NEW: The pain points of customer service

“Make the customer the hero of your story” – Ann Handley

As customers we have encountered problems during our customer journey with different organisations.

However, it is one thing encountering the problems; it is also another thing for that same organisation to acknowledge that there is a problem and take time to solve whatever problems that their customers are facing, before they degenerate into a crisis.

Customer pain points are the specific problems that current and prospective customers are experiencing in the marketplace. The problems differ from one company to the other, and they vary in nature. Not all these problems are easy to identify as some may be very complex, and they require the organisation to be empathetic while being able to think outside the box.

Nonetheless, these pain points can be easily identified when they are in groups rather than individually, because they are too many to mention.

The following are groups of customer pain points:

When organisations are going about their businesses sometimes, they lack the highest standard or quality due to several factors related to their processes.

Companies must use processes that are easy and bring convenience to their customers. Any customer prefers to use a process that gives them convenience, for instance, shopping online and getting your stuff delivered at your doorstep is very convenient compared to getting into town and do the shopping. Even installing your bank’s banking mobile application makes your banking easier rather than going physically to a banking hall. Costs and time are reduced by using these applications. One thing customers love is convenience, and the moment that your brand seems to lack that they will quickly move over to brands that offer what you lack. Make the process pain point easier and customers will not switch over to competition.

During the customer journey, some customers may require assistance. This can be requested during the pre-purchase, actual purchasing or after purchasing stage. If a customer has a burning enquiry or question that cannot be answered quickly or responded to by your customer service, they will change the service provider. My internet recently went down, and I contacted the service provider who only managed to come and fix the problem after three weeks. I had to remind them every day of my problem, but all they could do is apologise and make promises that they could not keep. I made up my decision not to patronise their services again.

Customers that value time prefer a streamlined experience when doing business because they want to make use of every minute of their time. So, anything that slows down their time may make the customer think twice about doing business with you.  A long buying process or check out process is a big turn off and it makes the business less productive while unattractive to the buyer. The kind of products or services you offer to the customer make the pain points different, thus, customer pain points are not equal and cannot be treated as such. For instance, an IT software company for work or home productivity is a key feature of their product.

This type of pain points are problems which prospective customers face, and they involve money. They may be spending a lot of money on their current service providers but deep down they wish to cut back on that. Some organisations are not truthful about their pricing and in most cases, they have hidden costs which they put at the final invoice much to the surprise of their customers. There are also some companies that dupe customers by on quality of the products such that the customer ends up spending more on repairs or replacements.

It is important that customers understand the different pain points because it makes it easy for them to identify them and find ways to resolve them. In the next article I will touch on how to address these pain points.