Marketing is a dynamic domain, that is, it involves change, an important phenomenon that should not be overlooked. We have come across a term “Unique Selling Proposition” (USP) that companies feel is a constant factor. Every organization is an open management system, which means that change is inevitable and is associated with environmental factors. Companies need to focus not only on the USP of their products, but also on the “Unique Customer Perception” (UCP) of end users.
The marketing prop is based on the identification of the need and the USPs are prepared based on the identified needs. If needs are misidentified, even IPs that are unique to the product will not serve the purpose. USP identifies a product/service from its competitors, while UCP is the perception or image that a client develops from all kinds of promotional contributions from the company about its product or service. It is often seen that some brands do extremely well compared to other brands that have the same resources. The reason why brands do not do well is probably communication that does not reflect the perception of customers. Therefore, it is not the USP but the UCP that plays an important role. This has led to the concept: “Customer perception is the rule and not customer satisfaction.”
Remember that a customer always buys a product or service with high expectations derived from the company’s promotional inputs or other sources, including word of mouth. So, a customer would be satisfied when the performance equals the expectation, whereas he would be dissatisfied when the performance does not match the expectation. Now this expectation is what has been derived from perception. Perception isn’t good or bad, right or wrong, it’s just someone’s way of judging an experience based on their value system of what they think should happen. As people are unique, each of their perceptions are unique, on the other hand each situation is a “touch point” with an employee who will tell the customer a “truth” about the company’s idea of customer service. Each situation will create expectations of what the next experience is likely to be like.
Businesses spend a considerable amount on advertising, and in this world of competitive advantage, advertising has to be repetitive in nature. Brand hammering results in brand recall, which is an expensive affair. Therefore, companies must understand the unique perception of the customer to facilitate advertising and sales promotion (ASP) efforts towards better negotiation. The cost incurred in advertising is huge, that is, if we mean the 5M of advertising, money is a budget constraint for an ideal advertising campaign. Therefore, UCP must be analyzed correctly to obtain better results by the company to match the performance and expectations.