Solving customer pain points
Solving customer pain points is an essential contributing component to a business’s success. What exactly is a pain point, how do you identify them and, most importantly, how do you solve them?
That’s exactly what we’re going to lay out for you in this handy guide
What is a customer pain point?
The easiest way to understand customer pain points are as problems that your past or potential customers experience within your industry or area of operation. It’s important to narrow in and focus on the pain points that are relevant to your business, of course. There’s no point in spending time identifying pain points related to customers’ experience purchasing underwear if you’re a hairdresser.
A pain point can be any problem experienced throughout the journey as a customer. This includes the shopping or browsing, purchasing and after-sales experiences. To that end, there can potentially be a range of diverse types of problems of all sizes and of all kinds. Pain points can be general or specific, and they can even change over time, so as a business operator you’ll need to be keeping your eye on your customers’ experiences continually.
You might think that it’s a simple case of just thinking about your customers to identify what really makes them tick and what really ticks them off, but it can actually be a lot harder to identify and address pain points in the real world.
The importance of identifying pain points
Why go through the pain of identifying your customers’ pain points?
In a nutshell, all successful businesses have properly addressed their customers needs, wants, desires or problems in one way or the other. It’s an integral factor to their success and growth.
Take for example Tesla. This well-known and leading manufacturer of electric cars isn’t just addressing the issue of actually creating a successful electrically-powered car. They are, as founder Elon Musk has said on numerous occasions, focused on addressing the pain point of affordability in the electric car market.
As you can see, Musk and his Tesla team aren’t just focusing on creating a product and a business, but specifically addressing a pain point felt by, literally, millions of potential customers around the world. This pain point stands in their way of Teslas being mass adopted. Should it be addressed: Well, the sky’s the figurative limit.
Address your customers’ pain points where your competitors don’t, and you’ll set yourself apart in a very real way.
Types of pain points for customers
1. Support
A support-related pain point relates to customers or potential customers not receiving the help they need when they need it. This can occur during the shopping process or even through subpar UX (user experience) design on a website.
Here at GO Creative, for example, we’ve developed an entire service offering to account for our customers’ pain point in not receiving support for their website management.
2. Productivity
How many products focus on streamlining services, reducing waste, minimising downtime, optimising output and increasing productivity? Improving convenience for customers is one way of addressing a very common paint point.
Our urgent website support is specifically designed to reduce website down time and help our customers be more productive online.
3. Process
A process pain point can be, for example, a terrible experience for someone trying to order flowers online or book a taxi. If the process of engaging with a business is inconvenient and cumbersome, that’s going to be a real pain point for customers.
Ask us about how we custom design websites, especially online stores, for our clients so they can ensure their customers experience a seamless online process.
4. Financial
Financial pain points are the easiest to understand. Too expensive. Too much. Too high a price. From expensive subscriptions to lock-in contracts, financial pain points are commonplace. However, it’s not just the price itself. Low transparency in pricing structures and sudden changes of fees for no reason all contribute to this ever important pain point.
That’s why we offer completely free SEO audits for our prospective customers. At no cost, any business can find out exactly what we have to offer them and exactly how much it’s going to cost.
Approaching customer pain points
Identifying customer pain points, as we mentioned, is not always the easiest thing to do. Whenever you approach the issue, we recommend bearing in mind the following fundamental principles:
- Think like your customers, not like a supplier.
- Analyse every part of your customers’ journeys to identify any potential pain point.
- You cannot solve the pain point for your customers without gaining their trust.
How to identify your customers’ pain points
Internal feedback
Don’t look past your customer service team and sales representatives for highly valued feedback about what your customers are experiencing. Ask them what the issues or objections are that get brought up by prospects. What information do you wish you had to provide them? Is there specific feedback you’re hearing?
Market research
Want to know what your customers are experiencing? Ask them! Qualitative feedback from customers is a great way of finding out what they value and what they think their ‘pain points’ are. Ask them outright how you can improve your offering and invite them to provide constructive and honest feedback. TIP: Ask open ended questions wherever possible for more information.
Look at competitors
Taking the time to evaluate other businesses in the market with an openness to improve and willingness to learn will help you determine what pain points they are addressing that you’re not. It’s an opportunity to look at what you can do differently to set yourself apart and appeal to customers who are experiencing a particular point of pain that hasn’t been addressed yet.
How do you solve the pain points problem?
Solving pain points isn’t always easy. It often requires an extensive plan and multiple attempts at a solution. Investing time, money and energy might seem overwhelming but at the end of the day it’s certainly necessary.
Remember to focus on the priorities at hand, put yourself in your customers’ shoes and brainstorm ideas with your entire team.
Explore digital transformations – contact us today
A great way to address many of your customers’ pain points could be a complete online re-invention or even a small scale digital initiative. From redesigned websites to establishing multiple communication channels, and even all-day everyday online chatbots, the GO Creative team is here to help you out.
Would you like a free quote? Get in touch with us today.
