Women Want More

June 8, 2009
An exhaustive analysis of the 2008 Boston Consultive Group Global Inquiry into Women and Consumerism, which surveyed 12,000 women from all walks of life about their spending habits. In painstaking detail, and employing every available scrap of corporate history, the authors describe how to reach the group which controls the spending in most categories of consumer goods, but who are sometimes misunderstood by the companies that seek to serve them. Through many examples of the women interviewed for the survey, we see pictures of the modern woman globe-wide—struggling between roles of caregiver, wife, and mother, stressed out, saddled with men who don't help with the housework, pressed for time, over-concerned with expensive beauty products, frustrated with condescending financial advisors and determined to do good with their dollars. The scope of the survey itself is interesting, but the repetitive detail makes the book more useful as a doorstop than a business guide, and there's a disconcerting bemused tone to the analysis—as if the authors were observing exotic zoo animals rather than a powerful consumer group. Others have done it better—and far more succinctly.

August 15, 2009
These titles both focus on getting and keeping customers. "Women Want More" makes the case that women will control ever greater amounts of consumer spending, and should be wooed accordingly with services that both save their time and meet their unique needs. The book is based on a study of 12,000 women conducted by the Boston Consulting Group (for which the authors work), and the most helpful findings reveal how many women are currently dissatisfied with the financial, health care, banking, and technological services that they receive. Suttle and Vest's narrative is much more a business how-to on keeping all clients happy by keeping your business's promises, exceeding expectations, and personalizing services. Neither book is groundbreaking, although the former offers a few unique insights, but both are serviceably written and should be considered for those seeking to freshen up their customer service collections.

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.