What is Customer Perception and 5 Key Factors That Influence It

Customer perception is the currency of business growth in today’s world. Without it, you don’t have a brand. You just have a company… and that’s not too compelling. A brand is a living and breathing entity that’s shaped by internal and external factors.

You might be familiar with this customer perception from your personal experience as a consumer. Maybe you’ve avoided a store because you’ve heard some less-than-flattering accounts from customers. On the other hand, maybe you specifically sought out a business because it had great online reviews. Both are examples of customer perception and why it matters in a real-world context.

Getting customers to like you isn’t enough. Customer perception is broader. It’s also about the feelings your business evokes in them, along with the keywords and phrases they associate with your brand.

Getting inside their heads can help you refine your marketing campaigns, identify opportunities to improve your service, track metrics, and grow your enterprise. In other words, modern companies and customer service teams stand to gain a great deal by engaging in this educational exercise to obtain customer feedback.

Conversely, inaction can come at a high cost. In today’s business world, negative perception can be the kiss of death. However, a favorable one can lead to longevity and long-term success. Look to our helpful guide to understand why customer perception matters, the factors involved, and how you can improve it and use happy customers to your advantage to grow and scale smartly.

What is Customer Perception?

It’s a fact that customers will form views about a brand, product, or service based on their experiences, encounters, and interactions. Over time, they form feelings, attitudes, and beliefs based on ingredients like customer service, product quality, and personal experiences with your brand. At the heart of customer perception is how customers feel about your company and its services after doing business with you.

A positive customer perception sets a company up for success in terms of loyalty, trust, and an uptick in sales. Unfortunately, negative brand perception can tarnish a company’s reputation and jeopardize its position in the marketplace.

Why is Customer Perception Important?

Positive customer perception can help a person conclude whether your brand values align with theirs. The answer will determine if they’ll continue to purchase from you or leave for your competition. Customer satisfaction, likelihood to recommend, and likelihood to purchase more make up the customer experience trio that can make or break your brand’s future.

You can probably relate to this example. Let’s pretend a new Thai restaurant just opened in your neighborhood. Over coffee, your friend raves about the great meal and service she had there. You decide to try it and see for yourself. It turns out she was right. The meal was delicious, and you plan to return soon—and bring a few friends along with you.

In this case, your friend’s perception and hearty endorsement meant the restaurant gained a new customer. If circumstances had been different and the consensus was that it was a failure, the restaurant would have suffered from poor customer perception.

However, customer perception goes both ways. Consider this perspective:

Businesses: A positive perception lays the foundation for hitting sales goals, fostering customer loyalty, and bolstering brand advocacy. On the other hand, a negative perception is often associated with shrinking revenue, weakened brand image, and difficulty growing a customer base.

Consumers: Customer perception can be the North Star that guides customers in how and where they spend their money. Reviews, recommendations, and their own experiences often shape the determination about whether it’s smart to support the business or not.

5 Key Factors That Influence Customer Perception

Customer perception doesn’t happen in a vacuum. On the contrary, people form opinions based on a few factors. They include:

1. Customer Reviews

Positive online reviews indicate social proof. In other words, if hundreds of people have a great experience with a company, there’s a good chance it’s not a fluke.

1. Marketing and Advertising

Marketing messaging can influence customer sentiment. But not just any ad will cut it to be effective in the long run. Campaigns need to be accurate representations of your products and services to build and sustain trust.

1. Customer Support Quality

Friendly, helpful, and efficient customer service contributes to customer perception. Unfriendly or even hostile staff can pose reputational risks and challenges and impact the customer effort score.

1. Product Quality and Value

Making good on your value proposition is how you build trust, enhance customer satisfaction, and elevate customer perception.

1. Price and Convenience

The price needs to be right. Your target market must be able to afford your offerings. You should also make it painless to make the purchase.

How To Improve Customer Perception: 7 Ways

Customer perception is not static. It’s dynamic and can change over time based on factors both within and outside your control. That can be a good and bad thing, depending on your stature. If your customer perception is lacking, you might need some help getting back on track. Here are a few ways to do that and strengthen your business at the same time:

1. Gather Customer Feedback

Use surveys, social media polls, and email campaigns to touch base with your customer base about the customer experience. They might have some suggestions for how you might improve.

2. Provide Exceptional Customer Service

Train your staff to deliver consistent customer service at every touchpoint. Both seasoned and new team members should feel confident in their ability to wow customers.

3. Act on Customer Feedback

Resolve customer concerns as soon as possible. Internalize the feedback and act accordingly. This will go a long way in sustaining a culture of respect.

4. Follow Up With Customers

Contact customers after the transaction to gauge satisfaction and act if it’s warranted. This shows you’re invested in the outcome.

5. Work on Meeting Expectations

Make sure your products or services deliver on what you promised your customers. Make it right if you miss the mark somehow.

6. Monitor Social Media

Review what people are saying about your brand in public forums. If warranted, respond to negative comments so that your brand shows you’re engaged.

7. Be Authentic and Transparent

Build trust with open and honest conversations with customers. Make sure your customer service team knows how to execute on that.

How To Measure and Analyze Customer Perception

You won’t necessarily know what your customers think about your company and its offerings unless you ask them directly. That said, consider these ways to obtain insights related to customer loyalty that can help you succeed.

1. Customer Surveys: Use surveys and customer satisfaction surveys to gather feedback concerning perceived value, customer satisfaction, and brand perception.
2. Net Promoter Score (NPS): Review your net promoter score (NPS) to help you understand customer perception and how likely customers are to refer you to their network.
3. Online Reviews: Read customer comments in reviews to help you decide if you need to invest in improving processes or procedures that affect the customer experience.

Unleash the Power of Positive Perception With Podium

Customer reviews can be one strategic tool in your customer perception toolkit. Podium’s review management platform helps you connect with happy customers. You can ask them for reviews to feature them on your website and social media profiles. It’s an intuitive way to build trust, attract new customers, and boost your brand’s reputation.

Podium Reviews is a platform that helps businesses collect, manage, and display customer reviews. You can gather online reviews from customers across multiple review sites (such as Google, Facebook, etc.). Many businesses use Podium Reviews to help them improve customer experience, online reputation, and visibility.

Podium Reviews’ features include:

1. Review Collection

Podium makes it a cinch to send automated review requests after you’ve helped a customer. The text-based element is a selling point, as this communication channel tends to produce better results than email. The simple interface removes complications that often deter customers from leaving feedback.

2. Centralized Review Management

Businesses can manage and track reviews from various platforms like Google, Facebook, and industry-specific sites in one place. Podium allows businesses to respond directly to reviews. In this way, business owners can support customer loyalty and engagement while demonstrating an active and engaged customer service presence.

3. Improving Online Presence

Podium makes it easy for customers to leave reviews, so you can get more of them. Doing this can improve a business’s ranking and clout on the web..

Since business owners receive reviews in real time, they can promptly address negative feedback or concerns.

4. Review Display and Summary

Business owners can place the reviews collected on their website or marketing materials as social proof. Podium can help you uncover review trends, themes related to customer sentiment, and areas for improvement based on the feedback received.

5. Integration With Other Systems

Podium integrates with other CRM and business management platforms, bringing efficiency to communication and review collection.

In short, Podium Reviews helps businesses like yours enhance their customer journey by making it easier for customers to leave reviews and for businesses to manage, respond to, and analyze them. Watch a demo and see how Podium might be the missing piece of your customer journey and growth strategy.