Customer perception is the reality of how customers view your brand, products and services. In many cases, customers form impressions, assumptions and opinions about a firm that differ substantially from how a firm views itself. The following are common types of customer perception with examples of each.
Awareness
Unaware, vaguely aware, aware but disinterested, interested, engaged, committed.
Brand
Luxurious, basic, well-known, unknown, reliable, safe, unreliable, modern, legacy, small or niche, conventional, timeless, friendly, unfriendly, high status, low status, trustworthy, respected, political, consistent, inconsistent.
Useful, useless, cutting-edge, lags the competition, bloated with useless features, simple but useful, overly minimalistic, lacks features, perfect set of features, features that are better than the competition, stable and timeless features, features unstable and change too often.
Usability
Easy to use, pleasing to use, difficult to use, productive to use, inefficient and time consuming, easy to learn, difficult to learn, intuitive, unintuitive, can control what I want, lacks customizations and configurations, asks too many questions, interrupts my flow.
Satisfying, memorable, meaningful, productive, intuitive, seamless and easy, fun, rewarding, relaxing, convenient, comfortable, uncomfortable, inconvenient, stressful, embarassing, time consuming, frustrating.
Quality
Well-built, well-designed, durable, consistent, accurate, transparent, fair, efficient, safe, secure, accessible, compatible, reliable, responsive, high quality materials, high quality ingredients, professional, ethical, attention to detail.
Social & Environment
Positive impact, negative impact, legacy firm from the old economy, overly political, distracted from core value, virtual signaling, authentic & good, making things worse, changing the world for the better.
The following are examples of how perceptions can differ from how you position your products, services, experiences and brands:
Brand
You may position your brand to be luxury but customers may develop their own impression that leans more towards budget.
Your software engineers may tell you something isn't broken, but customers may view it as broken nonetheless.
Usability
Customers often have a strongly formed opinion regarding the usability of tools such as mobile devices, software and appliances.
Senses
The taste, smell, touch and sound of products and environments.
Promotion
Customers may interpret advertising and promotion in ways not envisioned by creative teams.
Quality
The quality of products and services are interpreted by customers using criteria that may differ significantly from one person to the next. One customer may view a beverage in a plastic bottle that is easy to open as high quality while another customer may view products in glass bottles as inherently higher quality.
Reputation
A brand that presents itself as sustainable and reputable may not achieve the same image in the market depending on their actions as a firm.
Customer Service
Some customers may prefer friendly customer service such as engaging in personal conversations. Others have a strong preference for professional distance. Skilled customer service professionals discover such preferences and adapt.
Features
Features may be viewed as a bug or annoyance. For example, notifications that are repetitive, trivial or delivered with unpleasant sounds may be unpopular.
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