Marketing Strategy – What Are Customer Pain Points?

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With the holiday season fast approaching, now is the perfect time to review your marketing strategy, identify your customers’ pain points and resolve them before your big winter promotions kick off.

“But what are customer pain points?” you may well be asking. Not to worry, if you’ve never heard this term before, we’ll go over everything you need to know about customer pain points and how to identify them.

What are Customer Pain Points?

Customer pain points refer to any problems or flaws in your products, services or business that will cause a potential customer to be less likely to make a purchase. They can encompass anything from a broken link on your website to a confusing description on your product packaging to poor layout in your physical store that makes it difficult for people to find what they’re looking for.

Essentially, customer pain points are anything that can cause a customer to become frustrated and walk away instead of buying.

Why Should I Care About Customer Pain Points?

Customer pain points stop people who are interested in your products from completing purchases and hurt your bottom line. You should be regularly trying to discover what is preventing people from buying from you and doing what you can to eliminate these factors. This practice will help you to maximize your sales and lead to more satisfied customers.

How do I Identify My Customer Pain Points?

Now that we’ve discussed what pain points are, the next step is identifying them. Depending on the nature of your business, customers might encounter roadblocks to completing a sale at different points in the customer journey. So, you’ll want to look at everything!

 Here are 5 Tips for Identifying Customer Pain Points:

  1. Check and Double Check Your Website

You should review your website regularly to check for broken links, outdated information and to ensure that all features are working as they should. If you have an online shop, be sure to confirm that there are no problems with the checkout process. Try adding products to your cart, ensure that you can signup for an account, test that all coupons or promo codes are working and that orders can be completed quickly and easily.

Even if you don’t sell products through your website, you should still review it to ensure that it’s easy for potential customers to navigate and find what they’re looking for. Consider what kinds of information users will be searching for. Does the layout of your menu and homepage ensure they’ll be able to find that information quickly? If not, you’ll want to make some updates to make your site more user-friendly.

2. Review Your Customer Service Practices

Poor customer service is another area that can lead to lost sales. Consider the following, is it easy for customers to find your contact information if they have a question? How long does it typically take you to respond to customer messages? Is anyone checking your social media accounts and responding to user questions on those platforms?

If a potential customer can’t find an easy way to contact you, or if they send you a message on your social media account and never receive a response, they’ll likely give up on buying from you and move on. Review your customer service policies and ensure that your contact info is easy to find, and that you are checking customer messages regularly and responding in a timely and friendly manner.

3. Solicit Customer Feedback

One of the best ways to discover what is causing your customers’ frustration is to ask them directly. Check customer reviews and see if there are any common complaints and address them. Create a survey and send it to your email list or set it to auto-send after a customer makes a purchase. You can also ask your social media followers if they have any suggestions for how you can improve.

4. Answer Frequently Asked Questions

Are there any questions about your services or products that you find yourself getting asked on a regular basis? Remember that, for every person who takes the time to reach out, there are likely several potential customers who just get confused and decide not to buy from you. Update the descriptions on your website to clarify some of these common questions or add in a FAQ section to provide more information. You can also create a series of posts on your social media accounts or blog to clear up some of these common points of confusion.

5. Research Your Competition

It’s always a good idea to keep an eye on your competition. See what kinds of solutions your competitors have devised for customer pain points, then see if you can come up with something even better. Not only will this make your customers happy, but you could also win over some of your competitors’ customers!

Eliminating your customers’ pain points before the holiday season is a great way to ensure that you’re getting the most out of this critical time. Be sure to also update your marketing to highlight how you’ve improved your products and services.

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