Is There a Gap in Gap’s Current CRM Practices?

A CRM analysis on the all-American clothing and accessories retailer

April 22, 2021

Welcome back to PostFunnel’s 43rd episode of the 7 CRM Commandment Series.

Today, we get to Gap Inc. – the fashion retailer group that includes brands like Gap, Athleta, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Intermix, and more.

For this analysis, we will focus solely on Gap. So, take a walk through the various departments to find out how they score.

1. Be Transparent 10/10

A Supply Chain article reported that Gap had joined a new collaborative initiative to enhance the role of women and address gender equity throughout its global supply chain.

“Gap Inc. is proud to be a founding member of Empower@Work, recognising the opportunity it presents to reach millions of women with proven programming and tools they can use to uplift themselves and their families for generations to come,” said Mary Beth Laughton, President and CEO, Athleta.

The article reported the exact roadmap and details that Gap commits to reaching by 2025 too:

100% of strategic factories will be participating in Empower@Work
The Athleta and Gap brands have also committed 100% of their factories to participation in Empower@Work by 2025
100% of strategic factories will have achieved gender parity at the supervisor level
100% of workers employed in strategic factories will have their voices heard through gender-equitable workplace committees
100% of factories will have prevention and response management systems and training to address gender-based violence

Now that’s transparent!

2. Incentives and Perks 10/10

The first banner we noticed on the fashion and lifestyle brand’s website was a “UP TO 70% OFF” sale banner in red. Using the promo code “best,” customers could shop with this amazing discount.

One scroll down the HP, these additional perks were offered to us:

Yup, another four offers to incentivize customers to continue shopping with them in the future.

Gap also has a generous signup offer for providing them with your email address:

And that indeed is enough for us to give Gap a perfect score on this commandment, too.

3. Be Relevant 9/10

Gap has a Orders & Returns page for customers to track their orders, returns, and view their order history. On the same page, Gap informs customers there are various, convenient shopping methods to choose from BOPIS and curbside pickups.

It is clear that Gap has altered its product/service/offering to suit customers who wish to shop contact-free and safely during the pandemic.

Also, all in all – by scrolling down Gap’s HP – we noticed the brand’s D&I initiatives as they provide full representation of gender and race in their choice of imagery when promoting a product.

4. Be Helpful 10/10

Towards the middle of the brand’s HP, the Generation Good initiative is presented to customers via “the Good List”:

It is crucial for brands to show that they care for a cause and take a stance on a relevant societal issue as customers expect that from you. Gap obviously acknowledges this with the initiative above.

In addition, and as mentioned, Gap is indeed acknowledging diversity and inclusion. They have also announced that they are taking the 15% pledge to “stand united and bridge the gap,” as written here:

5. Realtime Personalization 4/10

When adding jeans to our shopping cart – all we were presented with was the basic “Customer Also Viewed” item suggestions – which in CRM terms is an upselling tactic.

Still, no cross-selling techniques were put in place here – and they easily could have been. Also, when going back to the brand’s HP after adding jeans to our cart, nothing changed or was personalized to help us find what we’re looking for.

Finally – we were not retargeted by the brand in realtime on our social media accounts, either. Not even with empty cart ads. That’s too bad! Marketing teams who scale their personalization efforts can significantly increase customer retention and lifetime value.

6. Master UX 7/10

Overall, our experience with the brand was good.

What we found unique to this brand from the others we have ranked is their dedicated Customer Service page. Here, Gap provides shoppers with details and info on shopping tools and tips, international purchases, accounts, tracking orders and so much more.

In fact, there’s even a menu of “Top Customer Questions” on this page that are answered in detail in a new tab when clicking one:

One thing that did bother us when browsing around the site was the four promo offers that kept appearing, forcing us to press the arrow to minimize it from our screen:

This intrusive popup caused us to deduct a few points on this commandment, unfortunately.

7. Leverage Social Media 4/10

On Facebook, Gap has 9.4M likes; on Instagram, they have 3M followers, and on Twitter, they have 628.1K followers. That’s quite an impressive, solid following.

On Instagram, Gap does a great job at interacting with customers by means of posting suitable content that engages customers frequently. The brand also uses the Instastory feature to tell its story by various means. Not much to add here. Well done!

However, on Facebook – their last post is from March 5^th, which’s over a month ago, and on Twitter – they only post a couple of times a month! Quite disappointing for such a huge brand like Gap. Tons of wasted Relationship Marketing potential.

Overall, Gap is getting a 54/70 here (77%), placing them in 18^th place! They were off to a perfect start with 39 of the first 40 points. Unfortunately, when getting to the Personalization commandment – things went downhill from there. To realize the full potential of personalized CRM marketing, Gap still has some work to do.

To learn more about the importance of providing personalized customer interactions across all touchpoints, click here.

Here are the full rankings of all the brands we analyzed to date:

We publish a new analysis every other week, so watch this space for more brand analyses coming your way!