Mad women: which service brands have women seeing red?

Women's High Service Demands

To fuel the female-centric creative that we’re developing for our clients, Mullen’s Frank About Women took a current pulse on how women are feeling about customer service and service brands. We fielded a national consumer study covering a wide spectrum of service-based categories, and our findings reinforce just how tenuous the relationship is between women and service brands today.

In this economic climate, women know they wield scarce buying power — and they’re not afraid to use that leverage. It’s more challenging than ever to foster loyalty, especially when women have so many choices.

The Male/Female Dynamic:

We asked both men and women about their service product expectations in 29 different categories from telecommunications to travel and health providers to financial services. Not surprisingly, we found that women continue to be far more likely than men to expect good service — sometimes beating men’s expectations by a 15+ point margin.

Interesting too, is that women are far more likely than men to say that there are major differences in service quality between companies. For example, 59% of women say there are major differences between different hotel chains, as compared to 47% of men; 41% of women recognize major differences between credit card companies versus 32% of men. The same gap exists in categories like pharmacies, phone services and many others. Service marketers take note — women notice everything.

Another important difference between the sexes: As the Chief Purchasing Officer of most households, the majority of women immediately took bold steps when the economic crisis hit and edited out nonessential services — while men were more likely to wait it out, saying they were considering cutting back their use of services. Even scarier to marketers is that the women in our study indicated they are considering cutting back even more.

Which Categories Have Women Seeing Red?

So who’s got them really steamed? Credit card companies, medical insurance/HMOs, airlines and cable providers share the dubious honor of making women downright angry (not a feeling anyone wants associated with their brand).

You know what they say, “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!” But what about a few thousand or a few million women scorned? Women not only have spend-power, they wield friend-power. One snarky Facebook status or testy Tweet in response to a disappointing service experience can reach thousands of women and men and then what? Today, an apology may not be enough. The possible silver lining — women’s expectations for good service are so low in certain categories that there is plenty of opportunity to wow women … if you try a new approach.

Another Frank About Women finding:

• Women expect the highest level of service from hotels, insurance companies, pharmacies, hospitals, banks, utilities, ISPs and grocery stores.

Smart service marketers should be asking themselves these questions:

• How can we defy expectations and set new standards for service in our category?
• What strategies are we employing to ensure our consumers know they’re valued in this economy?
• What are we doing to solicit consumer feedback and use it to affect our business in real time?
• Are we actively following the social chatter about our service?
• What are we doing to become a part of that conversation?

Even if your target isn’t solely women – what could you learn from looking at women’s attitudes and behaviors to make your brand’s service experience better for men and women? Listening closely to female consumers can help a company or brand design an experience that appeals to all.