If I'm understanding you correctly, you want to pass form values. Fine. CGI.pm has methods suitable for doing that in a much neater way than what you are attempting. The param() function is the one you want.

<input type="text" name="custtype" value="whatever'>
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So you've got that form element. Once you've submitted, call the param() function and bind that element to a variable in the script you call in the action attribute of your form definition.

my $q = CGI->new();
my $cust = $q->param('custtype');
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param() examines the query string submitted to by your form and pulls the values out of that. In this case $cust would hold the value 'whatever'.