Report on Gap Customer Service

REPORT ON GAP CUSTOMER SERVICE

Company Overview:

Gap is an iconic American fashion brand founded in 1969, which belongs to the Gap.inc group. The Gap.inc Group owns Six Major Brands: The main brand The Affordable Luxury brand banana republic, The Value brand Old Navy, The Online Exclusive brand Pipeline and the newly founded sportswear brand Athleta. Gap.inc opened its first store more than 40 years ago. Owning over 4000 flagship stores and 500 franchise stores worldwide, Gap is now stretching its emperor to a global leading level.

As Gap. Inc's major source of profitability, This specialist garment retailer offers classic and clean clothing and accessories from top to toe for all ages in a American casual style. Its main target markets are vibrant, non-price sensitive consumer group aged from 15 to 45 who priories comfort rather than fashion in outfit choices. To be more specific, according to the Cosmopolitan Magazine, a typical consumer life cycle of Gap would started from a single teenager to young professionals and finally to married couples. In terms of income level, the segments range from average to middle class who reside in urban and suburban areas. The common occupation of Gap consumers are: high-school students, university graduates, young professionals and young families.

Gap Customer Service Current Situation Analysis

Gap's Service Positioning: Standardization or Customization?

According to Michael Porter's Generic strategies theory, companies are generally categorized into four different types of metrics in terms of their strategic brand positioning. They are "Cost leadership" (Lower cost and broad target), Differentiation (Differentiation and broad target), Focus (Differentiation and narrow target) and Cost Focus (Lower cost and narrow target). Gap's prices their product higher than average UK high street retailers, but offers rather basic garments with simple design and limited styles and colors that can be added into almost "everyone's wardrobe". Therefore, Gap has been positioning itself against the cutting-edge "fashion trend", at somewhere broad target, but quiet ambiguous in the middle of cost leadership and differentiation. (See Figure1 below)

Figure 1: Gap's ambiguous and vulnerable current brand positioning and suggested future directions

Lower Cost Differentiation

Broad Target

Narrow Target

*Data generated from first-hand customer survey

Therefore, as