It’s no secret that customer perception is one of the most important aspects of running a successful business. Without a positive perception of your company or product, it’s hard to attract new customers and keep the ones you have. That’s why it’s super essential to understand how your customers see you and what they expect from you. Many factors can affect the way people see your brand, from your marketing strategy to how you treat your customers. This article will discuss customer perception and how you can improve it.
What is Customer Perception?
Customer perception is a customer’s opinion of your company, product, or service. When it comes to customer perception, there are two main categories:
- Positive customer perceptions involve customers who have a favorable view of your company or product – they think highly of it and look forward to using it or buying it.
- Negative customer perceptions involve customers with an unfavorable view of your company or product – they think poorly of it and would never consider using or buying it.
What are the Factors Influencing Customer Perception?
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Personal Experience
Concerning customer perception, personal experience is the most crucial factor. This means that everything from the quality of a product to how your customer service functions affect them in a big way.
To create positive first impressions and ensure your customers have an amazing experience, you need to pay attention to every little detail – from the shopping experience to customer service.
Ensure you’re responsive and communicative so that your customers feel like they are dealing with a friend rather than just another online faceless entity.
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Your Company’s Image and Reputation
Your company’s image and reputation play an important role in customer perception. So if your customers think poorly of you, it’ll be hard for them to recommend you to their friends or refer business your way.
In addition, negative perceptions can lead to lost sales and damaged relationships with potential customers.
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Influencers
Influencers have a huge impact on the perception of brands. For instance, when Christiano Ronaldo put Coke bottles aside during a press conference, Coke’s shares fell significantly.
This shows the power of influencers – even if they only interact with products for a short period of time. Therefore, it is vital to identify and hire influencers who are relevant to your brand.
Doing this will give you an edge over your competitors and help you understand customer sentiment better – crucial information to make informed decisions about marketing campaigns and product offerings.
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Customer Reviews
Customer reviews are a necessary part of customer perception. They can help you build trust and credibility with your customers, which is key for long-term success.
Good reviews positively influence potential customers and play a vital role in customer satisfaction. So the higher the number of positive reviews, the better!
Moreover, user feedback allows you to quickly and efficiently improve your service and products. And that’s something your customers will appreciate!
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Social Media
Companies leverage social media to connect with their customers in a personal way. By creating engaging, relevant content and being transparent about your company and its products, you can build trust and loyalty among your followers. As a result, this helps promote sales as people are more likely to buy from a credible company.
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Marketing
Your marketing strategy affects customer perception in two ways: first, it determines how people come across your company (through advertising, social media, and so on).
Moreover, the way you market your company can shape customer expectations (for example, by setting the bar for customer service satisfaction or product quality).
Why is Customer Perception Important?
Customer perception affects whether or not customers interact with a company’s products and services. There are a few reasons why customer perception is so important.
- It can influence customer loyalty and satisfaction.
- It can improve marketing campaigns and product offerings.
- Knowing what customers want and how they feel about your products or services can make well-informed decisions about future marketing campaigns or product offerings. This can help you target your audience more effectively and ensure that your products or services appeal to as many potential customers as possible.
- Knowing it can help you identify customer needs and offer precise solutions.
- By understanding your customer’s perception of your company, you can start to see where they may have difficulty using or encountering your product or service. This information can help you address these deficiencies before they become major problems for your business. In turn, this could lead to increased customer satisfaction ratings and loyalty.
Creating Your Brand’s Positive Customer Perception
Respond to Customer Feedback
It is important always to take customer feedback seriously. This includes addressing complaints promptly, ensuring that your customers are happy with the resolution of their issues, and staying committed to improving your products or services.
Doing this will show that you genuinely care about your customers and want them to experience positive interactions with your business regularly.
Understand Your Audience
Once you know your customer’s demographics (age, social status, etc.), it will be much easier to target your marketing campaigns and product offerings specifically to this audience. Tailor your messaging and media strategies according to customer perception levels.
For instance, if your customers have the perception that your brand doesn’t use eco-friendly manufacturing practices, you can start environment-saving campaigns while also showing your own eco-friendly process behind the scenes.
Hire Influencers to Lift Your Brands Image
Influencers are people whose personal perception of a brand influences the public perception of that brand. Hiring influencers to promote your company or product can help increase customer perception by sharing positive reviews and feedback online.
This can lead potential customers who may have been hesitant to trust your brand before to reconsider their purchase decisions.
Recognize and Reward Loyal Behavior
Reward customers for spreading the positive word about your company. This will create a favorable customer perception of your brand, leading to increased loyalty and sales. So make it your policy to recognize and reward good customer behavior.
This will make them feel appreciated, boosting their satisfaction with your service or product. Overall, rewarding customers will help keep them loyal and encourage them to share your products with others!
3 Ways to measure customer perception
Following these simple steps discussed below will make it easy for you to collect feedback from your target market. And better yet- understanding where your company stands enables you to make changes accordingly and improve customer experience directly!
Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys
Taking NPS surveys is an excellent way to get an idea of customer perception of your brand. The score is calculated based on various factors such as satisfaction, likelihood to recommend, and more. This will provide you with valuable feedback that can help improve things for future customers. You can visit the Net Promoter Score website to know all about it and start calculating your customer satisfaction and perception score.
Monitor online mentions
Monitoring online mentions of your brand or product is important to stay up-to-date on what’s being said about it. To do this, you can use tools like Awario, Hootsuite, or Social Mention to track brand mentions online. This way, you can find out what people say about your brand. This will help you calculate the overall people’s perception of your brand.
Interviewing customers
Interviewing your customers is an essential part of customer service. By getting feedback from them directly, you can find out what they think about your product or service. Then you can make necessary changes to ensure better customer satisfaction. Moreover, keeping the interview process confidential is essential, and so is capturing all the customer’s thoughts in a well-written questionnaire. Doing so will help you understand their needs better and improve your customer service experience for future interactions!
Parting Words
To sum up, every business must get a hold of how customers perceive them to stay ahead of their competitors. So to enhance your brand’s reputation, ensure you’re using interviews and web surveys to measure customer perception! With the right attitude, service quality, and effort, you can change the perception of your brand and generate new leads.
