It's easy for the customer viewpoint to get lost when you're fully immersed in your business, but of course the customer is the point. Their views are the ultimate determinant of your success.

Customer viewpoint can be wide ranging , including:

• Their accumulated experience of interacting with you, especially at point-of-sale, which is the primary builder of brand
• What they hear others saying about you
• Their perception of your corporate identity, character and personality (which they will express in other words, such as "trust" and "rip off")
• How they would prefer to interact with you; what services and products they would really like
• Purchase triggers and blockers
• Their perception of your promotions (surprisingly often, customers buy despite the ads – or decide not to buy based on what the ads say)
• Their perception of your "social values" including environmental, corporate citizenship, employee relations

In researching customer viewpoint it is critical to be aware that customers lie, especially when they think their answers will influence how you treat them. That's why you never hear a customer saying, "Too cheap" – but you do hear them promising faithfully they would pay more for such and such when in reality they mostly won't.

Analysing customer viewpoints requires training, experience and sensitivity, which Glide brings to the task. If you want to know more about the people who buy from you (or could buy from you, but choose to buy from your competitors), talk with us.