Customer Loyalty & The Bowman’s Clock.

Customer loyalty and client retention is the primary focus of our PR Firm: HireLoyalty. If you have followed our past articles, you would have seen that all the topics which we write about end up with how the companies can influence customer loyalty and retention. At HireLoyalty we believe that true ‘fans’ and fanatics of businesses make up the core of the survival of every business. This explains why loyalty is imperative to all organizations whether for profit or non-profit.

Measuring customer loyalty and retention is imperative for the growth of every business, yet per research performed by HireLoyalty, companies commit less than 2% of budget in customer retention efforts. Customer loyalty is usually seen as an offshoot of a marketing effort hence it is somewhat abysmally studied at that level.

What organizations need to realize, is that customer loyalty is absolutely imperative for today’s competitive market. The corporate giants such as Coca Cola, MTN, Nestle etc. we see today have a strong sense of loyalty attached to their products. Even in non-competitive markets, the customer has a choice: a customer can choose to save her/his money instead of buying the product in the first place.

It is imperative for business to have some standard of measure to know exactly:

how their product is doing on the market, given the performance of competing products
how Loyal their customers are to their products.

Customer loyalty tools such as Customer Effort Score (CES), Net Promoter Score (NPS) etc, are used to determine customer loyalty of the organization’s very own customers. Tools like NPS, CES etc do not provide the deep insights that organizations need to make critical business decisions.

Every business needs a combination of standard measures for advanced market analysis that yields good insight for businesses.

There are a plethora of strategies that organizations can adopt, in this article we introduce to you the Bowman Strategy Clock.

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Bowman’s Strategy Clock

The Bowman Strategy Clock was developed by Cliff Bowman and David Faulkner in their book Competitive and Corporate Strategy as an update on a strategy tool developed by Michael Porter called Porter’s Generic Strategies.

The Bowman Strategy Clock looks at product/ service positioning in a market against price and perceived quality. There are 8 points on the clock depicting a trade-off between price and perceived product/service quality.

The clock therefore allows companies to critically access their strategic positioning of the brand and to also determine the position of their competitors. For the purpose of easy assimilation, the Ghanaian nonalcoholic beverage market (water included) will be used to explain the importance of Bowman’s strategy.

[IMG]file::-please see attachedd images at the bottom of this article

Point 1: Low Price and Low added value

This point is usually for basic products or services that are very specific to a particular type of market. For example people do not go over their heads to buy a particular brand of pure water when sitting in traffic on a sunny day. Although having some level of differentiation helps in the low price/ low revenue segment on the Bowman’s Clock, it ultimately comes down to having a formidable distribution and marketing network. Therefore, think about all the competing products that have equal price points with little added value, those products are most likely to be on the first point of the Bowman’s Strategy Clock.

Point 2: Low Price
Low price is a strategic position on the Bowman’s clock, especially in developing countries like Ghana. This is because consumers are always looking for a bargain. A scan of the Ghanaian soft-drink beverage market shows that most drinks in returnable glass are conveniently priced at 1 or 2 cedis. The energy drink market is also flooded with various 500ml PET bottles that are also priced at 2 cedis. The aim of the low-price strategy is to be a cost cutter and offer exponential savings to the consumer.

Point 3: Hybrid
The hybrid stage on the Bowman’s strategy clock works well for products that are well-known and marketed. That is because the hybrid product beyond the low price also has some perceived inbuilt value. For such products the brand can charge a slightly premium price, given that there is loyalty to the product or the product has existed for a number of years. For example the Coca Cola brand of beverages is well-known and beloved. Given that situation, Coca Cola can command a slightly higher price than competing brands. Brands in the hybrid category are still seen as low-cost and do not necessarily advertise themselves as luxury brands. A mix of loyalty, popularity and accessibility is needed for products/services deemed as hybrid to succeed.

Point 4: Differentiation
The differentiation stage of the Bowman’s Strategy clock, the perceived value of the product (or service) must clearly be demonstrated, whether it is correct packaging, added nutritional benefits etc. It must be clear enough that consumers are willing to pay a premium for that type of product.

In the beverages industry, sparkling water commands a higher price and is innately distinct than other brands or forms of packaged water. This allows sparkling water to be highly priced and served in niche places such as 5-star hotels.

Point 5: Focused Differentiation
Focused differentiation is a step notch-above differentiation. Products in this segment come at a high cost, therefore their value is also seen to be high.

Products that are in the focused differentiation stages are not extremely popular in developing countries such as Ghana due to minimal income and expenditure levels.

Point 6: Risky High Margins
Risky High Margins -as its name suggests- cannot stay in the market for long. This is because although producers charge exorbitant prices for them, the additional perceived value is minimal hence cannot be sustained.

This kind of market positioning never inspires Customer Loyalty.

Point 7: Monopoly Pricing
Monopoly pricing in point 7 depicts that only products that have a complete monopoly can charge exorbitant prices providing very little value.

The Ghana Water or Electricity Company are an example of manufacturers with monopoly pricing. Institutions with monopoly pricing are usually regulated by the State or a Public Utilities Board.

That said, it is hard to talk about Customer Satisfaction (and thus Customer Loyalty) in any monopoly market.

Point 8: Loss of Revenue
Loss of revenue is a point where products with little-perceived value charge disproportionately higher prices which ultimately leads to loss of revenue.

It must be noted that: points 6, 7 and 8 are the most undesirable points on the Bowman’s Strategy Clock hence companies must do well to match the prices they charge with the value that customers aim to get.

The Image below has some examples, mainly from companies in the UK, but mostly known to us:

[IMG]file::please refer to image at the end of this article

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In Conclusion
The Bowman’s Strategy Clock is a useful tool that all types of organizations can use to determine their place on the competitive market against their competitors. Trade-off between price and perceived value is imperative hence having this clock to guide you in that decision making process is a great way of having a good product fit in the market.

And you need to understand the perceived value of your product or service to the eyes of your consumers before you can set your plans for Customer Loyalty; by the way, Pragmatic Customer Insights is one of our verticals.

Thank you and Good Luck .
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Kwaku and Spiros
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About the authors:
Spiros Tsaltas -a former University Professor & PR Practitioner, and Kwaku Abedi -an uprising Digital PRofessional, are PRrincipals at HireLoyalty (www.HireLoyalty.com) , the only Loyalty PR company in West Africa that Consults (How-To) , Measures (Test-To) and Trains (Learn-To) in anything relating to Customer Loyalty and Loyalty- focused PR.

As a NED (Non-Executive Director), Spiros is also associated with HIREghana ( www.HIREgh.com).

They welcome all your comments/ remarks/ feedback /suggestions at Press [at] HireLoyalty.com. HireLoyalty can be reached at +233 20 741 3060 or +233 26 835 2026

Strategy-bowman-clock

Bowman - Uk Examples