4 Customer Pain Points & How to Address Them

Whether you’re selling a product or a service, the idea remains the same; solve your customers’ problems. In the e-commerce space, these problems are called customer pain points, and knowing how to address them is crucial to your brand’s success.

Customer pain points come in many forms, making them difficult for new business owners to identify. But don’t worry! We’re here to help you out. This article will discuss how you can address the most common customer pain points to ensure the utmost satisfaction and provide a positive buying experience. 

1. Financial pain points

Anything money-related can present hurdles when prospective buyers look at your product/services. Financial pain points can come in many different forms, and the most common ones are:

• Huge one-time payments
• Expensive subscription fees
• Hidden fees/charges
• Value perception
• Price-to-performance/quality

Most businesses think lowering prices will help solve the customer’s problem, but in reality, it will only affect your ability to generate profits. Instead of focusing on the price, you want to create a solution that addresses the problem to the core.

For example, if you offer legal services and your clients struggle to pay one-time fees, you can offer in-house installment plans to ease their burden. By providing customizable payment solutions, you can generate consistent revenue and alleviate one of your customer’s pain points.

If your customers are hesitant to buy your products because of their perceived value, you can address this through your marketing materials. Communicate with your customers about how well your product/service can solve their problems. If you can reinforce the quality of your brand, customers will be more than happy to pay for them regardless of their price.

2. Productivity/process pain points

Productivity/process pain points stem from inefficient processes that hamper the customer’s buying experience. There are many examples of this, including:

• Lengthy checkout systems
• Slow-loading websites
• Clunky user interface
• Complicated software

Pain points that affect the buyer’s time can create friction and lead to a sub-optimal interaction with your brand. To address them, you want to keep convenience in mind when serving your customers. Optimize your website for mobile devices to ensure they load quickly and shorten the buyer’s journey for a hassle-free experience.

The good news is there is plenty of modern tools designed to streamline the customer’s buying journey, and one example is a one-click checkout solution. This type of software eliminates the unnecessary steps from the buying process to make it as convenient as possible for your customers.

Such an example is worth noting when trying to solve productivity pain points. Remember, people value time, and a 3-second delay in your website loading is enough for customers to leave your website.

3. Support pain points

Customer support plays a huge role in a company’s success, and often buyers experience pain points in this area. Whether it’s a delay in response times or failure to provide the correct answers, support pain points revolve around problems buyers face regarding your product/service.

There’s no going around this problem. To guarantee customer satisfaction, you must address their concerns swiftly and efficiently. Provide adequate training to your support team and hire the right employees to ensure quality after-sales service. Always go above and beyond in solving customer issues, as it’ll help immensely in repeat sales for your business.

One of the best ways to address support pain points is to implement digital engagement tools like chatbots. Chatbots provide 24/7 customer service and provide accurate answers to buyer concerns. Leverage the power of modern technology to provide quality customer service.

4. Product/service pain points

These pain points refer to the actual problems customers experience with your product/service. No product/service on the market is 100% guaranteed to work flawlessly, and the brands that stay in tune with their consumers are the ones that will stand out from the competition.

Listen to what your customers are saying about your products/services. Read their reviews and ask for polls on improving your brand’s offerings. If a customer says they have an issue with the materials you use on your products, you may want to consider sourcing from a new supplier to meet their needs/expectations.

Service pain points often arise due to a lack of knowledge from the business owner’s end. You want to showcase your skill and expertise so customers can manage their expectations. Addressing service pain points can be more challenging than product pain points, but when approached with the right mindset, you can work around them and deliver a satisfactory customer experience.

Tips on identifying customer pain points

Identifying pain points may seem challenging at first, but once you consider these three in mind, you’ll be poised to find them and provide solutions immediately.

1. Gather insights from your customers

One of the best ways to identify pain points is to leverage data gathered from your customers. Reviews and feedback provide in-depth information on how customers feel about your products/service, so get a pulse from your customers and hear them out on their experience with your brand. To make your surveys more effective, we’ve written out a guide on how post-sales surveys work and what questions you should include.

The key is to ask open-ended questions that enable customers to describe their emotions. For example, if you want to identify productivity pain points, you can ask a question like, “How can we improve your shopping experience?” or “How was the checkout process for you?”

2. Take a close look at the competition

You can take inspiration from other brands and see how they implement their strategies in dealing with customer pain points. Do they use higher-quality materials for their products compared to yours? Is their website more snappy and responsive when browsing on a mobile device?

See if you can spot any differences between you and your competitors to determine which areas of your brand require improvement. By doing a one-to-one comparison, you’ll be able to identify weaknesses in customer experience and shore them up to maintain the utmost satisfaction.

3. Talk to your sales team

Your sales team is more familiar with your customer base than any other group out there. So, it makes perfect sense to discuss specific problem areas that they notice when interacting with customers. What are the most common pain points that your customers experience with your brand? What suggestions can your sales team recommend for providing an adequate solution to those problems?

Have complete trust in your sales team since they interact with your buyers 99% of the time. Chances are, they’ll be able to spot problem areas you likely wouldn’t have thought otherwise.

Wrapping up

Customer pain points exist in almost every business, and addressing them can be quite challenging if you don’t know how to identify them. By tackling these four problem areas, you can improve customer satisfaction rates and retain your most loyal buyers. Hopefully, this article helps you identify pain points in your business and guide you in making the appropriate solutions.

Accurate bookkeeping is essential to maintaining the profitability of your business. If you need any help with expert bookkeeping services, our team is ready to assist you. Feel free to fill out the form below, and we’ll get in touch with you shortly.