The Complete Guide to Customer Pain Points

When it comes to pain points, you have to ask yourself “how much am I willing to pay to resolve this pain?”. The history of business is littered with stories of companies solving customer pain points to edge out their competitors. Without getting into a heated Apple vs Android or Windows debate, I hope we can all agree that Apple has marketed itself as a company that offers a simple and consistent experience that “just works”. What they lack in sheer power or customization, they make up for in reliability. This is an example of responding to a pain point. Apple didn’t invent the first MP3 player, the first tablet, the first smartphone, or the first smartwatch. But they did create a product that people wanted to use. They addressed the pain points in the technology that inspired their products and the rest is history.

Finding and resolving your customer pain points is a great way to set yourself apart from the competition and show your customers that you care. When it comes to pain points, there are 3 areas to focus on.

1. Finding your customer’s pain point.
2. Earning their trust
3. Solving the pain point for them

That’s what we’re going to be focusing on today. By identifying and resolving customer pain points you provide better customer experience and customer experience is a top priority for businesses going into 2020. 

What Are Customer Pain Points?

Put simply, customer pain points are a specific problem that customers or prospective customers of your business are experiencing in the marketplace. They are essentially any problems that the customer may experience along their customer journey. Now, of course, these problems can be extremely diverse and identifying all of them may not be as easy as you initially think. Getting to the bottom of your customer pain points involves a degree of thinking outside the box and putting yourself in the shoes of your customers.

Although a pain point may be a specific problem, either small or large, it is common to group pain points into categories so you can better approach how to resolve them. Let’s take a look at some common pain point categories.

Productivity Pain Points

This category encompasses all pain points where the customer wants to be more efficient or wants a more streamlined experience when dealing with companies. These customers want to make the most of their time so anything that adds redundancy to the buying process will cause them frustration.

You can reduce redundancy and friction within your buying process by implementing things like fewer steps in the checkout process and using intelligent agent routing for customer service. But it’s not just about making your business more productive and therefore more attractive to the buyer. It’s also about offering products that attract customers that want to be more productive. When it comes to the products you offer you want to focus on the following characteristics if you want to solve productivity pain points:

• Optimizing productivity: how can your product help your customers use their time efficiently? Most of us can empathize with the wanting to make better use of our time, and this desire is particularly common in the digital age where we’re only offline when we’re asleep. According to one survey, the average employee is interrupted from their work 56 times a day. If you can tell your prospective customers how your product will make them more productive and give them a boost of focus, then you’ll appeal to these buyers.
• Increase Comfort: the more positive the experience the customer has with your product, the more likely they are to use it. For customers who are particularly prone to productivity pain points, comfort can be another way to increase their productivity. After all, you’re more productive when you’re happy and comfortable with what you’re doing or using.
• Convenience: Customers often favor something easy and convenient over something cheaper but less convenient.

Customer productivity pain points may not be a top focus for all business, and it will depend on what products and services you offer. If you offer software for work or home use, then increased productivity is probably a key feature of your product. However, if you sell shoes, then it might be a stretch to say a new pair of shoes will make you more productive and give you more time to spend with your family. The point is not all customer pain points are equal, so you shouldn’t treat them as such. How equal they are will depend on your company and what you offer to your customer base.

source : https://www.commbox.io/the-complete-guide-to-customer-pain-points/#:~:text=What%20Are%20Customer%20Pain%20Points,experience%20along%20their%20customer%20journey.