Even the most useful and functional products can end up falling flat if people don’t like the brand. You might think all you need to do is bring a great product to market and the rest will take care of itself, but this is far from the truth.
If your customers don’t have a good perception of the brand for any reason, then they are likely not going to like your product either. This is why customer perception is so important.
But how do you cultivate the right kind of perception that is going to get your goods flying off the shelves? Luckily for you, we are here to help you with just that. So keep on reading and we will take you through everything that you will want to know!
Table of Contents
1. Identify Your Audience and Understand How They Perceive Your Brand
First and foremost, you need to understand the most basic qualities of your target customers. This includes things like age, gender, location, language, and income. However, you’ll also want to understand customer behavior.
How do your customers absorb information? Do they pay with credit, cash, or PayPal? How do they interact with each other?
You also want to know what your customers value.
Companies like Dove and Gap are great examples of this. These were both struggling companies who realized that “real women” weren’t being catered to. So they shifted their marketing campaigns to show women of different sizes and complexions in order to appeal to more customers.
In turn, they saw their sales boom and their customer perception swing sharply upward.
Before the early 2000s, there were decades of criticism from all sides about how clothing and bathing companies only seemed to target slim and beautiful women. Once companies started listening to their customers and critics, they were able to greatly improve their sales.
2. Develop and Maintain a Positive Connection With Your Customers
If your customers feel that your brand provides them with good experiences, they will spend more time in your stores and more money on your products. One of the best ways to establish a strong and personal connection with your customers is by providing high-quality customer service.
If you can afford it, avoid bots whenever you can. Instead, add a more human touch and have customer service technicians at the ready. Many of the most successful companies also have acclaimed customer service.
There’s a reason why Apple is the most valuable company in the world. Part of it is because of the quality of their products and part of it is a successful marketing campaign. But a major aspect is that they have thousands of actual people on their phones, ready to handle whatever problem a customer might have.
This kind of service makes people feel valued and cared for. And they repay Apple by buying more of their products.
3. Be Open to Feedback and Strive to Improve
If you get negative criticism from customers and critics, you shouldn’t simply dismiss what they say and move on. You need to listen to what your customers are saying and see how you can incorporate their feedback.
You can’t please everyone and you shouldn’t try. But if you hear that a lot of your customers are all complaining about the same thing then you should definitely listen to them.
Nobody likes getting negative feedback but it’s something that every good business owner has to deal with and accept. You can hold surveys, and polls, and call customers directly to hear what they think about your brand and service.
Using an NPS can also help you see how satisfied your customers are. The NPS meaning is net promoter score and it helps companies measure client satisfaction.
4. Share Real Customer Testimonials
No matter if you run a small mom-and-pop shop online or you run Apple, you are going to want to rely on word of mouth. People trust recommendations, even from anonymous strangers who they see online.
Customer testimonials are a great way to show potential customers that your service is legitimate and that people like your brand.
If you have satisfied clients, post their reviews and testimonials on your site. Do whatever you can to show that a lot of people like your business and are using it.
5. Be Humble
As a small business owner, you need to have a lot of self-awareness. This means you need to be confident but not obnoxious. No matter what, you need to act like people like what you are doing and that it is something worth continuing.
However, you should never think that you are the best and that if you don’t have good sales then that is the customer’s fault and not your fault. Being right and being successful are two different things.
That’s why you need to be humble and stick to your mission statement while also serving your customers what they want.
The Importance of Knowing How to Improve Customer Perception & Brand Awareness
Hopefully, after reading the above article, you now understand how to improve customer perception and brand awareness. As we can see, it’s not always easy and it can sometimes be painful but following the above tips will help you run a more successful business.
