutton dressed as lamb but has a great **** so i have no trouble asking her to show me what that thing is on the bottom shelf behind her..

Apart from that i treat everyone with contempt so as to avoid discriminating.

[danzvtil]

Used to get this a lot in the hardware game, unfortunately there are heaps of misogynists out there.

[BENT_8]

Originally Posted by danzvtil

Used to get this a lot in the hardware game, unfortunately there are heaps of misogynists out there.

These days id just be content finding someone to ask a question of at my local Bunnings, man or woman.

[jaydee]

If I go to my local Repco there's a young woman working there and she is really helpful.
If I ring and she answers the phone I know she will help me and won't just say "need a part number mate".
I have no issue with a female in an auto shop or hardware store helping me, you can tell pretty much straight away if they have any knowledge of what your asking about.

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by jaydee

If I go to my local Repco there's a young woman working there and she is really helpful.
If I ring and she answers the phone I know she will help me and won't just say "need a part number mate".
I have no issue with a female in an auto shop or hardware store helping me, you can tell pretty much straight away if they have any knowledge of what your asking about.

Used to be the same here with our Repco. If I wanted anything I'd ask Vera, chances are that she could walk out the back and come back with the correct bit.

Then Vera left and it all went to ****

[Papa Smurf]

I spent 45 years in the Parts trade and have worked with lots of diverse people. I have heard people carry on about talking to females and Indian people and Asian etc etc etc but, I have never been interested in hearing people's gripes about that, all I cared about was that the person could do their JOB.
Some Panel Beaters will only talk to a bloke as is the same with some mechanics but that is life. Whining about being treated differently because you are a female? seriously? I thought we were all supposed to be the same? or doesn't that count in the motor trade?

I say, forget people like that and let them suffer, one day they will HAVE to chat with a female and then the female can have the pleasure of knowing that not ONLY does she KNOW what she is on about but, that the bloke had to eat humble pie

[Franco Cozzo]

Couple years ago Autobarn Traralgon had an all female sales crew at one point.

There's a female branch manager at Repco Benalla in regional VIC and she's on point and knows her stuff.

The industry is like the 1970s with its mentality at times.

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

Out of curiosity I reached out to them and their managers today about this and it doesn't matter where you are, story seems the same as our experience here in Melbourne, our customers don't want to deal with female staff members or just second guess everything they say, they'll demand to speak to one of the lads, who'll tell them the same thing that they suddenly believe.

Given we're a male dominated field and also hobby as car enthusiasts, are you comfortable dealing with female staff when you're chasing parts and service, or do you prefer speaking to and or seeing men at these businesses?

Could be an interesting discussion.

It is an interesting discussion but you will likely not have many/anyone willing to come forward and publicly own up to refusing to speak to a woman. At least not with their regular account, those types generally don't admit to that kind of thing.

Originally Posted by Papa Smurf

Whining about being treated differently because you are a female? seriously? I thought we were all supposed to be the same? or doesn't that count in the motor trade?

It runs far deeper than whether someone refuses to speak to women, it affects lots of different outcomes and can have some not insignificant consequences.

It affects the experience you get on the job, it affects the skills you build if there are fewer people to help or mentor you if they secretly don't want to help a chick, it can affect opportunities for progression if the boss secretly doesn't want to promote a chick, it can reduce collaboration opportunities if the other guy secretly doesn't want to team up with a chick. All of that boils down to her earning capacity so it ultimately can come down to earning less than a guy would in the same role, with the same skills and experience.

I don't work in the automotive industry but in my line of work I have experienced it too, quite a bit. People like that don't exactly wear a badge demonstrating their prejudice so you can't easily pick them out of a group and avoid them. You don't know how many you're working with but when you miss out on opportunities you should have had or things look like they're getting sabotaged, you can only start to wonder and try work around it. There are plenty of misogynists but physically they look the same as everyone else, it can be an invisible hurdle.

I actually prefer speaking to chicks if I can. Every one of them will know about and have experienced the discrimination so they'll have worked and studied twice as hard because they can't afford to be wrong. If a guy is wrong about something, he's just had a **** day or he got it wrong no big deal. If a chick is wrong, it's used as an example of why women aren't as good and shouldn't be in that industry... so they'll do everything they can to never be wrong. She'll bust her *** to learn more and yet even a dude who's practically incompetent will often still be picked, willingly spoken to on the phone even though he'll probably **** the job up. Just being a dude helps him out in various ways.

This is a really interesting read for those willing to sit through and read it. It's an article about a guy who was accidentally signing off his emails as his female colleague and how it affected his work for the week. It shows how someone else's prejudice can actually affect the outcome:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...-a7622201.html

https://twitter.com/SchneidRemarks/s...%7Ctwcon%5Es1_

[Wretched]

It is somewhat similar in the IT industry, though it is changing and for the better.

[Charliewool]

I wondered how long Damo’s fishing would take to land the big one?
Hook line and sinker… Reel her in

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by Charliewool

I wondered how long Damo’s fishing would take to land the big one?
Hook line and sinker… Reel her in

I'm looking forward to the many posts about how men are trash and should all burn in hell

I've never had any issue with females working in auto retail, but in general there are a heap of useless people of both genders. If you know what you are talking about, male or female, then you are one of the rare ones.

Originally Posted by Charliewool

I wondered how long Damo’s fishing would take to land the big one?
Hook line and sinker… Reel her in

The obvious baits are obvious, you should try a little harder.

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

I'm looking forward to the many posts about how men are trash and should all burn in hell

Why do you refuse to acknowledge that there are bad men amongst good? and why do you always try and accuse me for hating all men when i repeatedly refer to the bad ones? are you saying they're one and the same? good men are wonderful.

[arm79]

It's strange to hear this is largely the case. I'd expect there will still be some of the old school thinkers and weirdos who will only speak to a guy, but given how the number of females have grown I would have thought this be a very small minority now.

From my perspective dealing with females in auto retail goes back around 20 years now. There was a young lady working at the parts counter at Westpoint Ford in Hoppers. A friend on the forums who managed big name parts stores had some females working for him.

Back then, while it was different to hear a female voice on the other end of the phone or be face to face with one, never did I think or experience they couldn't do their job properly.

In this semi hick backwater Queensland town I live in there are 3 middle aged ladies working at the local Repco (I mention age because they would have had to been working in this field for a while given their knowledge), a young lady at the Bursons and a couple of young ladies at the Supercrap. I've even spoken to a couple of ladies as Jefferson Ford over issues with parts via eBay.

From my perspective it is still a male dominated industry, but female numbers are catching up.

Whoever is the person in the job should be respected, regardless of gender, because you would expect they wouldn't have the job if they weren't capable or lacked the knowledge.

But realistically, no matter how quickly or effectively knowledge or perceptions progress, there will always be someone who isn't willing or ready to accept.

[Franco Cozzo]

Here's an interesting example,

What about a few various scenarios you may come across, lets go outside of automotive,

Daycare for your children, do you care about the gender of the employees there? Do you have a preference for female staff?

How about being in hospital and being tended to by nurses, whats your thoughts on male nurses?

Originally Posted by arm79

It's strange to hear this is largely the case. I'd expect there will still be some of the old school thinkers and weirdos who will only speak to a guy, but given how the number of females have grown I would have thought this be a very small minority now.

From my perspective dealing with females in auto retail goes back around 20 years now. There was a young lady working at the parts counter at Westpoint Ford in Hoppers. A friend on the forums who managed big name parts stores had some females working for him.

Back then, while it was different to hear a female voice on the other end of the phone or be face to face with one, never did I think or experience they couldn't do their job properly.

In this semi hick backwater Queensland town I live in there are 3 middle aged ladies working at the local Repco (I mention age because they would have had to been working in this field for a while given their knowledge), a young lady at the Bursons and a couple of young ladies at the Supercrap. I've even spoken to a couple of ladies as Jefferson Ford over issues with parts via eBay.

From my perspective it is still a male dominated industry, but female numbers are catching up.

Whoever is the person in the job should be respected, regardless of gender, because you would expect they wouldn't have the job if they weren't capable or lacked the knowledge.

But realistically, no matter how quickly or effectively knowledge or perceptions progress, there will always be someone who isn't willing or ready to accept.

Certainly not a minority, we're primarily business to business and trade workshops in particular I'd say 50% of them have issues dealing with female sales staff.

Makes me wonder if you had a daughter and gave her a unisex name like 'Blake', 'Charlie' or 'Alex'(andra) that they'd be able to make it further through some unconscious bias at the HR/paperwork stage if they were to go for typical male dominated industries, think automotive, construction, engineering et al. Getting the foot in the door for the interview is half the battle, we did an interesting experiment with one of my friends who has a very ethnic sounding last name, when it was changed on paper he found he was getting to interview stage more often.

It might be less common for discrimination in small communities because there's going to be a limited pool of applicants for all the local businesses and it won't be uncommon to come across women in male dominated fields, there's probably less opportunity for bias out regional even though the attitudes as a society might be a bit different compared to the capital cities.

Melbourne metropolitan area has 5 million people, they're probably getting 250-300 people per job application so the HR team can be very picky and discriminatory if they want to be.

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

Here's an interesting example,

What about a few various scenarios you may come across, lets go outside of automotive,

Daycare for your children, do you care about the gender of the employees there? Do you have a preference for female staff?

How about being in hospital and being tended to by nurses, whats your thoughts on male nurses?



Certainly not a minority, we're primarily business to business and trade workshops in particular I'd say 50% of them have issues dealing with female sales staff.

Not sure who you're directing your questions at, but if it's me, I think male nurses are great particularly as they're brave enough to go against social expectations and stand up to the nonsense they no doubt receive.
Though I don't have kids, men in childcare sounds good too. Gender balance is important, kids should see both men and women in caregiver roles. It's going to be difficult to improve fathers' outcomes in custody court cases if kids are born and raised seeing only women in caregiver roles. For attitudes to change there needs to be better balance in all industries. Nursing, childcare, automotive, whatever.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by leesa

Not sure who you're directing your questions at, but if it's me, I think male nurses are great particularly as they're brave enough to go against social expectations and stand up to the nonsense they no doubt receive.
Though I don't have kids, men in childcare sounds good too. Gender balance is important, kids should see both men and women in caregiver roles. It's going to be difficult to improve fathers' outcomes in custody court cases if kids are born and raised seeing only women in caregiver roles. For attitudes to change there needs to be better balance in all industries. Nursing, childcare, automotive, whatever.

Not specifically at you, its for everyone to consider and put in responses, but you're welcome to respond, we (I) don't discriminate in my threads

In the 13 years I spent at school, I only ever had maybe 5 male teachers across the whole time, it did feel a bit strange having male teachers at school when I came across them.

[digitalpunk]

Saw this article earlier and it reminded me of Ron Swanson telling the hardware store employee 'I know more than you' when he is asked if he needs help

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFWeoxrhbE8

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by oldel

Yeah, usually a waste of time and I work out what I need myself. The people at the checkout, or the phone or who answer emails usually know less that me so there's no point talking to them.
Order what i want delivered, or click and collect and talk to whoever to get it - it doesn't matter if man or woman.

The only people that get upset on the phone or at the counter if there's a woman are the dunning kruger sufferers that don't really know anything themselves. They're the ones that need help but want to punch down due to embarrassment.

I've lost track of the number of times I've tried to apply at an autoparts store. They don't want anyone with knowledge really, whether guy or gal they're under 25 with little experience or knowledge. They want retail workers, not auto workers or ex trade etc.

Some like kinsella/auto one, autopro, some specialist parts have older people working there* but forget repco, supercheap and most autobarns. In WA the company that supercheap took over (marlows) had guys, but supercheap let them all go and hired youngsters which were useless. When the old owner saw out his non-compete he opened a new store (Malz) and only hired young retail workers too. Then they went broke, just like all the good employees marlows used to have ;(

* these are usually the owners/franchisees and their wives so doesn't mean much.

E: Of course there's napa now, I think it's supposed to be more trade sales than retail? I wonder who they hire, I bet just whoever's cheapest, like retail workers from supermarkets etc, like the rest.

EE: Correction, seems napa took over coventrys and kept their staff. Good on them.

This is becoming more common - from a business perspective in 2021 you are the perfect customer, if you've found something you want and can make work for your application, then you just want to know how much it costs and when you can have it, all you need is access to what the range is and you've figured it out yourself without talking to anyone.

You can be satisfied without involving humans, aside from the pick/pack and shipping people, its better to have better systems than more manpower.

The only time the cost of a human is a benefit is where you want initiative outside of a 'yes/no' scenario - the problem with the big corporates is they have humans but take away their superpower which is the ability to create solutions because they're boxed into a framework with no freedom to make judgement/decisions, they're effectively the check out people at Coles/Woolworths Safeway - they can only process transactions, they can't do anything about pricing, stock issues, customer complaints/suggestions et al.

I wouldn't work at one of the corporates, have no interest in being a glorified Safeway check out bloke, even the branch manager of the store has limited judgement compared to what I have here.

I'm sure we've all had the experience of the Telstra call centre, where its some lowly paid Filipino bloke reading off a checklist, who has no authority to do anything else, prime candidate for automation, if you can't capitalise on a humans ability to think/create solutions then why have them (unless they're CHEAP - see China)? I think this is the most frustrating scenario for me to encounter regardless if they're male or female.

You want the human working on the 'value added' work for a business, not processing transactions.

If you're in WA, then Veale Auto Parts is who you want to be dealing with, its a family owned business in your Swan River Republic (formerly known as 'Western Australia').

I've got a freight company who is super oldskool, they're good on the deliveries to certain areas, but useless on the customer service, they treat my female staffer like **** over the phone - but they won't do it to me.

I've sent her out to a workshop to do a delivery once and they made her feel very uncomfortable, me going there, no dramas and I'm the least intimidating male human on the planet.

On the other hand I sent her to one of our really good customers and they had nothing but praise for her and they're also super oldskool (but young owner).

[T3rminator]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

Here's an interesting example,

What about a few various scenarios you may come across, lets go outside of automotive,

How about a massage place?

[hayseed]

Originally Posted by T3rminator

How about a massage place?

Depends on whether you want a happy Ending (or Not)..

[arm79]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

Here's an interesting example,

What about a few various scenarios you may come across, lets go outside of automotive,

Daycare for your children, do you care about the gender of the employees there? Do you have a preference for female staff?

How about being in hospital and being tended to by nurses, whats your thoughts on male nurses?

See, now you've introduced another factor about your comfort factor with the opposite sex in particular jobs.

Your original question was about a male not wanting to deal with a female because they don't believe they are capable. I stand by my statement that

Whoever is the person in the job should be respected, regardless of gender, because you would expect they wouldn't have the job if they weren't capable or lacked the knowledge.

I have no issue with male child care staff (I have a 45yo male friend that just got his degree in education and he teaches primary school kids), nor do I care about being tended to by male nurses or doctors.

I actually think male nurses are better, they seem to be more decent at their job. When Mum was in hospital last year the male nurses were far better to work with than the females. They were all b*tchy. Dad had both male and female nurses when he had his knee replacement earlier this year and they were equally as good.

But this is where the comfort factor comes in. Mum would not allow a male nurse to tend to more private matters. Dad didn't feel comfortable having a female nurse help shower or with bathroom duties.

My sister has a male doctor and gynaecologist she is comfortable seeing. I know personally I am more open and forthright about certain problems with a male GP than if I see a female (not that I don't see females. I know sometimes I feel I can be more awkward trying to spit out my words). The nurse at my old GP in Melbourne was male and he was an absolute legend to deal with. And the last gloved finger test I did was administered by a female doctor.

Big difference between rejecting dealing with a particular sex because you think they are incapable or beneath you then rejecting them because you are not comfortable doing certain things with them.

[Top_Ghia]

Originally Posted by prktkljokr

I dont care if its Male, female or whatever they identify as, I find that a lot of these places employ anyone who can use a computer whether they have a automotive background or not, they cant answer any questions unless they have your rego number.

Gone are the days where every person behind the counter or phone had a clue about cars

Why pay an expert when you can use idiots to press buttons instead.

You’re so quick to judge the “idiot” behind the counter but can’t even bring in a rego number. Maybe you are living in 1985?
Just get a flippin rego or vin.