Customer Perceptions: stay updated and relevant to your customer

It is obvious that brands that activate positive cues from their audience will have more favorable outcomes to one that doesn’t. However, what’s not so obvious is how brands infer their customer's perceptions based on their interaction with them

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Customer perceptions are shaped by the world we live in. With the ever-changing daily (work or living) routines and emerging purchase behaviors, it is time to really invest in understanding how your customers are feeling.

"Truly consumer-centric brands stay up-to-date with how their customer is feeling to help them stay relevant, maximize the rewards, and anticipate risks for their marketing efforts."

Here we discuss the ins and outs of customer perceptions, why they’re relevant now, and how to measure them.

Simply put, customer perception is what your audience thinks of you (or your brand).

Step 1 - Differentiating what is relevant and not relevant for your brand effectively is pivotal to analyze customer perceptions.

Step 2 - Break down your inference document into two categories:

- Audience's opinion towards your brand and your competitors.

- Triggers to influence the audience to activate an action. Eg. purchase

These two steps will affect your (brand’s) capacity to influence new customers and positively engage with your current customers.

Know what to tap into and paying attention to overarching trends that delve into what matters most to your audience to ensure you build and maintain a positive customer perception towards your brand.

Customer perceptions are indistinguishably linked to your company’s bottom line

5 ways to help you measure customer perceptions

1. Attitudes and lifestyles

To veer consumer perceptions successfully, brands need to understand how (and why) their target audience may want to identify with their offering.

Use psychographic data to understand the attitudes and lifestyles of your audience (from awareness and interests to professional experiences). Let your audience know that you understand them and are focussed to deliver what they anticipate from you.

2. Study indistinct responses

Deep consumer data can measure the rational response to your brand, instinctive responses are a key indicator and drivers of your brand’s reputation (and decision making).

Unravel emotional brand connections with instinctive responses. The more automatic the response to your brand is, the greater the emotional bond.

3. Identify pain points with customer surveys.

A survey allows you to ask the questions you need answers to, and impact customer touchpoints for your brand. Survey data cuts through the noise and helps you identify key audience sentiments and (or) perceptions towards your brand.

Further, you can contextualize your finding with a wider data set on consumer trend to scope for detailed analysis

4. Social media conversations

Progressively, conversations about brands occur across (multiple) social media platforms. Track and analyze what is being said about you and your competitors, identify trends, and engage in the conversation.

5. Read online reviews

Tracking what people are rating your offering(s) is a valuable source of detailed insight as users review portals urge the audience to substantiate their opinions with experiences. Collate, analyze and feed this intelligence to your product and marketing team to address any common misconceptions and take advantage of recurring positive feedback

In conclusion, it is about building empathy through research. Harness the wealth of data to find out exactly who your customers are, how they feel about your brand, what motivates them, and how they can relate to your offerings

Stay in touch with what matters most to your audience to build a level of empathy and drive meaningful relationships.

Thank you

Yogesh Babu

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