Chronicle Editor
By Michelle Nonkazimulo Ndiweni
Earlier we discussed at length the concept of consumer motivation and ascertained the importance of knowing the reason why consumers choose your shop and not any other.
We discussed widely how understanding consumer motivation can significantly and positively impact your business.
In this article, we’ll talk about leveraging consumer perception. So, what is perception? Well, it’s basically how your consumers view your product, brand, store, company, or anything related to your business.
I’m pretty sure you’ve heard people recommending a company and saying statements like, “such and such brand is durable, buy it” or even simple things like “meat from that butchery is fresh.” Where do such statements emanate from? – you as the manager or entrepreneur have a huge effect on the origins of such statements – which in short are called perception.
The things people see, hear, smell, taste, and feel when they interact with anything to do with your company, be it the product itself or the environment, for example. Customers pay attention to all components of the shop that stimulate any of their senses.
For customers to conclude that a butchery has fresh meat, the butchery smelt fresh, the butchers were clean, the meat looked fresh and the air in the butchery was fresh too. All the boxes for fresh meat were ticked in the customers’ heads, hence the perception.
It is crucial that you know the characteristics of your product and entire business environment that your customers look out for, to validate your business. You need to know what they interpret as quality or value for money and ensure you enable them to see, hear, taste, smell and, or feel it.
For instance, as a person that bakes cake, if your customers believe that a good quality cake is tall, well decorated and tasty, you need to ensure you give them that, and maintain it.
If at any given time, the cake is tall, well decorated and tastes awful, they’d probably perceive your cake poor quality. So thrive to give your customers what they expect, and what they interpret as quality, at all times.
When considering entry into a new market, carry out extensive research on what the consumers perceive as exceptional quality. Ascertain all the components of a quality product or service. Let’s say for instance you propose to have a wedding venue that is perceived as luxurious. You’d need to know what your market defines as luxury and offer that. Do not fall into the trap of following your ideas of what defines luxury as your ideas could be wrong or inadequate, and that may lead to drastic consequences – of which, wastage of money is one of the major.
This is true for all business scenarios. Get into the mind of your consumers and ascertain what they would interpret as quality, e.g. fashionable, in the clothing industry, or even modest, in the clothing industry. Another typical example would be establishing what your consumers perceive as tasty food, not your idea of what tasty food means.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be innovative and try out new things. What this basically means is, you need to be absolutely sure before launching a service or product that you will make the most of customer perceptions by garnering positivity around your product and or service.
So, it is crucial to be deliberate in the management of the senses of the customer. Invest in this as it will enable your business to get the most from its market, be it revenue or brand reputation, or any other good asset.
Mrs Michelle N. Ndiweni holds a Master of Science Degree in Marketing and is a Lecturer at a local University. She is a Marketing Consultant, Researcher and Trainer and may be contacted on the following profile on LinkedIn,
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