Customer Perception
Customer perception is an important factor in business that has the ability to drive the future success or lack thereof of your business. Customer perception is typically affected by advertising, reviews, public relations, social media, personal experiences and other channels. Additionally the structure and way in which products, services and customer experiences are distributed heavily impact customer perception. There are different stages to perception.
What are the stages of perception?
The 5 stages of perception are stimulation, organization, interpretation, memory, and recall. Together these stages make up the customer perception process and each stage has a significant role.
Stimulation is the encouragement of development or the cause of activity generally. This can be started in alot of different ways. A few ideas were mentioned previously. Stimulation is important because it’s the precursor needed for the other four stages to be able to take place.
Organization is the process through which we mentally arrange information into meaningful and digestible patterns. This is important because it adds both balance and an easier to focus to this process.
Interpretation is when we attach meaning to stimuli. This is essentially understanding all of the previous, current, and future stages involved in this process. Without understanding there is no real way for this to work.
Memory is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information, or the environment. This stage brings all of the previous stages together enabling it to work.
Recall is the mental process of retrieval of information from the past. This stage is a follow-up to all of the other stages. It brings all of stages back to mind when needed so that a customer can effectively determine those products or services that meet their wants and/or needs.
In conclusion, customer perception is very important, and it is very important to ensure that your brand, products, services, and business overall accurately takes into account customers’ wants and needs. Additionally it is important when engaging in strategic planning for new initiatives, enhancing existing initiatives, and any other changes to your products, services and business overall that the impact on and the perception of those changes will be overwhelmingly positive to a majority of your clients. While it’s certainly important to consider the perceived impact to partners, stakeholders, internal, and external contacts, the customer’s perception is the most important one that counts. For without any customers it is as though the other contacts cease to exist. So always be sure to keep customers top of mind and consistently provide excellent products, services, and experiences so your customers’ perception of your company will be the best and can have longevity.
Sources:
www.businessdictionary.com/definition/customer-perception.html
www.quora.com/What-are-the-three-stages-of-the-perception-process