Nike Vs. Adidas / Reebok Vs. Other Shoemakers Essay

Nike Market Research

The author of this report is to cover and evaluate the perceived customer service scores and perceptions that exist for Nike and from its customer base. Nike is based on Beaverton, Oregon and has established itself as a giant in the shoe industry both in the United States and around the world. However, the perceptions of Nike's customers are important to pay attention to because of competitors snapping at their heels as well as public relations black eyes from supposed sweatshops and other business tactics that are deemed to be beneath an American company with such a high stature. While Nike has some concerns surrounding customer service and customer perception, the news is much more positive than negative for the company.

Analysis

In the name of seeking out the perceptions of Nike's customer service scores, the bad news will be looked at first. As far back as 2000, Nike was facing a lot of vitriol and accusations surrounding who was making the shoes that Nike was selling in the United States. Indeed, Nike was not the only company that was facing these accusations as much the same thing was said about companies like Gap, Liz Claiborne and Wal-Mart. However, the latter two in particular had made tangible and positive efforts to eliminate or at least avoid the use of sweatshops to make their goods (Greenhouse, 2000). However, Nike did much the same thing as offered last year in an article that appeared in Business Insider.They shifted their factories from Korea and Taiwan to Indonesia, China and Vietnam even before the first article looked at. The shift continued after the aforementioned 2000 article when they published where their factories were as a matter of routine (Nisen, 2013). Adidas, also the owner of Reebok, combined to score 82 on a 100 point scale in 2010 but slipped down to 80 to tie with Nike in 2011. Smaller market players combined to score an 81, with examples of these brands including Skechers and New Balance. Up to that point, Adidas had only scored above an 80 on that scale three times but Nike had only done it twice up to that same point.

As for the actual results of recent customer service surveys, the results were mixed but in line with what Nike would expect. Nike was tops in terms of perceived quality of manufacturing and quality but the tied competitor Adidas in terms of overall customer service scores. Essentially, Nike was deemed to be the better shoe but the higher price point of Nike shoes allowed Adidas to be perceived as the better overall value in terms of "bang for the buck" (Siemers, 2011). However, Nike has since lost a bit of ground when looking at the updated ACSI results that were used by the Siemers article. Indeed, the 2012 scores were good for Nike in that Adidas slipped down to 77 and Nike stayed at 80.....