Changing Perceptions

Coming home to Lancashire this weekend for Easter has opened my eyes to how certain perceptions of a brand/organisation can stick in a consumer's mind and can often be unchanged.

Firstly, I grew up in Preston and started going out there when I was 16/17 and used to love it, however after I started visiting friends in Manchester/ Birmingham/ Liverpool/ Lancaster/ Wigan etc. I started to hate Preston nightlife and especially when I moved away to Bristol I never considered going out in Preston as I was put off by the previous experiences I'd had in Preston due to associating the nightlife with the places I used to go and the experiences I had when I was 16 and 17. I always thought they were a bit chavvy, cheap and not very sophisticated however this was only because they had been back then.

However, over the Easter weekend I decided to try Preston again and some new bars I hadn't been to before and was so pleasantly surprised! I had a really good night and actually felt as though I was in Manchester not the Preston I knew!

I also popped in to my nail salon where I have been going for years now, and whilst I was speaking to the beauty therapist, who happens to be the new manageress, she was telling me about the problems they had been having with staff letting them down and how this had negatively affected some of their most loyal customers and how certain customers had been put off coming due to the fear of their appointments not being secure or receiving bad service. She was explaining to me that she had to drop the prices of certain services to try and regain the reputation the salon had before the problems had occured due to a member of staff who had been layed off due to the consequences of her actions.

This made me think of how difficult it can be to grow back a good reputation or change a consumer's perception from negative to positive. These examples may sound specific to me, but it can happen so many times when consumer's purchase products and services. Once a product has been taken out of a consumer's evoked set i.e. the products they are willing to buy, they are very unlikely to ever purchase that product again.

Once a customer has made up their mind about a brand- it is almostn  impossible to change it. Despite the fact a company's product may meet the consumer's needs and wants perfectly, if they are unwilling to consider purchasing it or associate the brand with negative feelings due to a bad experience with it- the product's benefits will never reach them.

People cannot form new perceptions of a brand WITHOUT A NEW EXPERIENCE

This means that it is up to the brands & marketers to provide these new experiences...

Despite the fact I have had a number of negative experiences eating at harvester, from food & service quality- when I complain they always make an effort to put it right by offering money off or free dessert, which provides me (the customer) with a positive experience as I leave Harvester happy.

This not only relates back to my customer service blog about retaining customers, but also the fact is- without turning negative experiences into positive ones, companies will lose customers and therefore business.  

Successful rebranding is hard to achieve & the fact is- some brand owners only realise the negative brand perceptions far too late- once the brand relevance and customers have already left.....