Maybe you’ve heard the news: men and women are different (Shocker!). But the differences between men and women don’t end with their biology.

In fact, women and men have different needs and approaches to car buying.  And whether you realize it or not, women influence 85 percent of purchasing decisions, they have more driver’s licenses then men, and they’re the largest emerging market. So it makes sense that dealers would try to better understand women and adjust their approaches to selling to them, right?

But, the truth is that most dealerships are afraid to acknowledge gender. They’re scared that treating women differently will signal that they’re not treating them equally.

So how does a dealer ultimately treat their customers best? They treat each customer as an individual and cater to their specific needs.  When it comes to selling cars to women, this means acknowledging that the experiences they generally seek in a dealership or a vehicle are different than men. And a good dealer will take these differences into consideration when trying to create a great customer experience.

So what’s the difference?

For starters, men and women base their decisions on different criteria. When looking for a vehicle, men are more inclined to make emotional decisions, where women are more likely to focus on practical factors (which is particularly interesting given that in other purchasing decision, these are flipped). A recent eMarketer study found that women are much more likely than men to prioritize reliability, safety, and fuel economy. Men are more interested in whether a car is fun to drive, has a powerful engine or is seen as prestigious.

But practical doesn’t mean technical. Men tend to connect with more technical descriptions about the vehicle than women. CDK Global’s Language of Closers research found that technical words like “transmission” were less engaging to women in vehicle reviews. In addition, we found that women are more focused on reviews that tell them something about the vehicle they can’t learn from a list of specs. They engaged more with words like “driven,” “trip,” “comfortable” and “handling” because they described the experience of driving a vehicle in a relatable way.

However, when women are considering where to purchase their vehicle, they consider more than just the vehicle itself. Using natural language processing, we recently studied 64,000 customer reviews of sales and service experiences at dealerships and separated them by gender. We found that many women are quick to self-identify as women, usually because they believe their gender will affect how they are treated at a dealership. One review represented their apprehension about going into a dealership, saying “As a woman purchasing a new car, you always worry that sales people won’t treat you or respect you as much as they would a man making the same purchase.”

We also found that women used words like “compassion,” and “smiles” more often than men, indicating that a positive connection between dealership personnel and the shopper was extremely important.

So if you’re trying to reach women — and you should be based on their buying power — it’s important to acknowledge that they have different expectations and needs than men. Understand the intricacies of selling to men and women, both as groups and as individuals. Women are more apprehensive about buying a car, but they are more focused on practical needs. The best experiences for them revolve around dealerships that are understanding, compassionate and helpful.

But remember, while men and women trend towards different wants and needs, everyone is unique and wants to be treated as such. Don’t give in to stereotypes. Instead, use our findings to arm yourselves with additional knowledge to better understand and serve your customers.  

Want to learn more about CDK Global’s research on women? Visit our Language of Closers website or browse our insights on women shoppers.