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Three levels of pain points in customer experience.

May 16, 2021 2021-05-16

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UX professionals aim to create end-to-end customer experiences that serve the user goals as effectively as possible. To that end, we conduct user research to understand our users, their needs, and the hurdles they may encounter as they are trying to address those needs.  We usually refer to these hurdles as pain points — problems in the customer experience with a product or service. 

The phrase ‘customer experience’ is crucial in the definition of a pain point. Elsewhere we’ve defined customer experience as encompassing three levels: the interaction level, the journey level, and the relationship level. A pain point can be an issue at any of these three levels — it could be related to a particular interaction with an interface (in which case it is usually called a usability issue ), to a journey as the customer is trying to accomplish a goal, or to the longitudinal experience that a customer has with a company.

Let’s first look at a few examples of pain points at the three levels:

1. Interaction-level pain point : A user is passed from support person to support person.

We’ve all been there — we call customer support, say what we need, only to be passed to another department who “will be able to handle that request.” Not only is time wasted, but we have to explain our issue over again. Even more, there are often discrepancies in the information we are told. This type of interaction causes wasted time and confusion. 

2. Journey-level pain point: A user places an order and does not receive it for months. 

I recently purchased a Peloton bike. After ordering it, I was alerted that the bike would be delivered 3 months from my order date. While this wait time was disappointing, it was somewhat expected given the high demand for the bikes during COVID-19. However, after the 3-month wait, I received a call that the bike would be delivered while I was scheduled to speak at a NN/g UX Conference. Upon calling customer support to reschedule, I was given the choice to take the assigned appointment or reschedule my delivery appointment to another 3 months from then. The pain point in this journey was the long duration between the beginning of the journey (the bike purchase) and the completion of the journey (taking my first ride on the bike). Additional point points included the lack of upfront communication about wait times, the need to call customer support to reschedule delivery, and the lack of flexibility in appointment times.

3. Relationship-level pain point: A user pays for a service but still has to watch ads. 

I pay for a subscription to Hulu to stream TV shows. However, I still have to watch advertisements periodically. This is an anomaly compared to other streaming services (Netflix and HBO Max, for example) and does not meet my user expectations or industry norms. These advertisements are a pain point in my overall relationship with Hulu — my trust in the company is diminished due to the financial commitment I’ve made, without equal reward.  Not only that, but the ads have prompted me to waste time reading forums and contacting Hulu support to solve this problem with no success.  

Pain points are diverse; they can be broad or specific, severe or relatively insignificant, and obvious or hidden. Identifying pain points is a first step to creating solutions that address users’ real needs.  

In This Article:

Pain points vs. usability issues , the effects of pain points on users, how we identify and prioritize pain points.

In the UX world, terminology is thrown around and inflated. This article is not meant to create yet another word for traditional usability issues, but rather define a concept that is broader than that of usability issue. In the same way in which customer experience needs to be defined as broader than usability or interaction-level user experience, pain points need to be defined as all-encompassing issues that go beyond traditional usability problems. 

Remember, pain points include usability issues (those are pain points at the interaction level), but can also include other, higher- level issues in the customer journey or in the overall relationship between customers and organizations.

All pain points incur a cost to users — whether it’s time and extra steps that they need to take or actual money that they lose. Some pain points translate in increased interaction cost and cognitive load . This is often the case with usability issues. For example, complicated workflows that are error-prone can result in increased interaction cost — the user will have to take additional steps to fix the error. Or, the interface may be so complicated that the user may need to call for assistance (and thus experience an increase in interaction cost).  

Other pain points will incur a time cost — for instance, if the user needs to wait for a long time for a process to complete. 

Occasionally, there is also a financial cost to the user. For example, if an internet provider has frequent outages,  users may be forced to use their cellphones as hotspots and incur extra data costs.

Last but not least, a less tangible effect of pain points on users is loss of trust and confidence. A nonsatisfactory interaction with a company often leaves users with a sense of having been betrayed; over time, these experiences erode the overall trust in the company and may cause users to terminate their relationship with the organization. 

We can identify each type of pain point using various UX research methods, then prioritize them based on contextually appropriate criteria. 

Interaction Level 

Identify: Interaction-level pain points (i.e., usability issues), can be detected through user research such as   usability testing. Most of UX has been concerned with identifying these types of issues.

Prioritize: Traditionally, usability issues are classified according to their severity , which can be based on the issue’s impact on the user and on the popularity of the product, how often the problem occurs, and also if a user is likely to encounter it more than once.

Journey Level 

Identify:  Pain points at the journey level are found through a combination of exploratory research such as user interviews, diary and field studies and customer-journey mapping. This approach allows us to collect various data points across the entire journey and assess how successfully interactions come together to help users reach their goals.

Prioritize: Journey-level pain points often need pervasive organizational restructuring and internal process changes; they may even require a CX transformation. When prioritizing journey-level pain points, consider factors such as: 

• The  impact  of the pain point across the journey: How much of the journey is negatively affected by this pain point? Is it contained to a single phase or widespread across multiple journey phases?  
• The feasibility of solving the pain point: To what degree will your company or organization realistically be able to successfully remedy the pain point? 

Relationship Level 

Identify: Relationship-level pain points are uncovered over long periods of time. Our goal is to assess the lifetime experience that a person has with an organization and their cumulative pain points as a patron of that organization. We identify pain points at this level via benchmarking surveys (measuring brand loyalty, likelihood to recommend, and overall customer satisfaction), analytics data, or technical infrastructure that tracks and manages data of individual customers. This kind of technical infrastructure requires that customer-behavior data from across the entire journey is integrated into a single source to create a single view of the customer that includes details about individual users’ relationship with the company and their behaviors over time.

Prioritize: Relationship-level pain points are the most complex and difficult to prioritize. They require many business units collaborating to enact long-term change — internal and external to the company.  To priorize these pain points, consider:

• The  impact  of the pain point across several journeys: How many of the journeys are negatively affected by this pain point? Is it contained to a single journey or widespread across multiple journeys?  
• The churn rate caused by a pain point: How many customers abandon your company because of this pain point? 
• The brand loyalty lost as a consequence of the pain point: Are customers likely to use your product less? Will they be less likely to recommend it to others? Will they choose a competitor in the future? 

Identifying and fixing pain points, and better yet, preventing them, is core to what we do as UX professionals. They give purpose to our work and help us focus our time and resources. Pain points, more than random feature requests, should be a driver for design changes. Pain points center the discussion around the customers. 

While pain points are never ideal, it is not cost-efficient to solve all of them. Tradeoffs must sometimes be made, and UX resources should be strategically applied. Once uncovering your users’ pain points and prioritizing them, explore potential solutions and plot the work into a future roadmap . 

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How to create an effective user journey map

No matter what you’re working on, the key to customer satisfaction and business growth is understanding your users. A user journey map helps you uncover pain points, explore the touchpoints from their perspective, and learn how to improve your product.

Imagine you just launched a new ecommerce platform. Shoppers fill their carts with products, but they abandon their carts before checkout. With a user journey map, you can pinpoint where the customer experience is going wrong, and how to enable more successful checkouts.

Read on to find out:

• What is a user journey map, and how it captures user flows and customer touchpoints
• Benefits of user journey mapping to refine UX design and reach business goals
• How to make user journey maps in five steps, using FigJam’s user journey map template

What is a user journey map?

Think about the path a user takes to explore your product or website. How would you design the best way to get there? User journey maps (or user experience maps) help team members and stakeholders align on user needs throughout the design process, starting with user research. As you trace users' steps through your user flows, notice: Where do users get lost, backtrack, or drop off?

User journey maps help you flag pain points and churn, so your team can see where the user experience may be confusing or frustrating for your audience. Then you can use your map to identify key customer touchpoints and find opportunities for optimization.

How to read a user journey map

Most user journey maps are flowcharts or grids showing the user experience from end to end. Consider this real-life journey map example of a freelancing app from Figma's design community. The journey starts with a buyer persona needing freelance services, and a freelancer looking for a gig. Ideally, the journey ends with service delivery and payment—but customer pain points could interrupt the flow.

Start your user journey map with FigJam

5 key user journey map phases.

Take a look at another Figma community user journey template , which uses a simple grid. Columns capture the five key stages of the user journey: awareness, consideration, decision, purchase, and retention (see below). Rows show customer experiences across these stages—their thoughts, feelings, and pain points. These experiences are rated as good, neutral, and bad.

To see how this works, consider a practical example. Suppose a new pet parent wants to learn how to train their puppy and discovers your dog-training app. Here's how you might map out the five key user journey stages:

• Awareness. The user sees a puppy-training video on social media with a link to your product website. They're intrigued—a positive experience.
• Consideration. The user visits your product website to preview your app. If they can't find a video preview easily, this could be a neutral or negative experience.
• Decision. The user clicks on a link to the app store and reads reviews of your app and compares it to others. They might think your app reviews are good, but your price is high—a negative or neutral experience.
• Purchase. The user buys your app and completes the onboarding process. If this process is smooth, it's a positive experience. If not, the customer experience could turn negative at this point.
• Retention. The user receives follow-up emails featuring premium puppy-training services or special offers. Depending on their perception of these emails, the experience can range from good (helpful support) to bad (too much spam).

2 types of user journey maps—and when to use them

User journey maps are helpful across the product design and development process, especially at two crucial moments: during product development and for UX troubleshooting. These scenarios call for different user journey maps: current-state and future-state.

Current-state user journey maps

A current-state user journey map shows existing customer interactions with your product. It gives you a snapshot of what's happening, and pinpoints how to enhance the user experience.

Take the puppy training app, for example. A current-state customer journey map might reveal that users are abandoning their shopping carts before making in-app purchases. Look at it from your customers' point of view: Maybe they aren't convinced their credit cards will be secure or the shipping address workflow takes too long. These pain points show where you might tweak functionality to boost user experience and build customer loyalty.

Future-state user journey maps

A future-state user journey map is like a vision board : it shows the ideal customer journey, supported by exceptional customer experiences. Sketch out your best guesses about user behavior on an ideal journey, then put them to the test with usability testing. Once you've identified your north star, you can explore new product or site features that will optimize user experience.

How to make a user journey map in 5 steps

To start user journey mapping, follow this step-by-step guide.

Step 1: Define user personas and goals.

Gather user research and data like demographics, psychographics, and shopping behavior to create detailed customer personas representing your target audience.  In your dog-training app example, one key demographic may be parents. What’s their goal? It isn't necessarily "hire a puppy trainer"—it could be "teach kids how to interact with a puppy."

Step 2: Identify customer touch points.

Locate the points along the user journey where the user encounters or interacts with your product. In the dog training app example, touchpoints might include social media videos, app website, app store category search (e.g., pets), app reviews, app store checkout, in-app onboarding, and app customer support.

Step 3: Visualize journey phases.

Create a visual representation of user journey phases across key touchpoints with user flow diagrams , flowcharts , or storyboards .

Step 4: Capture user actions and responses.

For each journey stage, capture the user story: at this juncture, what are they doing, thinking, and feeling ? This could be simple, such as: "Potential customer feels frustrated when the product image takes too long to load."

Step 5: Validate and iterate.

Finally, show your map to real users. Get honest feedback about what works and what doesn’t with user testing , website metrics , or surveys . To use the dog-training app example, you might ask users: Are they interested in subscribing to premium how-to video content by a professional dog trainer? Apply user feedback to refine your map and ensure it reflects customer needs.

Jumpstart your user journey map with FigJam

Lead your team's user journey mapping effort with FigJam, the online collaborative whiteboard for brainstorming, designing, and idea-sharing. Choose a user journey map template from Figma's design community as your guide. With Figma's drag-and-drop design features, you can quickly produce your own professional, presentation-ready user journey map.

Pro tip: Use a service blueprint template to capture behind-the-scenes processes that support the user journey, bridging the gap between user experience and service delivery.

Ready to improve UX with user journey mapping?

Customer Journey Maps: How to Create Really Good Ones [Examples + Template]

Updated: April 17, 2024

Published: May 04, 2023

Did you know 70% of online shoppers abandoned their carts in 2022? Why would someone spend time adding products to their cart just to fall off the customer journey map at the last second?

The thing is — understanding your customer base can be very challenging. Even when you think you’ve got a good read on them, the journey from awareness to purchase for each customer will always be unpredictable, at least to some level.

While it isn’t possible to predict every experience with 100% accuracy, customer journey mapping is a convenient tool for keeping track of critical milestones that every customer hits. In this post, I’ll explain everything you need to know about customer journey mapping — what it is, how to create one, and best practices.

Table of Contents

What is the customer journey?

What is a customer journey map, benefits of customer journey mapping, customer journey stages.

• What’s included in a customer journey map?

The Customer Journey Mapping Process

Steps for creating a customer journey map.

• Types of Customer Journey Maps

Customer Journey Mapping Best Practices

• Customer Journey Design
• Customer Journey Map Examples

Free Customer Journey Map Templates

Free Customer Journey Template

Outline your company's customer journey and experience with these 7 free templates.

• Buyer's Journey Template
• Future State Template
• Day-in-the-Life Template

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

The customer journey is the series of interactions a customer has with a brand, product, or business as they become aware of a pain point and make a purchase decision. While the buyer’s journey refers to the general process of arriving at a purchase, the customer journey refers to a buyer's purchasing experience with a specific company or service.

Customer Journey vs. Buyer Journey

Many businesses that I’ve worked with were confused about the differences between the customer’s journey and the buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey is the entire buying experience from pre-purchase to post-purchase. It covers the path from customer awareness to becoming a product or service user.

In other words, buyers don’t wake up and decide to buy on a whim. They go through a process of considering, evaluating, and purchasing a new product or service.

The customer journey refers to your brand’s place within the buyer’s journey. These are the customer touchpoints where you will meet your customers as they go through the stages of the buyer’s journey. When you create a customer journey map, you’re taking control of every touchpoint at every stage of the journey instead of leaving it up to chance.

For example, at HubSpot, our customer’s journey is divided into three stages — pre-purchase/sales, onboarding/migration, and normal use/renewal.

1. Use customer journey map templates.

Why make a customer journey map from scratch when you can use a template? Save yourself some time by downloading HubSpot’s free customer journey map templates .

This has templates that map out a buyer’s journey, a day in your customer’s life, lead nurturing, and more.

These templates can help sales, marketing, and customer support teams learn more about your company’s buyer persona. This will improve your product and customer experience.

2. Set clear objectives for the map.

Before you dive into your customer journey map, you need to ask yourself why you’re creating one in the first place.

What goals are you directing this map towards? Who is it for? What experience is it based upon?

If you don’t have one, I recommend creating a buyer persona . This persona is a fictitious customer with all the demographics and psychographics of your average customer. This persona reminds you to direct every aspect of your customer journey map toward the right audience.

3. Profile your personas and define their goals.

Next, you should conduct research. This is where it helps to have customer journey analytics ready.

Don’t have them? No worries. You can check out HubSpot’s Customer Journey Analytics tool to get started.

Questionnaires and user testing are great ways to obtain valuable customer feedback. The important thing is to only contact actual customers or prospects.

You want feedback from people interested in purchasing your products and services who have either interacted with your company or plan to do so.

Some examples of good questions to ask are:

• How did you hear about our company?
• What first attracted you to our website?
• What are the goals you want to achieve with our company? In other words, what problems are you trying to solve?
• How long have you/do you typically spend on our website?
• Have you ever made a purchase with us? If so, what was your deciding factor?
• Have you ever interacted with our website to make a purchase but decided not to? If so, what led you to this decision?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how easily can you navigate our website?
• Did you ever require customer support? If so, how helpful was it, on a scale of 1 to 10?
• Can we further support you to make your process easier?

You can use this buyer persona tool to fill in the details you procure from customer feedback.

4. Highlight your target customer personas.

Once you’ve learned about the customer personas that interact with your business, I recommend narrowing your focus to one or two.

Remember, a customer journey map tracks the experience of a customer taking a particular path with your company. If you group too many personas into one journey, your map won’t accurately reflect that experience.

When creating your first map, it’s best to pick your most common customer persona and consider the route they would typically take when engaging with your business for the first time.

You can use a marketing dashboard to compare each and determine the best fit for your journey map. Don’t worry about the ones you leave out, as you can always go back and create a new map specific to those customer types.

5. List out all touchpoints.

Begin by listing the touchpoints on your website.

What is a touchpoint in a customer journey map?

A touchpoint in a customer journey map is an instance where your customer can form an opinion of your business. You can find touchpoints in places where your business comes in direct contact with a potential or existing customer.

For example, if I were to view a display ad, interact with an employee, reach a 404 error, or leave a Google review, all of those interactions would be considered a customer touchpoint.

Your brand exists beyond your website and marketing materials, so you must consider the different types of touchpoints in your customer journey map. These touchpoints can help uncover opportunities for improvement in the buying journey.

Based on your research, you should have a list of all the touchpoints your customers are currently using and the ones you believe they should be using if there’s no overlap.

This is essential in creating a customer journey map because it provides insight into your customers’ actions.

For instance, if they use fewer touchpoints than expected, does this mean they’re quickly getting turned away and leaving your site early? If they are using more than expected, does this mean your website is complicated and requires several steps to reach an end goal?

Whatever the case, understanding touchpoints help you understand the ease or difficulties of the customer journey.

Aside from your website, you must also look at how your customers might find you online. These channels might include:

• Social channels.
• Email marketing.
• Third-party review sites or mentions.

Run a quick Google search of your brand to see all the pages that mention you. Verify these by checking your Google Analytics to see where your traffic is coming from. Whittle your list down to those touchpoints that are the most common and will be most likely to see an action associated with it.

At HubSpot, we hosted workshops where employees from all over the company highlighted instances where our product, service, or brand impacted a customer. Those moments were recorded and logged as touchpoints. This showed us multiple areas of our customer journey where our communication was inconsistent.

The proof is in the pudding — you can see us literally mapping these touch points out with sticky notes in the image below.

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How to Identify Pain Points in the User Experience [+ Templates]

As a product manager, designer, or marketer, understanding the user experience (UX) of your platform is key to developing a successful strategy. By understanding and addressing these points, you can improve the user’s experience with the product, increase customer satisfaction, and ultimately, increase your revenue.

In this blog post, we’ll discuss:

• What pain points are
• How they can impact users
• The different types of pain points

Techniques for researching the user experience

• Tips for understanding user pain points

We’ll also provide some examples of user pain points, as well as how to uncover and address them.  By the end of this post, you’ll have the knowledge and tools to identify and address user pain points in your product or service.

What are pain points?

Pain points are areas of difficulty or frustration that users experience with a product or service. They can be related to usability, customer service, pricing, or any other aspect of the user experience. Pain points can have a significant impact on the user experience, and understanding them is essential for creating a successful product.

How pain points impact users

As is obvious from the prevalence of review websites, taking the time to address issues that affect the user experience of any product is more critical now than ever—no matter what industry you’re in.

Pain points can lead to user dissatisfaction, which can (and often does) result in lost customers and sales. Understanding them means that you can identify areas of improvement and develop strategies to address them. When customers are happy with their experience, they are more likely to keep coming back. Additionally, addressing user pain points can help you develop more effective marketing campaigns and create a more positive overall user experience.

Common types of pain points

Pain points can be divided into two main categories: usability pain points and customer service pain points.

• Usability pain points are related to the usability of a product or service, such as difficulty navigating the website, slow loading times, or confusing navigation menus.
• Customer service pain points are related to customer service, such as long wait times, unhelpful customer service agents, or lack of response to customer inquiries.

Identifying and addressing these pain points can help you improve the user experience and increase customer satisfaction.

Specific examples of pain points

There are many examples of pain points, ranging from minutiae to macro-level issues. A few common examples are:

• Difficulty accessing a website
• Slow loading times
• Confusing navigation menus
• Inaccurate search results
• Difficult checkout process

Customer service

• Unhelpful customer service agents
• Lack of response to customer inquiries
• Lack of clear next steps to address user questions or problems
• Long wait times on customer service calls
• Limited or confusing information on company policies and procedures

How to uncover user pain points

Once you have identified problem areas and potential pain points, you need to uncover the root cause in order to address them. There are a variety of techniques that can be used to research the user experience.

• Conduct user research

User research is an important part of identifying and addressing user pain points. Through user research, you can gain insights into the user’s experience and identify areas of difficulty and frustration.

• Synthesize and prioritize the research

Once you have collected the data from your user research, it is important to synthesize and prioritize the data. This will help you to identify the most pressing pain points and develop strategies to address them.

• Get to the root of the problem

Analyze the data to identify patterns and trends , and prioritize the pain points based on their impact on the user experience within the context of your available resources. Once you identify the root cause of the problem, draft a problem statement that distills what pain points you're focused on solving for your end users.

Pro-tip: Tools like Mural’s find and filter options allow you to quickly collect and organize content, making it easier to quickly synthesize and prioritize your data.

• Address the root cause of the pain point

Once you’ve identified your key patterns and trends, it’s time to build a strategy and tactics to address the root cause. It’s important to be specific about what you’ll be measuring so that you have benchmarks to check against to determine the success or failure of your solutions, and allow for course corrections along the way.

• Measure impact and review

Lastly, it’s important to measure the impact of your strategies and review your progress in order to ensure that your efforts are having the desired effect. Additionally, it will help you to identify any new pain points that may have arisen and to develop strategies to address them.

Here again, gathering new feedback from users can provide valuable insights into their experience and help you identify areas of improvement.

By regularly reviewing your progress, you can ensure that your efforts are having the desired effect and that customer satisfaction is increasing.

The Agile retrospective model provides an effective way to measure impact and review progress, as it allows teams to review their work, share feedback, and take steps to improve the user experience.

Related: How to Run a Sprint Retrospective + Templates

Techniques such as contextual inquiry, interviews, and journey mapping can help you uncover the root cause of the pain points and develop strategies to address them.

• Contextual inquiry involves observing users in their natural environment to gain insights into their experience.
• Interviews involve asking participants questions about their experiences. These techniques can help you uncover the root cause of the pain points.
• A user journey map can help to identify user pain points by visualizing the user's journey and highlighting potential areas of difficulty and frustration.

• An empathy map can help you gain a better understanding of user needs, goals, and motivations by allowing you to gain insights into their experiences.
• The Five Whys worksheet is a useful tool for helping to uncover the root cause of a problem by asking "why" five times to trace the issue back to its origin.
• Creating a problem statement is can be an essential step in understanding and addressing user pain points.

The bottom line

Remember: Identifying pain points shouldn't be painful. To get a clear picture of your users’ experience and use that feedback to guide your processes, you should:

• Listen to user feedback
• Ask questions
• Test the product with real users

With these steps in mind, you can make sure you’re identifying the most pressing user pain points and addressing them in order to improve the user experience and increase customer satisfaction.

Identifying user pain points is essential for creating a successful product or service. It’s a constantly evolving process, as every change or update to a product of platform shifts the landscape. In light of this, staying on top of user research is crucial for any business.

That’s where Mural comes in . With intuitive, collaborative, and flexible tools, you can engage better with internal stakeholders as well as customers.

Get started today with a Free Forever account , invite unlimited members, and help ensure that you’re building an enduring product and experience that your users love.

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About the authors

Bryan Kitch

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Tackling UX Pain Points: Strategies for Product Success

Understanding and addressing UX pain points is a crucial aspect of enhancing the overall user experience. There may be a UX pain point that is negatively impacting customer satisfaction, which is leading to increased churn rates and reduced revenue for your business.

by   Seth Coelen

May 31, 2023

In this blog post, we will examine the techniques of identifying, analyzing, prioritizing and solving these issues to improve the customer experience and business performance.

We will accomplish this by:

• Learning about the four user pain points and identifying how they can become UX pain points.
• Exploring various methods such as user research, usability testing, and journey mapping to pinpoint areas where users struggle with your product or service.
• Investigating approaches to evaluating and arranging these issues based on their intensity and impacts on your business goals.
• Providing guidance on when it might be beneficial to consider hiring a specialized UX agency to help you tackle these challenges more effectively and efficiently.

Stay tuned as we unravel the complexities surrounding UX pain points and offer valuable insights that can elevate your product's user experience.

Understanding the Four User Pain Points

User pain points are common challenges experienced by customers during the process of using a product or service. They can be classified into four main categories: financial, functional, process, and social. By understanding what these different types of user pain points mean and how they impact the customer experience, companies can better equip themselves to indentify and analyze them to create solutions that improve customer satisfaction.

1. Financial Pain Points

These are issues related to the cost of a product or service, such as unexpected fees or increases in price. Companies can tackle financial pain points by providing customers with transparent pricing structures and discounts to ensure they get the best value for their money.

2. Functional Pain Points

Usability problems, such as long loading times or confusing navigation, are examples of functional pain points. Companies can address this type of user pain by conducting usability studies and making improvements to the product or service's user interface.

3. Process Pain Points

Process-related issues involve inefficiencies and difficulty when trying to complete tasks, such as long wait times for customer service inquiries. Companies can eliminate these pain points by streamlining their processes and providing customers with more options to get support.

4. Social Pain Points

Negative perceptions of a product or service, such as negative reviews or customer complaints, are examples of social pain points. Companies can reduce this type of user pain point by monitoring feedback from customers and responding appropriately in order to improve customer satisfaction.

Identifying pain points and addressing them helps improve customer satisfaction and enhance their experience with your product or service.

How to Identify Pain Points

In the world of product design, it's crucial to identify and address user pain points. There can be several issues that users face while interacting with your product, causing frustration and hindering their overall customer experience that are tied to the four main user pain point detailed above. To ensure a smooth user journey, let's dive into some common UX pain points and learn how to spot them and improve the customer journey.

Inconsistency in Design

An inconsistent design can confuse users as they navigate through your product. Elements such as buttons, typography, colors should follow a uniform style across all pages or screens. A consistent design style helps ensure a unified user experience, making it easier for users to understand how the application works.

Poor Navigation Structure

Users need clear paths to find what they're looking for quickly; otherwise, they may abandon your platform out of frustration or confusion. A well-thought-out navigation structure is essential for guiding users towards desired actions without getting lost along the way.

Slow Loading Times

No one likes waiting around. Users expect websites and applications to load swiftly - if yours doesn't meet this expectation and has long wait times, you risk losing potential customers who will simply move on elsewhere due to impatience. Google research suggests that 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load.

Detecting UX Pain Points: User Feedback & Analytics Data

• User feedback: Listen closely when customers express concerns about using your product - these insights can reveal underlying problems that require attention from a UX perspective. Encourage users to provide feedback through surveys, reviews, or direct communication channels. This is the best way to identify specific process pain points for your users.
• Analytics data: Analyzing user behavior can help you identify patterns that suggest product pain points. For example, high bounce rates may indicate poor navigation structure or slow loading times; low conversion rates could signal confusing calls-to-action (CTAs) or complex forms.

By evaluating UX issues, and addressing user pain points, you can ensure your product's success and enhance the customer experience.

💡 Main Idea:

Inconsistent design, poor navigation structure, and slow loading times are common pain points that frustrate users.

User feedback and analytics data can help detect these issues, which must be addressed to improve the overall user experience of a product.

Analyzing UX Pain Points

Once you've pinpointed the main UX issues, it's time to delve deeper and assess them. Understanding the root causes of these issues is crucial for improving your product's user experience. In this section, we'll discuss how to effectively analyze UX issues and provide actionable insights for addressing user pain points.  

The Importance of Data-Driven Analysis

In order to truly understand your users' struggles, data-driven analysis is essential. By gathering quantitative data from sources like Google Analytics or Hotjar , you can pinpoint exactly where users are encountering difficulties within your product.

• Bounce rate: A high bounce rate may indicate that users aren't finding what they're looking for or are frustrated with the overall experience.
• Time on page: If users spend too little time on a specific page, it could be because they don't find the content valuable or engaging enough.
• User flows: Analyzing user flows helps identify any bottlenecks in navigation and potential areas for improvement.

Conducting User Interviews & Surveys

Gathering qualitative data through user interviews and surveys adds context to your quantitative findings by providing direct feedback from real people using your product. This will help you better understand their needs and expectations while also uncovering hidden pain points that might not have been evident through analytics alone. User interviews and surveys can provide valuable insights into:

• User motivations, goals, and frustrations.
• The context in which your product is being used.
• Suggestions for improvements or new features from the users themselves.

Usability Testing & Heuristic Evaluation

Usability testing involves observing real users as they interact with your product to identify any usability issues that may be causing frustration. By conducting these tests, you'll gain invaluable insights into how people actually use your product and where they encounter difficulties.

On the other hand, a heuristic evaluation is an expert-led review of your product's user interface against established usability principles. This method helps uncover potential UX pain points that might not have been identified through user testing alone.

Creating User Personas & Journey Maps

To better understand who you're designing for, it's important to create:

• Detailed user personas: These fictional representations of your ideal customers will help guide design decisions by keeping their needs and preferences top-of-mind throughout the process.
• Journey map: This map visually represents the user experience from initial discovery to long-term engagement and can help identify UX pain points and prioritize improvements. This will allow you to identify any pain points along the customer journey and prioritize improvements accordingly.

Combining data-driven investigation, customer feedback, usability assessment, heuristic evaluation and journey mapping can enable you to make educated decisions that optimize the overall UX of your product by identifying user pain points.

Analyzing UX Pain Points is essential to understanding the customer experience and making informed decisions about product design. Prioritizing these pain points will help identify which areas of the user experience need immediate attention.

To improve a product's user experience, it is important to analyze UX pain points by gathering both quantitative and qualitative data through methods such as data-driven analysis, user interviews and surveys, usability testing, heuristic evaluation, and creating user personas and journey maps.

By identifying root causes of issues users encounter within the product, informed decisions can be made to prioritize improvements that enhance overall satisfaction.

How to Prioritize Pain Points

Time to put your thinking cap on and rank the UX issues you've identified in order of urgency, so as to make sure you get the most out of your efforts.

But how do you decide which pain points deserve immediate attention? Fear not. We're here to help you with some tried-and-tested strategies for prioritization.

Impact vs Effort Matrix

The Impact vs Effort Matrix is a simple yet powerful tool that helps you visualize the relationship between the impact of solving a specific pain point and the effort required to do so. To use this matrix, plot each pain point on a 2x2 grid based on its potential impact (high or low) and required effort (high or low). This will give you four quadrants:

• Quick Wins: High impact, low effort - these should be tackled first as they provide maximum value with minimal resources.
• Major Projects: High impact, high effort - plan these carefully as they require significant investment but yield substantial returns.
• Filler Tasks: Low impact, low effort - work on these when there's spare capacity or during downtime periods.
• Nice-to-Haves: : Low impact, high effort - consider deprioritizing these unless absolutely necessary due to business requirements.

MoSCoW Method

The whimsically named MoSCoW Method is another approach to prioritizing UX pain points. This method involves categorizing each pain point into one of four groups:

• M ust-haves: Non-negotiable requirements that must be addressed immediately.
• S hould-haves: Important but not critical, these can be postponed if necessary.
• C ould-haves: Desirable features that can wait until after the Must and Should haves are completed.
• W on't-haves (for now): Items that won't make it into the current iteration or project scope but may be considered in the future.

User Feedback & Analytics Data

Last but certainly not least, don't forget to incorporate user feedback and analytics data when prioritizing your UX pain points. Pay close attention to what your users are saying through surveys, interviews, or usability tests - their insights will help you understand which issues have the most significant impact on their experience with your product. Additionally, use quantitative data from tools like Google Analytics or Mixpanel to identify trends and patterns related to user behavior and engagement levels around specific pain points.

Prioritization is an essential step in addressing UX pain points effectively without getting overwhelmed by a seemingly endless list of tasks. By using methods such as Impact vs Effort Matrix, MoSCoW Method, and incorporating user feedback along with analytics data; you'll ensure a strategic approach towards improving your product's overall user experience efficiently.

Prioritizing UX Pain Points is a crucial step in creating an effective product design, and understanding the underlying causes of these pain points can help to inform better solutions. Solving these issues requires careful consideration and analysis of user feedback, data trends, market research, and other factors.

To prioritize UX pain points, there are three effective methods:

• Impact vs Effort Matrix.
• MoSCoW Method.
• Incorporating user feedback along with analytics data.

The Impact vs Effort Matrix helps to identify quick wins, major projects, filler tasks and nice-to-haves; while the MoSCoW Method categorizes pain points into must-haves, should-haves, could-haves and won't haves (for now).

It's always important to pay attention to user feedback and analytics data when prioritizing UX pain points.

Solving UX Pain Points

Having identified, studied and ranked your product's UX problems, it is time to take action and resolve them. In this next section of the blog, we'll investigate some dependable techniques for rapidly and proficiently managing these issues.

Collaborative Problem-Solving

The first step in solving any problem is understanding it thoroughly - and that often means getting input from multiple perspectives. Collaborative problem-solving brings together designers, developers, stakeholders, and even users themselves to brainstorm solutions based on their unique insights into the issue at hand.

Iterative Design Process

Rome wasn't built in a day - nor should your product be. The iterative design process involves making small changes over time while continuously testing those changes with real users. This approach allows you to refine your solution incrementally rather than trying to perfect everything all at once (which can lead to analysis paralysis).

• Step 1: Create a prototype or wireframe of the proposed solution.
• Step 2: Test the prototype with real users through usability tests or other methods.
• Step 3: Analyze user feedback and make necessary adjustments based on findings.
• Step 4: If needed, repeat steps one through three until an optimal solution is reached.

Leveraging Design Patterns

Don't waste time and resources creating something new - draw on existing knowledge. Design patterns are reusable solutions to common UX problems that have proven effective in other products or contexts. By leveraging these established best practices, you can save time and effort while ensuring a high-quality user experience.

A/B Testing

If you're unsure which solution will be most effective for your users, why not let them decide? A/B testing involves creating two (or more) variations of a design element and then measuring how users interact with each version. This data-driven approach allows you to make informed decisions based on real-world results rather than relying solely on intuition or guesswork.

Utilizing A/B testing in your workflow can help to optimize user experience, resulting in contented customers and improved commercial success.

Solving UX pain points requires a comprehensive approach to understanding the customer experience. If you don't have people on your team that can work through this process, hiring an experienced UX agency can help you achieve your desired results. With this in mind, let's look at how to hire a UX agency that meets your needs.

To solve UX pain points, collaborative problem-solving and an iterative design process are effective strategies. Leveraging established design patterns and conducting A/B testing can also lead to a high-quality user experience.

By incorporating these approaches into problem-solving, businesses can address issues efficiently and ultimately improve outcomes for users.

Why Hire a Specialized UX Agency

Now that we've discussed the importance of identifying, analyzing, prioritizing, and solving UX pain points, it's time to consider an essential question: should you hire a professional UX agency ? Let's dive into the benefits of bringing in experts to conduct a comprehensive UX audit of your product's user experience.

A Team of Experts at Your Disposal

Hiring a specialized UX Agency means gaining access to experienced professionals who live and breathe user experience design. These experts have seen it all - from common issues to unique challenges - and are equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary for addressing any problem that comes their way. By leveraging their expertise, you can ensure that your product receives thorough analysis and effective solutions.

Faster Results & Time Savings

An experienced team working on your project will not only produce better results but also do so more quickly than if you were trying to tackle these issues internally. This is especially true if your internal team lacks extensive experience in conducting UX audits or designing optimal user experiences. A dedicated UX agency has streamlined processes designed specifically to identify customer pain points which ultimately saves valuable time and resources.

Better ROI on Your Investment

• Improved User Experience: A top-notch UX agency will help identify areas where users may be struggling or getting frustrated with your product while providing actionable recommendations for improvement.
• Increase Conversion Rates: By optimizing the overall usability of your platform through expert guidance from a professional agency, you're likely to see higher conversion rates as users find it easier (and more enjoyable) interacting with your offering.
• Reduced Customer Service Costs: As you address UX pain points that users face, they will encounter fewer specific issues and require less assistance from your customer service team. Bringing in an outside perspective can help reduce the amount of customer service needed, resulting in cost savings.

A Fresh Perspective on Your Product

Sometimes, it's challenging for internal teams to objectively assess their own work. By bringing in an external agency, you'll gain valuable insights from professionals who are viewing your product with fresh eyes. They can identify areas that may have been overlooked or provide new ideas for enhancing the user experience.

The specialized agency could also lead your team through a design sprint in five days to identify and address those quick wins to give your product a quick boost!

Comprehensive Analysis & Recommendations

• Data-driven approach: A professional UX agency will use data analytics tools such as heatmaps, click tracking analysis software (e.g., Hotjar) along with qualitative research methods like user interviews and surveys for holistic understanding.
• Actionable recommendations: With their extensive knowledge in best practices and industry standards; experts will provide actionable solutions tailored specifically for your business needs which helps streamline decision-making processes while optimizing resources efficiently.
• Prioritization: A UX agency will help you prioritize the identified pain points based on their impact and ease of implementation, ensuring that your team focuses on what matters most for maximum return on investment.

Ongoing Support & Collaboration

A reputable UX agency doesn't just provide a one-time audit report; they also offer ongoing support and collaboration to ensure that the recommended changes are implemented effectively. This partnership approach ensures continuous improvement in user experience, leading to higher customer satisfaction and retention rates.

In today's fast-paced digital world, investing in a professional UX audit can be the key differentiator between success and failure for your product. By leveraging expert insights from a trusted UX agency, you can stay ahead of the curve by addressing critical pain points efficiently while delivering an exceptional customer experience that keeps them coming back for more.

See how our client Navigate360 describes the impact of having UX Cabin as part of their team!

Hiring a professional UX agency provides access to experienced professionals who can identify and solve common issues or unique challenges in user experience design. This investment leads to faster results, better ROI on your investment, reduced customer support costs, and a fresh perspective on your product. Don't let UX pain points hinder your success - enlist the help of experts today.

Ready to Tackle Those Pesky UX Issues That Are Holding Your Product Back?

By identifying, analyzing, prioritizing and addressing customer pain points, businesses can solve specific issues along the user journey, and reach their ultimate goal of higher customer satisfaction.

It isn't easy to do this alone! Hiring a professional UX agency is an investment that pays off by saving time and money while improving the overall quality of your product's user experience. Don't let UX pain points hinder your success - enlist the help of experts today .

If you're looking to improve your product's UX design or need help identifying and solving pain points, consider hiring a specialized UX agency like UX Cabin . Our team of experienced UX designers and UX researchers can provide valuable insights into your users' experiences and help optimize your product for success.

Let our UX design Audit help you create an intuitive and engaging user interface.

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UX Customer Journey — How to Map Out User Experience

Customer journey maps are effective visualizations that help organizations understand their customers and create better experiences. Product teams use these journey maps during the design process to solve usability issues, streamline user experiences, and identify opportunities that help the organization achieve its business goals.

Creating customer journey maps requires research, collaboration, the right tools, and an appropriate visualization format. Luckily, there are plenty of tools to streamline journey mapping, which we cover later in this article.

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What is a UX Customer Journey?

A customer journey represents the steps customers go through when interacting with a product, service, or business process. Companies use journey maps to visualize this end-to-end process and identify customer needs across multiple touchpoints.

User journey map vs. customer journey map

While the theory and application are similar, there is a slight difference between a user journey map and a customer journey map:

• User journey map : A visual representation of the steps to complete a specific task or goal.
• Customer journey map : A broader view of the entire customer experience across multiple touchpoints, including all the interactions with an organization.

Benefits of mapping the customer journey

Mapping customer journeys offer many benefits for organizations and teams, notably improving user experience and customer satisfaction by identifying pain points and opportunities.

Some key benefits of customer journey maps include:

• Enhanced customer understanding: helps organizations gain insights about their target audience’s needs, preferences, motivations, and pain points by visualizing the experience from the customer’s point of view.
• Pinpoint issues and opportunities: allows teams to identify which steps cause difficulty or frustration for customers. Conversely, the organization can find areas for improvement and innovation.
• Streamlined and consistent experiences: organizations can identify and fix inconsistencies and gaps across multiple touchpoints, creating a more cohesive and consistent user experience.
• Improve customer satisfaction and loyalty: by streamlining and optimizing product processes, organizations improve customer satisfaction leading to increased loyalty, recommendations, and growth.
• Informed decision-making: journey maps help teams across the organization make decisions about design, development, marketing, etc. Many organizations use these visualizations to prioritize features, updates, and investments.
• Cross-functional collaboration: customer journey maps allow organizations to visualize how customers pass through each department, creating opportunities for teams to collaborate and find ways to improve the customer experience at each touchpoint–UX design, marketing, customer support, social media, etc.
• Creating benchmarks and continuous evaluation: organizations can use customer journey maps to evaluate projects and how products evolve and improve with releases.

Customer Personas – The Foundation for Customer Journey Maps

A user persona (customer persona) is UX research artifact design teams use as a fictional representation of a user group, including their demographics, behaviors, goals, and pain points.

These user personas are the foundation for customer journey maps because they provide the framework for understanding how different types of users engage with the organization and its products.

For example, if a company is designing a fitness app, the research team might create personas for three primary user groups:

• Yoga practitioners

These three user personas will have different needs, priorities, goals, challenges, and ambitions. Their interactions with your brand and how they enter customer journeys will also differ.

Incorporating personas into the customer journey

User personas give designers a start and end goal for customer journey maps. They can use the persona’s behavioral patterns to highlight how these users interact with a product or service and tailor content that meets their needs.

Returning to our fitness app example above: Researchers learn that yoga users prefer to use the desktop application at home, while gym-goers use the mobile app in their local gym. The runners view their daily running program on a mobile device before their run and don’t view the app again until they return.

The customer journey maps for these three users will look completely different, each with varying steps, challenges, and goals.

This example demonstrates how customer journeys for each persona vary and the importance of separately acknowledging each group’s needs, behaviors, challenges, and goals.

Stages of a Customer Journey

There are several key stages of a customer journey:

• Awareness: the moment someone becomes aware of your brand through social media, paid ads, word-of-mouth, etc.
• Consideration: customers research your product and compare it to others by reading reviews, comparing prices, and evaluating features.
• Onboarding: once customers decide to use your product, they set up an account and learn to use its features . If your product uses a freemium model, these people may be users before converting to paying customers.
• Engagement: customers regularly use and engage with your product, its features, and its content. During engagement , they often upgrade to paid services and make purchases.
• Support: customers may require support during their journey. Organizations must answer questions (customer service, docs, etc.), identify ways to streamline experiences, and reduce support queries.
• Retention & loyalty: when customers have positive engagement and support experiences, they will continue using the product and recommend it to others.

Touchpoints and Channels

Touchpoints and channels are points of interaction between a brand and its customers.

Touchpoints

Touchpoints are the interaction points between a customer and a brand, including physical, digital, and emotional. Some touchpoint examples include paid ads, social media posts, customer service interactions, and product experiences.

Channels are the mediums or platforms delivering these touchpoints–for example, social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.), email marketing, ad channels (Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads), digital products, and physical locations (stores, service centers, events, etc.).

Organizations map these touchpoints and channels to identify areas for improvement and optimize the customer experience.

Emotions, Motivations, and Pain Points

Understanding a user’s emotions, motivations, and pain points throughout the customer journey is crucial, as these elements drive user actions and decision-making.

Here is a rough outline of how these core user elements relate to each other:

• Emotions: The feelings people experience at each stage of the customer journey, including excitement, happiness, frustration, disappointment, and anger. Designers use empathy maps to visualize these emotions across the customer journey. 
• Motivations: The reasons why people take action at different stages of the customer journey.
• Pain points: The challenges or obstacles customers experience during a customer journey.

By identifying these factors at each stage of the customer journey map, product teams can create solutions to reduce and mitigate problems while streamlining customer experiences.

Creating a Customer Journey Map

Select the appropriate format and tools for your journey map

The format and tools required for your journey map will depend on its complexity, level of detail, and available resources. Here are some tips:

• Consider your audience: who is the journey map for, and what are their needs? Do you need a high-level overview or a detailed step-by-step analysis?
• Choose a format: the level of detail will dictate the structure and medium of your journey map, including flowcharts, diagrams, infographics, and spreadsheets.
• Use tools: there are many tools for creating and sharing high-quality journey maps, including Lucidchart, UXPressia , Canva, Miro, Mural, and design tools.
• Find collaborators: identify teams, stakeholders , and departments that can offer insights and different perspectives about your customers to make journey maps as accurate and relevant as possible.

Collect and incorporate data from various sources

• List the touchpoints and channels customers will have with your brand for the specific journey, including website, social media channels, customer service, etc.
• Gather research data from customer surveys, user research, user interviews, analytics (product, social media, etc.), and other relevant sources.
• Analyze the data to identify patterns, trends, and behavior . The key is to find common customer pain points and friction across the journey.
• Create a visual representation of your customer journey, illustrating touchpoints and interactions and noting customer emotions, motivations, and pain points at each stage.

Visualize the customer journey in a clear and engaging way

Use your research to create a visualization of your customer journey. Start by sketching the journey and touchpoints or create a simple flow diagram mapping each step.

We recommend using customer journey map templates from Mural , UXPressia , or Miro to streamline the process and produce beautiful visualizations to share with your organization. You can even use a free whiteboard tool like Google Jamboard or create your journey map in a spreadsheet.

Recommended reading from UXPressia: Customer Journey Mapping Mistakes and How to Avoid Them .

Customer Journey Map Examples of Templates

Here are some customer journey map examples of templates that you may use at work or as an inspiration for your own visualizations.

Design, Prototype, and Test Customer Experiences with UXPin

Prototyping and testing are crucial for iterating and evolving customer experiences. Designers must assess various user experiences within a customer journey to ensure they’re free of roadblocks, usability issues, and friction.

Product design teams can use UXPin’s advanced features to build prototypes that accurately replicate the final product experience. These interactive prototypes give designers meaningful, actionable feedback from usability participants and stakeholders to iterate and improve. Create beautiful, intuitive product experiences your customers will love with UXPin. Sign up for a free trial .

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Fixing Customer Pain Points Using Customer Journey Maps

Customer journey maps are a valuable tool that can help improve customer satisfaction by understanding the needs of customers and how the company can address them. One important use of the customer journey mapping process is the ability to identify customer pain points in order to eliminate them.

In this post I examine what a customer pain point is and how to use your customer journey map to identify and eliminate it.

Process Pain Point Examples

Review service tickets and other tracking systems, rank pain points by customer value.

What are Pain Points in The Customer Journey Map?

Customer Pain Points are the issues and problems that customers face in dealing with your organisation. They can arise at any point of the customer journey from prospect to customer and even ex-customer.

It’s important to reduce and/or eliminate pain points for customers because they reduce customer loyalty and goodwill, thereby contributing to poorer business outcomes.

They also tend to increase overall business costs through the need to correct issues that customers experience at a Pain Point.

Examples of Customer Pain Points

There are as many pain points as there are businesses but most organisations recognise four main types:

• Financial Pain Points : where the cost is exceeding the customer’s ability to pay or there are lower cost alternatives.
• Productivity Pain Points : Anytime you make a customer expend more time or they are delayed in achieving their goals you have a productivity pain point.
• Process Pain Points : cause issues when customers try to use your products or services or interact with your business.
• Support Pain Points : are issues in your support processes that cause customers issues.

This is not an exhaustive list – just a few examples so you know what to look for in your company.

Productivity Pain Point Examples

• Being on hold for too long – one Genroe client determined that 180 secs on hold was the tipping point between not a pain point and pain point.
• Not having enough staff to service chat requests – so customers are left waiting
• Difficult to use or confusing user interfaces to software systems – causing mis-steps and extra time to use your system.
• Inconsistent responses from staff to customer questions meaning customers have to ask and re-ask the same question until they receive a consistent answer.
• Having to call back to get resolution to questions – Another Genroe client identified needing to be re-contacted to complete resolutions was a key pain point for their customers.
• Inaccurate or confusing invoicing, especially where the invoices are delivered over the duration of a project.

How to Identify Customer Pain Points Using Customer Journey Maps

Having run your customer journey mapping workshop and created your customer journey map, you’re ready to start identifying and prioritising customer pain points.

It’s not enough to guess where customers might have a problem. You need reliable data to make a determination. Here is how to collect that data.

Instrument the Customer Journey Map with Transactional Customer Feedback

Transactional customer feedback can provide a wealth of customer pain information because it focuses on the touchpoints in your customer journey.

The simplest approach is to conduct a Net Promoter Score feedback survey at each of the touch points and then compare the scores. 

Some journey mapping software is able to show customer feedback information live on the map, which is an excellent way to visualise pain points.

Review Complaints

Not all customers who have a pain point complain, so complaints is not a 100% reliable source of information. However, if a customer does complain it is likely to be an important pain point for them, and probably other customers who do not formally complain.

Review all of your complaints and match them back to your customer journey map. This data is likely to amplify the transactional customer feedback you have already collected.

Be a Customer

Sometimes the simple approaches are the best. If possible, try to mystery shop your organisation’s sales and operations processes.

If you find a pain point or difficulty on the customer journey you can be sure your real customers are having the same issue.

Just a small caution: make sure you perform the mystery shopping without revealing your identity.

Once, in our customer experience consulting business, a senior manager at the bank we were working with, stated they never had problems with any of their products. There were no pain points in the business.

It turned out that his assistant was performing all of the senior manager’s banking tasks. You can imagine the sort of service the senior manager was receiving – it certainly was not like that of regular customers.

Anytime a customer has to contact you to fix a problem or understand how to use your software it’s likely to be a pain point of some type.

Review help desk ticketing systems for common questions and problems that users experience. 

Prioritise Customer Pain Points

Having identified the pain points the next step is to prioritise action. This can be done in a couple of ways.

Rank Pain Points by NPS

We’ve covered this above, but if you are measuring NPS, or other customer experience metric , along the customer journey simply use it to rank the relative “pain” at each of the touchpoints.

The lower the score the higher the relative pain.

It’s simple effective and allows you to track progress across the customer journey.

In the real world, not all customers are created equal. Customers who contribute more profit are more important to the business and, unfortunately, their feedback should receive more focus.

Take your pain point list and rank it by customer lifetime value . Even if your not sure of exact value – use a proxy such as revenue to perform the ranking.

Taking Action to Fix Pain Points

Starting with your highest priority pain points determine how to reduce or eliminate them from your customer experience.

Collect additional data about the issue by:

• Interviewing unhappy customers
• Reading the comments in customer feedback systems
• Interviewing front line staff – they often already understand the issue and what causes it 

Use a good quality root cause analysis approach to understand what causes the pain point and how to prevent it from occurring in the future.

Then take action to resolve the issue.

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Turning customer pain points into opportunities

Georgina Guthrie

March 08, 2023

Have you ever felt frustrated with a website that didn’t make sense? Have you struggled to open packaging or bought a product, only to find you don’t know how to use it? Or perhaps you’ve signed up for something, only to be stung by a sneaky bill hidden away in the small print. These are known as pain points, and we’ve all experienced them in one way or another.

When a customer encounters a pain point, their emotions range from mild annoyance to rage — none of which is great if you’re a business owner. Upset customers mean bad reviews; if your customers aren’t enjoying interacting with your company or product, they’ll jump ship faster than you can say “refund” and encourage others to avoid your company. 

So how can you avoid these dreaded pain points? 

This article will explore the importance of identifying user pain points and discuss critical techniques to understand your users’ needs better, creating a more user-friendly experience. So, let’s get started!

Common pain points

You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken. Understanding the different pain points will allow you to identify these issues and hopefully address them.

There are four main frustration areas: financial, product, process, and support.

Financial pain points 

Financial pain points arise from the cost of accessing a product or service, including high pricing, unexpected fees, or a lack of perceived value. No one likes buyer’s remorse; if your customers don’t believe they are getting a fair deal, they won’t return. 

Real-world example: Cable TV 

Cable companies are frequently criticized for their high prices and confusing fee structures. Customers often feel like they’re paying for channels they don’t watch or features they don’t need, leading to a rise in alternative streaming services offering flexible pricing and better value. By understanding these financial pain points, streaming services like Netflix and Hulu have been able to disrupt the traditional cable market and capture market share.

In the digital space, financial pain points are just as important. For example, a SaaS business may struggle to attract customers if its pricing model is too complex or if users feel they need more value for their investment. Companies can address this by adjusting their pricing structure, offering free trials or demos, or highlighting the unique importance of their product or service.

By identifying and addressing financial pain points, businesses can create a more attractive and competitive offering for their customers . 

Product pain points

Product pain points refer to user frustrations arising from the product or service. These include poor quality, unreliability, lack of features or functionality, or an unintuitive interface. 

Real-world example: Bendgate 

Remember the notorious ‘ bendgate ’ issue that plagued Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in 2014? Many users reported that their phones would bend or warp under everyday use, leading to broken screens and other issues. The problem received widespread media coverage and negative user feedback, causing a major headache for Apple (not to mention their customers). 

To address the issue, Apple implemented a more robust manufacturing process for the iPhone 6S and subsequent models, improving the product’s durability. Problem solved — but not before costing Apple a fair bit in repair costs, refunds, and bad press.

Product pain points are common in the digital product space. For example, a website or app that’s difficult to navigate frustrates users and drives them away. To address this, businesses must conduct extensive user testing to fine-tune their site’s UX.

Process pain points

Process pain points refer to user frustrations arising from steps or procedures involved in using or accessing a product or service. This could include a slow checkout, a complicated registration process, or long wait times for customer service. 

Real-world example: Mortgages 

The traditional mortgage application process can be lengthy and complex, involving multiple forms, credit checks, and appraisals. This process is frustrating, especially if the customer is unfamiliar with mortgages or encounters unexpected hurdles.

To address this, many financial institutions are turning to digital solutions that streamline application processes, making navigating easier for users. This typically involves online applications, automated credit checks, and real-time updates — all of which make the process quicker, easier, and less stressful.

Process pain points are commonplace across all industries. For example, a lengthy checkout process or a complicated registration form for an eCommerce site could lead to abandoned purchases, or a furniture store might have a reputation for prolonged delivery times, leading people to avoid it.

Businesses need to gather feedback from customers to address these concerns. With this data, they can identify and fix the problems causing frustration. This might involve simplifying the process, reducing the number of steps, or providing clear instructions.

Support pain points

Support pain points are frustrations caused by a business’s level of assistance or support, including slow response times, unhelpful support staff, or limited availability of support channels.

Real-world example: Internet service providers 

Users often encounter long wait times when trying to reach customer service and may find that the staff isn’t prepared to solve their problems or provide helpful information. 

Many service providers have offered online support channels like chatbots or forums to address this pain point. These tools allow users to quickly find answers to their questions without waiting on hold or navigating a phone tree.

Businesses may need to invest in support training, hire additional support staff, or streamline their support processes to provide faster, more efficient assistance to address support pain points. Therefore, users who feel supported and valued are more likely to remain loyal to a business and may even become advocates for the brand — so it pays to give it due attention. 

Why identifying user pain points is essential

By understanding and addressing user pain points, businesses can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, reduce support costs, and increase revenue.

When users encounter a product or service that is easy to use and meets their needs, they are more likely to become repeat customers and recommend the product to others. Conversely, when users encounter pain points, they are more likely to experience cognitive overload , abandon the product, leave negative reviews, and share their bad experiences with others. 

As well as the direct impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty, user pain points add indirect costs for businesses. For example, if users struggle to complete a task on a website or app, they might call customer support for assistance. The result is increased support costs and reduced efficiency.

Pain points vs. usability issues: what’s the difference?

Pain points refer to the specific problems or challenges users encounter while trying to achieve their goals or complete a task. These are often subjective and can vary from user to user. 

Usability issues , on the other hand, are objective problems or difficulties that prevent users from effectively utilizing a product or service. Poor design, confusing interfaces, or lack of clear instructions cause usability issues. 

Pain points and usability issues impact the user experience . Still, they differ because pain points are user-specific and may not affect all users, while usability issues affect all users. Or in other words — every usability issue will be a pain point, but not every pain point will be a usability issue. To create a successful user experience, you’ll need to identify pain points and usability issues and address them in the product design process .

Optimizing processes to address pain points 

By understanding and addressing problems, designers and business owners can create products and services with a positive user experience. Here’s how:

1. Conduct user research

The more you know about your customers and how they interact with your product or service, the better. Collect data via surveys, interviews, usability testing, A/B tests , analytics, and social media. User research aims to understand behaviors, needs, and frustrations. 

2. Analyze user data

Once user research is complete, it’s time to analyze the collected data. Observing common themes and patterns will identify pain points and prioritize the primary issues impacting users.

3. Create user personas

User personas are fictional representations of typical users that help product designers understand the needs and motivations of different user groups. 

This can be shared with stakeholders to ensure that everyone involved in the design process understands the target user clearly.

4. Map user journeys

A user journey is a path a user takes to complete a task. Plotting the A-Z of your user journey via a customer journey map can help you identify pain points that occur along the way. It also allows designers to understand how different pain points are interconnected.

5. Prioritize pain points

Not all pain points are equal. Some pain points may be minor inconveniences, while others may be critical issues preventing users from completing tasks. It’s essential to prioritize these based on their impact on the user experience and how many users the issue affects.

6. Address pain points

Your fix could encompass design changes, user interface improvements, training for the team, or providing additional support and resources to users. Here are some popular approaches you might want to consider:

• Redesign user interface: This could involve simplifying the interface, making buttons and controls more prominent, or providing visual cues to guide the user. Be sure to run A/B tests to get feedback on your changes.
• Provide additional support: If users struggle with a particular task, providing other support resources such as tutorials, FAQs, or improved customer service can help address the pain point. These resources should be easy to access.
• Improve the product or service: If a pain point is caused by a fundamental flaw in the product or service, addressing the root cause of the issue can help improve the user experience. This could involve adding new features, enhancing the quality of the product, or streamlining the user flow. Try running a root cause analysis to get to the bottom of your issue if it’s not immediately apparent. 
• Iterate and test: It’s important to test the changes with users to ensure they are effective. This could involve conducting user testing, gathering feedback through surveys or interviews, or monitoring user behavior through analytics.
• Communicate with stakeholders: To have a happy set of stakeholders, transparency is vital. Provide regular updates on progress, share user feedback, or collaborate on design solutions.

And remember, this isn’t a one-and-done job. Pain points can pop up anytime, so keep gathering feedback and listening to users to learn more about making your service the best it can be. 

Final thoughts

By understanding users’ needs, motivations, and behaviors, product designers and business owners can create experiences that are intuitive, user-friendly, and enjoyable.

Diagramming software is integral to this process, allowing designers to visualize complex processes and information clearly and concisely. With Cacoo , you can create user personas, iterate on diagrams, and collaborate in real-time, ensuring everyone involved clearly understands the user experience. 

With the right tools and a collaborative mindset, you’ll be well-positioned to eliminate pain points and drive business success.

Getting to know your customer journey stages

How to create a UI style guide to keep your designs consistent

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How To Identify Your Customer's Pain Points

• Customer pain points are any friction or unpleasantness a customer experiences in their interactions with your product, service or company.
• Customer pain points generally fall under four distinct themes: financial, process, productivity and service-related pain points.
• Some examples of pain points are pricing plans being too high, features being too difficult to use and poor customer support experiences.
• To identify pain points, you'll have to gather data by surveying users, conducting focus groups, and investing in tools like session replays .

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As a business, your relationship with your customers is based on trust. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how to make your customer experience fine-tuned to achieve the best possible outcomes for the sake of your customers.

Regardless of where your company currently stands in terms of customer experience (CX), you should always be ready to innovate and expand beyond your current state. That is a necessary tenet for growth.

Customer journey pain points: four different kinds

The exact answer to this question will vary based on the customer, but it encompasses the problems that potential and current customers face concerning your business and the marketplace.

All customers can't possibly face the same pain points. Everyone exists within specific demographics, and some may be more affected by certain problems than others.

However, it is possible to generalize to some extent, and it is typically understood that pain points fall under four common 'themes':

• Financial pain points
• Process pain points
• Productivity pain points
• Support pain points

Financial Pain Points

Financial pain points are usually related to budgeting and resources. Not every customer can be equipped to pay for your service on demand, even when they need it. As a business, it isn't enough to write off customers who do not presently have the ability to pay. Doing that alienates a large pool of potential customers.

Instead, addressing the pain points of a prospective customer can be integral to your expansion. When addressing the financial pain points that arise, you'll need to look at what makes customers unwilling to pay.

The nature of your CX design may be the key to understanding financial pain points. Ask essential questions such as whether or not there is a clear breakdown of fees or if your services seem overpriced compared to the competition. These questions can help you narrow down areas of concern and then improve upon them.

Process Pain Points

This pain points have more to do with your actual product or service. This could be manifested through constant delays, server downtimes, and other points where customers could easily get fed up and begin to search elsewhere.

When customers feel like they're up against a lot of friction constantly, your process may not well thought-out.

If your UX design is subpar, it's worth looking into. Customers should never feel like their tools are clunky while utilizing them. If they feel unsatisfied with the quality of your process, it could reduce customer retention rates .

Productivity Pain Points

Similar to process pain points, productivity pain points exist when your customers consistently find friction along their customer journey.

To some extent, these encompass all pain points because the main reason a client wants to engage with the service of your SaaS Company is to boost productivity. Whether you have cloud services or CRM tools, the ultimate goal is to save time and resources by employing the use of your service.

As a provider, you owe it to these customers to have little to no friction and redundancy during the customer journey. Creating good CX and promoting retention are based on this foundation.

Your services should optimize productivity for your users. Their time is valuable, and you'll need to treat this as a focal point.

Support Pain Points

It's easy for this particular class of pain points to fall by the wayside, but the truth is, good customer support is crucial – especially in 2023, when many businesses are facing an uncertain future due to the economic downturn. Your support is essentially the final lifeline and may be the last thing preventing them from churning.

Customers need to be able to communicate with agents and get solutions to their issues using any channel they prefer .

Good customer support can be leveraged to build customer loyalty. When customers have specific issues that need to be addressed, your support is what lets them know if you're serious about prioritizing their needs.

What are some examples of customer pain points? 

As we've discussed, most pain points can be fit into one of the four themes above. Some specific examples of pain points drawing from all four themes are: 

• Your pricing plans are too high
• You pricing is not flexible enough
• The information on your website is unclear or confusing
• Your website navigation is
• There is too much friction in the signup process
• There is too much friction in the renewal process
• Your UI is clunky and unappealing
• Your UX is unintuitive
• You have too much bloat or too many irrelevant features
• Alternatively, your feature set is too limited
• Your onboarding is poorly designed
• Your self-service resources are lacking
• Your customer support agents aren't well trained
• You haven't hired enough customer support agents
• Your customer support agents are taking too long to resolve queries
• Alternatively, your customer support agents are resolving queries quickly but not adequately or thoroughly
• You haven't implemented proactive support practices to catch users before they churn and prevent them from doing so

How to identify and solve customer pain points

Your CX probably isn't perfect. These pain points have likely manifested themselves within your customer journey in one form or another. Yet there isn't a way to instantly tell what is affecting your customers.

Luckily for you, we have some tips on fishing them out and identifying some customer pain points in your organization.

Get direct feedback from your customers

With the use of various insight-gathering tools, you can be better equipped to address the pain points faced by your customers. To remedy the issues faced by customers, you'll need to gather some data. There's no better way to get factual information than through qualitative research. Tools like questionnaires, interviews, customer satisfaction or customer effort surveys and focus groups can give you a good idea of the pain points within your customer journey.

Once you've received the information from customers, it's time to pair it with some data. By having the data accessible to corroborate the pain points from surveys, you'll have a better time addressing them. For example, if your CES scores for any particular interaction or feature are unusually high, it may be time to examine how you can make that particular feature or process easier to use.

Show empathy in your responses

Within your customer service solutions, empathy must be prioritized. Taking the empathetic route is highly important in the world of customer service. When you can show an understanding of a customer from a relatable and human standpoint, they will feel valued. In your customer journey, personalized support is something that can take you on the very satisfying road of customer retention.

Showing compassion through support agents may be enough to brighten the day for your customers, so your agents should be able to respond with a good amount of respect and patience. To maintain a good level of continuity, you should consider providing the same agent to a customer after positive interactions; that way, you'll maintain a solid relationship with the customer.

Having empathetic responses also relies on the amount of previous data accessible to your agents. If your agents have instant access to previous support interactions , they'll have a better time knowing how to deal with requests.

Use the right customer service technology

It isn't enough to have the latest and greatest tools to equip your customer service teams. Instead, you should clearly understand your team and their needs. A customer service team is likely to have a good idea of why churn occurs. Reports have shown that customers are more likely to spend 140% more after a positive customer experience , so equipping your customer service teams should be high on your list if you want to maximize profits.

With the best customer support tools in each categor y in your arsenal, your team will finally have access to insights that can show the problems customers face.

While it pays to look towards your own unique goals, you should also have a strong sense of how your brand is being received by people outside of the spaces you have direct control over. Being hands-on helps address pain points.

To do this, you should be aware of online reviews and social media discussions related to your company. According to research conducted by Harvard Business Review, reviews can have as much as a 5-9% effect on revenue .

Knowing this, you must acknowledge the power reviews can have on your business and success. 13% of customers who have a negative interaction with your brand will tell up 15 or more people about it. That can quickly turn into a PR wildfire that is hard to douse. So make sure you have your finger on the pulse, respond in a polite and professional way to online reviews — even negative ones — and work to continually improve your product and processes.

Improving customer pain points in SaaS business

As a SaaS business, you know that customer success is key to your success. It can be hard to track all of your customer's interactions and pain points, especially if you have a lot of customers.

By understanding your customer's pain points, you can focus on creating a customer experience that meets their needs and exceeds their expectations. And the best way to get this valuable feedback? Ask your customers directly! Show empathy in your responses and use the right customer service technology to keep track of what's happening in your industry.

Wrapping things up

In the world of business, building trust with customers is an essential part of creating a successful enterprise. By understanding and solving customer pain points in your SaaS business, you can create a better customer experience that meets the needs of your clients. This will lead to increased customer retention and higher profits. It's important to remember that customer pain points can differ from customer to customer, so it's essential to gather feedback and data to create a personalized experience. With the right tools and mindset, you can create a SaaS business that is built on a foundation of customer satisfaction and success.

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Learn / Guides / Customer journey mapping (CJM) guide

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Customer journey mapping in 2 and 1/2 days

How to create a customer journey map that improves customer success.

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There’s a common saying that you can’t understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes—and that’s exactly what customer journey maps do: they help you put yourself in different customers’ shoes and understand your business from their point of view.

Why should you do it? How should you do it? Find the answers in this guide, which we wrote after interviewing 10+ customer journey experts who shared methodologies, dos and don’ts, and pro tips with us. 

On this page:

What is a customer journey map?

How to create a customer journey map in 2 and ½ working days

4 benefits of customer journey mapping for your business

In later chapters, we dive deeper into customer journey analytics, workshops, and real-life examples.

Start mapping your customer journey

Hotjar lets you experience the customer journey through their eyes, so you can visualize what’s working and what needs improvement.

A customer journey map (CJM) is a visual representation of how customers interact with and experience your website, products, or business across multiple touchpoints.

By visualizing the actions, thoughts, and emotions your customers experience, a customer journey map helps you better understand them and identify the pain points they encounter. This is essential if you want to implement informed, customer-focused optimizations on your site.

Mapping the customer journey: narrow vs. wide focus

A customer journey map can have a very narrow focus and only look at a few, specific steps of the customer experience or buyer’s journey (for example, a product-to-purchase flow on a website), or it can take into account all the touchpoints, online and offline, someone goes through before and after doing business with you. 

Each type of customer journey map has its advantages:

A CJM with a narrow focus allows you to zero in on an issue and effectively problem-solve 

A CJM with a wide focus gives you a broader, holistic understanding of how customers experience your business

Regardless of their focus, the best customer journey maps have one thing in common: they are created with real customer data that you collect and analyze . The insights are usually organized into a map (hence the name), diagram, or flowchart during a group workshop, which is later shared across the entire business so everyone gets a clear and comprehensive overview of a customer’s journey.

How to create your first customer journey map in 2 and ½ working days

The process of creating a customer journey map can be as long or short as you need. Depending on how many people and stakeholders you involve, how much data you collect and analyze, and how many touchpoints there are across the business, you could be looking at days or even weeks and months of work.

If you’re new to customer journey mapping, start from a narrower scope before moving on to mapping every single customer touchpoint . 

Here’s our beginner customer journey mapping framework to help you create your first complete map in 2 and ½ working days:

Day 1: preliminary customer journey mapping work

Day 2: prep and run your customer journey mapping workshop.

Final ½ day: wrap up and share your results

Download your free customer journey map checklist  (as seen below), to mark off your tasks as you complete them.

On your first day, you have three essential tasks:

Define the goal and scope of your CJM

Collect customer data and insights

Invite your team to a customer journey mapping workshop

Step 1: define the goal and scope of your CJM

Clarifying what part(s) of the journey you're looking at, and why, helps you stay focused throughout the mapping process.

If this is your first map,  start from a known issue or problematic area of your website. Keep the scope small, and focus on anything you can break down into four or five steps. For example:

If you have a high drop-off on a pricing page with five calls-to-action, each of which takes users to a different page, that’s enough for a mappable journey

If your purchase flow is made of five self-contained pages, each of which loses you potential customers, that’s a good candidate for mapping

✅ The output: a one- or two-sentence description of what your map will cover, and why, you can use whenever you need to explain what the process is about. For example: this map looks at the purchase flow on our website, and helps us understand how customers go through each step and the issues or obstacles they encounter. The map starts after users click ‘proceed to checkout’ and ends when they reach the 'Thank You' page .

Step 2: collect customer data and insights

Once you identify your goal and scope, the bulk of your first day should be spent collecting data and insights you’ll analyze as part of your mapping process. Because your map is narrow in focus, don’t get distracted by wide-scale demographics or data points that are interesting and nice to know, but ultimately irrelevant. 

Get your hands on as much of the following information as you can:

Metrics from traditional analytics tools (such as Google Analytics) that give you insight into what’s happening, across the pages and stages your customer journey map covers

Data from analyzing your conversion ‘funnels’ , which record how many visitors end up at each stage of the user journey, so you can optimize those steps for potential customers and increase conversions

Behavior analytics data (from platforms like Hotjar) that show you how people interact with your site. For example, heatmaps give you an aggregate view of how users click, move and scroll on specific pages, and session recordings capture a user’s entire journey as they navigate your site

Quantitative and qualitative answers to on-site surveys relevant to the pages you’re going to investigate, as customer feedback will ultimately guide your roadmap of changes to make to improve the journey

Any demographic information about existing user and customer personas that helps you map the journey from the perspective of a real type of customer, rather than that of any hypothetical visitor, ensuring the journey makes sense for your target audience

Any relevant data from customer service chat logs, emails, or even anecdotal information from support, success, and sales teams about the issues customers usually experience

✅ The output: quantitative and qualitative data about your customers' interactions and their experiences across various touchpoints. For example, you’ll know how many people drop off at each individual stage, which page elements they interact with or ignore, and what stops them from converting.

💡Pro tip: as you read this guide, you may not yet have most of this data, particularly when it comes to heatmaps, recordings, and survey results. That’s ok. 

Unless you’re running your CJM workshop in the next 12 hours, you have enough time to set up Hotjar on your website and start collecting insights right now. The platform helps you:

Learn where and why users drop off with Funnels

Visualize interactions on key pages with Heatmaps

Capture visitor sessions across your website with Recordings

Run on-site polls with Surveys

When the time comes for you to start your customer journey mapping process, this data will be invaluable.

Step 3: invite your team to a customer journey mapping workshop

In our experience, the most effective way to get buy-in is not to try and convince people after things are done—include them in the process from the start. So while you can easily create a customer journey map on your own, it won’t be nearly as powerful as one you create with team members from different areas of expertise .

For example, if you’re looking at the purchase flow, you need to work with:

Someone from the UX team, who knows about the usability of the flow and can advocate for design changes

Someone from dev or engineering, who knows how things work in the back end, and will be able to push forward any changes that result from the map

Someone from success or support, who has first-hand experience talking to customers and resolving any issues they experience

✅ The output: you’ve set a date, booked a meeting space, and invited a group of four to six participants to your customer journey mapping workshop.

💡Pro tip: for your first map, stay small. Keep it limited to four to six people, and no main stakeholders . This may be unpopular advice, especially since many guides out there mention the importance of having stakeholders present from the start.

However, when you’re not yet very familiar with the process, including too many people early on can discourage them from re-investing their time into future CJM tasks. At this stage, it’s more helpful to brainstorm with a small team, get feedback on how to improve, and iterate a few times. Once you have a firm handle on the process, then start looping in your stakeholders.

On workshop day, you’ll spend half your time prepping and the other half running the actual session.

Step 1: prepare all your materials 

To run a smooth workshop, ensure you do the following:

Bring stationery: for an interactive workshop, you’ll need basic materials such as pens, different colored Post-its, masking tape, and large sheets of paper to hang on the wall

Collect and print out the data: use the data you collected on Day 1. It’s good to have digital copies on a laptop or tablet for everybody to access, but print-outs could be the better alternative as people can take notes and scribble on them.

Print out an empathy map canvas for each participant: start the workshop with an empathy mapping exercise (more on this in Step 2). For this, hand each participant an empty empathy map canvas you can recreate from the template below.

Set up a customer journey map template on the wall: use a large sheet of paper to create a grid you'll stick to the wall and fill in as part of the workshop. On the horizontal axis, write the customer journey steps you identified during your Day 1 prep work; on the vertical axis, list the themes you want to analyze for each step. For example:

Actions your customers take

Questions they might have

Happy moments they experience

Pain points they experience

Tech limits they might encounter

Opportunities that arise

Step 2: run the workshop

This is the most interactive (and fun) part of the process. Follow the framework below to go from zero to a completed draft of a map in just under 2 hours .

Introduction [🕒 5–10 min]

Introduce yourself and your participants to one another

Using the one-two sentence description you defined on Day 1, explain the goal and scope of the workshop and the activities it will involve

Offer a quick summary of the customer persona you’ll be referring to throughout the session

Empathy mapping exercise [🕒 30 min]

Using the personas and data available, have each team member map their observations onto sticky notes and paste them on the relevant section of the empathy mapping canvas

Have all participants take turns presenting their empathy map

Facilitate group discussions where interesting points of agreement or disagreement appear

Customer journey mapping [🕒 60 min]

Using Post-its, ask each participant to fill in parts of the map grid with available information. Start by filling in the first row together, so everybody understands the process, then do each row individually (15–20 min). At the end of the process, you should have something like this:

Looking at the completed map, encourage your team to discuss and align on core observations (and take notes: they’ll come in handy on your final half day). At this point, customer pain points and opportunities should become evident for everybody involved. Having a cross-functional team means people will naturally start discussing what can, or cannot, immediately be done to address them (35–40 min).

Wrap up [🕒 5 min]

Congratulations! Your first customer journey map is complete. Finish the session by thanking your participants and letting them know the next steps.

Final half-day: wrap up and share

Once you’ve gone through the entire customer journey mapping workshop, the number one thing you want to avoid is for all this effort to go to waste. Instead of leaving the map hanging on the wall (or worse: taking it down, folding it, and forgetting about it), the final step is to wrap the process up and communicate the results to the larger team.

Digitize the map so you can easily update and share it with team members: it may be tempting to use dedicated software or invest time into a beautiful design, but for the first few iterations, it’s enough to add the map to your team’s existing workflows (for example, our team digitized our map and added it straight into Jira, where it’s easily accessible)

Offer a quick write-up or a 5-minute video introduction of the activity: re-use the description you came up with on Day 1, including who was involved and the top three outcomes

Clearly state the follow-up actions: if you’ve found obvious issues that need fixing, that’s a likely next step. If you’ve identified opportunities for change and improvement, you may want to validate these findings via customer interviews and usability testing.

4 benefits of customer journey mapping

In 2023, it’s almost a given that great customer experience (CX) provides any business or ecommerce site with a competitive advantage. But just how you’re supposed to deliver on the concept and create wow-worthy experiences is often left unsaid, implied, or glossed over.

Customer journey maps help you find answers to this ‘How?’ question, enabling you to:

Visualize customer pain points, motivations, and drivers

Create cross-team alignment around the business

Remove internal silos and clarify areas of ownership

Make improvements and convert more visitors into customers

We’ve done a lot of customer journey work here at Hotjar, so we know that the above is true—but don’t just take our word for it: all the people we interviewed for this guide confirmed the benefits of journey mapping. Let’s take a look at what they shared.

1. Visualize customer pain points, motivations, and drivers

It’s one thing to present your entire team with charts, graphs, and trends about your customers, and quite another to put the same team in front of ONE map that highlights what customers think, want, and do at each step of their journey.

I did my first customer journey map at MADE.COM within the first three months of joining the company. I was trying to map the journey to understand where the pain points were.

For example, people who want to buy a sofa from us will be coming back to the site 8+ times over several weeks before making a purchase. In that time, they may also visit a showroom. So now I look at that journey, at a customer’s motivation for going to the website versus a physical store, and I need to make sure that the experience in the showroom complements what they're doing on-site, and vice-versa, and that it all kind of comes together.

The map helps in seeing that journey progress right up to the time someone becomes a customer. And it also continues after: we see the next touchpoints and how we're looking to retain them as a customer, so that they come back and purchase again.

A customer journey map is particularly powerful when you incorporate empathy into it, bringing to light specific emotions that customers experience throughout the journey.

2. Create cross-team alignment around the business

The best, most effective customer journey maps are not the solo project of the user experience (UX) or marketing team (though they may originate there).

Customer journey maps are a quick, easy, and powerful way to help everybody in your business get a clearer understanding of how things work from a customers’ perspective and what the customers’ needs are—which is the first step in your quest towards creating a better experience for them.

Our first goal for preparing a customer journey map was to improve understanding customers across the company, so that every employee could understand the entire process our clients go through.

For example, people from the shipping department didn't know how the process works online; people from marketing didn't know how customers behave after filing a complaint. Everything seems obvious, but when we shared these details, we saw that a lot of people didn't know how the company itself works—this map made us realize that there were still gaps we needed to fill.

If we discover that customers have a pain point in a specific section of the map, different teams can look at the same section from several angles; customer support can communicate why something is not possible, and engineering can explain why it’s going to take X amount of effort to get it done. Especially in cross-functional teams where we all come from really different disciplines, I find these maps to be an incredible way for us all to speak the same language.

3. Remove internal silos and clarify areas of ownership

As a company grows in size and complexity, the lines of ownership occasionally become blurry. Without clarity, a customer might get bounced like a ping pong ball across Sales, Success, and Support departments—not great for the seamless and frictionless customer experience we all want to offer.

A central source of ‘truth’ in the form of a customer journey map that everybody can refer to helps clarify areas of ownership and handover points.

We were growing as a team, and we realized we needed to operationalize a lot of the processes that, before then, had just been manually communicated. We did it through a customer journey map. Our goal was to better understand where these hand-off points were and how to create a more seamless experience for our customers, because they were kind of being punted from team to team, from person to person—and often, it was really hard to keep tabs on exactly where the customer was in that entire journey.

4. Make improvements and convert more visitors into customers

A customer journey map will take your team from 'It appears that 30% of people leave the website at this stage' to 'Wow, people are leaving because the info is incomplete and the links are broken.' Once everyone is aligned on the roadblocks that need to be addressed, changes that have a positive impact on the customer experience and customer satisfaction will happen faster.

The customer journey map brings it all together: it doesn't matter who you've got in the room. If you’re doing a proper journey map, they always get enlightened in terms of ‘Oh, my word. I did not know the customer's actually experiencing this.’ And when I walk out of the session, we have often solved issues in the business. Accountability and responsibilities have been assigned, and I find that it just works well.

Shaheema (right) working on a customer journey map

Collect the right data to create an effective customer journey map

The secret of getting value from customer journey mapping is not just building the map itself: it's taking action on your findings. Having a list of changes to prioritize means you can also measure their effect once implemented, and keep improving your customers' experience. 

This all starts with collecting customer-centric data—the sooner you begin, the more information you’ll have when the time comes to make a decision.

Start mapping your customer journey today

Hotjar lets you experience your customer’s journey through their eyes, so you can visualize what’s working and what needs improvement.

FAQs about customer journey mapping

How do i create a customer journey map.

To create a useful customer journey map, you first need to define your objectives, buyer personas, and the goals of your customers (direct customer feedback and  market research will help you here). Then, identify all the distinct touchpoints the customer has with your product or service in chronological order, and visualize the completion of these steps in a map format.

What are the benefits of customer journey mapping?

Customer journey mapping provides different teams in your company with a simple, easily understandable visualization that captures your customers’ perspective and needs, and the steps they’ll  take to successfully use your  product or service. 

Consider customer journey mapping if you want to accomplish a specific objective (like testing a new product’s purchase flow) or work towards a much broader goal (like increasing overall customer retention or customer loyalty).

What is the difference between a customer journey map and an experience map?

The main difference between an experience map and a customer journey map is that customer journey maps are geared specifically toward business goals and the successful use of a product or service, while experience maps visualize an individual’s journey and experience through the completion of any task or goal that may not be related to business.

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Customer Journey Pain Points, How to Find Them, & How to Fix Them

In this article, you will learn what customer journey pain points are, the different types of pain points that customers can experience, and how to identify them.

By addressing these pain points, you can improve the overall customer experience and build a loyal customer base.

So, let's dive in and explore the world of customer journey pain points together.

What Are Customer Journey Pain Points?

Customer journey pain points refer to the specific moments in a customer's experience with a company where they experience frustration, confusion, or dissatisfaction.

These pain points can occur at any stage of the customer journey, from initial research to post-purchase support, and can significantly impact customer satisfaction.

Types of Customer Journey Pain Points

1. support pain points.

Support pain points can significantly impact the customer experience. For instance, a frustrated customer had to wait on hold for over an hour to speak with a representative and ultimately received unhelpful guidance.

When customers encounter support pain points, it can lead to a negative perception of the entire customer journey.

This is because support agents are often the primary point of contact for customers when they encounter issues or problems. If support agents are unable to effectively address customer problems or are difficult to reach, it can undermine the entire user experience and lead to frustration.

Also Read: Customer Loyalty Analytics

To avoid support pain points, companies should prioritize efficient and effective communication channels, such as live chat and email, in addition to traditional phone support.

Additionally, companies can train their support agents to be knowledgeable and empathetic, ensuring that they have the tools and resources necessary to resolve customer issues quickly and effectively.

By addressing support pain points, companies can improve the overall customer journey and build positive relationships with their customers.

2. Productivity Pain Points

Feeling overwhelmed and bogged down by tasks that eat up your time and energy can be frustrating, but with the right tools and strategies, you can tackle productivity pain points and streamline your workflow.

To start, take a closer look at your customer journey map and identify any process pain points that are hindering your productivity. Here are some customer journey map examples you can refer to.

Some common productivity pain points include:

• Manual data entry
• Repetitive tasks
• Lack of automation
• Inefficient communication channels
• Inadequate access to customer data

Once you've identified these pain points, work on developing solutions to streamline your workflow.

This could involve implementing automation tools, creating templates for repetitive tasks, or investing in software that allows for more efficient communication and data management.

3. Financial Pain Points

You're no stranger to the frustration of financial roadblocks, like hitting a pothole on a smooth road. Financial pain points are a common aspect of the customer journey, and addressing them is crucial to ensuring customer satisfaction and loyalty.

To do so effectively, it's essential to understand the customer's needs and how they relate to their financial situation. Market and qualitative research can help identify these pain points and provide insights into how to address them.

Also Read: Benefits Of Customer Journey Mapping

One of the most common financial pain points for customers is the difficulty of managing their finances. This may include issues like budgeting, saving, and investing, all of which can be daunting tasks for those who are not financially literate.

Other financial pain points may include high-interest rates on loans and credit cards, unexpected fees, and insufficient access to credit.

Also Read: Retail Customer Journey

By addressing these pain points, companies can not only improve customer satisfaction but also build a reputation as a reliable and trustworthy financial partner.

4. Process Pain Points

These are the obstacles and inefficiencies that customers encounter when trying to navigate a company's internal processes. Process pain points can occur at any stage of the customer journey, from initial research to post-purchase support.

They can include confusing website navigation, lengthy wait times for customer service, and convoluted return processes.

How To Identify Customer Journey Pain Points

To identify the pain points in your customer journey, you need to study customer feedback thoroughly.

Take customer interviews to understand their experiences and pain points during the journey. Opt for journey mapping to visualize the customer journey and analyze the customer behavior.

Additionally, analyze customer support interactions to identify common pain points and improve the overall experience.

Study Customer Feedback

One effective way to gather customer feedback is through user research, such as surveys or focus groups. These methods allow businesses to ask specific questions about each point in the customer journey.

Additionally, businesses can gather feedback from their sales and customer support teams. They interact with customers on a regular basis and can provide valuable insights based on their experiences.

Take Customer Interviews

When you sit down with your clients and chat with them about their experiences, you'll gain a better understanding of their needs and preferences.

To conduct effective customer interviews, start by preparing a list of open-ended questions that encourage your customers to share their experiences and feedback openly. Be sure to actively listen to their responses, taking notes of their pain points, frustrations, and emotional reactions.

This will help you identify any recurring themes and patterns that may indicate a larger issue.

It's essential to be empathetic and understanding of their experiences, as this will help build trust and rapport with your customers.

Opt For Journey Mapping

Mapping out the full experience of a consumer can reveal insights into their emotions, needs, and behaviors, allowing businesses to make informed decisions on how to improve their overall customer experience. This is where journey mapping comes in.

Journey mapping is the process of visually representing the entire customer journey, from the moment a prospective customer becomes aware of your brand to the point where they become a loyal customer.

This process helps businesses identify pain points along the way, such as touchpoints where the customer may feel frustrated or confused.

Analyze Customer Support Interactions

When a customer reaches out to customer support, they're likely experiencing a pain point in their customer journey.

Here are a few ways to analyze customer support interactions:

Look for patterns: Are customers consistently calling with the same issue? This could indicate a problem with your product or service that needs to be addressed.

Measure response time: How long does it take for your customer support team to respond to inquiries? If response times are consistently long, it may be time to add more support staff.

Monitor customer satisfaction: After a customer support interaction, send a survey to measure how satisfied the customer was with the experience. This can help you identify areas for improvement.

Train your support team: Make sure your customer support team is well-trained and knowledgeable about your product or service. This can help them provide better support and resolve issues more quickly.

Customer Surveys

To make the most of customer surveys, it's important to ask the right questions.

Use a table to organize your survey questions into categories such as "Ease of Use," "Product Quality," and "Customer Service". Include open-ended questions to allow customers to provide more detailed feedback.

By analyzing your survey results, you can identify the areas where you need to make improvements and take action to improve your customers' experience.

Analyze Customer Churn

By analyzing customer churn, you can gain valuable insights into the areas of your business that may be causing frustration for your customers. This could include anything from poor customer service to product issues or a confusing website.

B2B customer journey touchpoints can vary from business to business, so taking the time to analyze your specific audience is key.

You’ll need good customer journey analytics to segment your customer churn cohorts - we recommend Woopra. ;)

Check Social Media

Take a moment to check social media to see what your customers are saying about your business. Social media has become a powerful tool for customers to voice their opinions, both good and bad, about their experiences with companies.

Here are five key reasons why checking social media can help you identify and address customer journey pain points:

• It allows you to see what customers are saying about your business in real-time.
• You can quickly spot common pain points that multiple customers are experiencing.
• Social media gives you an opportunity to respond and address their concerns directly and publicly.
• It informs product improvements and other changes to better serve your customers.
• Monitoring social media allows you to address issues as they arise, rather than waiting for them to become bigger problems.

By regularly checking social media, you can identify and address customer journey pain points, ultimately improving the overall customer experience and increasing customer loyalty.

Look For Employee Insights

Now that you've checked social media, it's time to dig deeper into employee insights.

Your employees are the ones who interact with customers on a daily basis, and they can provide firsthand knowledge about the pain points that customers experience.

Sometimes things that management are oblivious of are obvious to the rank-and-file employees. So listen up!

5 Customer Journey Pain Points That Every Business May Face

Common pain points often include a lack of responsiveness, poor product and service quality, personal disconnection, complex buying process, and inadequate customer support.

Lack Of Responsiveness

When visiting a website, if it takes too long to load or the links are unresponsive, it can create a frustrating experience for the customer. This lack of responsiveness is a common customer journey pain point that can lead to a high bounce rate and lost revenue for the company.

Customers want a seamless experience when interacting with a website, but when they face broken or slow webpages, they quickly lose interest and move on to a competitor's website.

To avoid this issue, make sure your website is optimized for speed and functionality. Here are three ways to improve the page loading speed of your website:

• Optimize images and videos for faster load times
• Implement a caching system to reduce server response times
• Use a content delivery network (CDN) to distribute content across multiple servers and improve load times for customers in different locations.

Poor Product & Service Quality

Customers expect businesses to provide high-quality products and services, and when they fail to meet these expectations, customers become dissatisfied.

Poor product quality results in product returns, negative reviews, and decreased trust in the brand. Similarly, poor service quality leads to frustrated customers, negative word-of-mouth, and ultimately, lost revenue.

On the back end, businesses may have to invest significant resources in addressing quality issues, such as product recalls or service retraining. That’s why prioritizing product and service quality is essential.

Poor Customer Support

Nothing frustrates customers more than receiving inadequate support when they're in need. As a customer, you expect to receive top-notch service when you reach out to a company for assistance.

This pain point can be attributed to a lack of training for sales reps and customer service representatives, an absence of clear communication channels, and an unwillingness to prioritize customer needs.

When customers encounter issues or have questions about a product or service, they want to be able to reach out to a company and receive timely and effective support.

However, poor customer support can leave customers feeling undervalued, frustrated, and dissatisfied. This negative experience can then lead to a loss of trust and loyalty, which can ultimately impact a business's bottom line.

Lack of Personal Touch or Human Connection

If you're on a customer journey, you expect a certain level of human connection or personal touch from the company you're interacting with. Unfortunately, the lack of this can be one of the most frustrating pain points for customers.

Being treated like just another number or transaction can make you feel undervalued and unimportant. This lack of personal touch can manifest in different ways, such as generic automated responses or uninterested support agents.

When you feel like the company you're interacting with doesn't care about you as an individual, it can be difficult to build trust and loyalty towards them. As a customer, you want to feel like you matter to the company and that they're invested in your success.

A lack of human connection can leave you feeling disappointed and disengaged, ultimately leading to a lost opportunity for the company to build a long-lasting relationship with you.

Complex Buying Process

It's common to feel overwhelmed when faced with a long and complicated buying journey. You may be bombarded with too much information or encounter confusing terms and procedures. All these can create pain points that can hinder you from completing the purchasing process.

As a customer, you want to feel empowered and informed when making a purchase. Providing a simplified and streamlined buying journey can make your experience more enjoyable and less stressful.

By breaking down the process into smaller steps and explaining each one clearly, you can feel confident in your purchase and avoid any confusion or frustration.

So, you've now learned about customer journey pain points and their impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty. You've also gained insights into the types of pain points that customers may encounter and how to identify them.

But what's next? Well, the next step is to take action. Don't let your customers suffer through frustrating experiences that can damage your business's reputation and bottom line. Use the information you've learned to identify and address the pain points in your customers' journey.

By providing a seamless and positive experience, you'll not only retain loyal customers, but also attract new ones. So, go ahead and take that step - your customers will thank you for it!

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User Pain Points: Types of Issues and Their Significance

What are user pain points in UI/UX design and why is it important to understand them? Learn how to take care of the customers’ concerns effectively.

Written by Ramotion Feb 23, 2023 13 min read

Last updated: Feb 25, 2024

UI/UX design is all about the customer experience, aiming to increase overall satisfaction. This, in turn, helps in creating better products and services, thus improving the brand image. UX researchers spend a lot of time, energy, and resources on identifying the needs of users, understanding their concerns, and ensuring that the problems are resolved in a timely manner. When creating a better user experience, one of the most important aspects to consider is customer pain points.

These pain points can consist of various usability issues in the customer journey. UI/UX professionals conduct user research to get a better understanding of the nature and gravity of these pain points, then devise strategies to resolve these concerns, with the help of the design principles and frameworks.

User Pain Points ( Priscila Avila on Medium )

In this article, we introduce the concept of user pain points and user problems. We discuss different types of customer pain points along with strategies to address them. The article concludes with the best practices to resolve user pain points at any journey level.

Read along as we dive into this important discussion, and highlight how a pain point can become a serious concern for designers.

Introduction to user pain points

For a UI/UX designer, it is important to understand the concept of the user or customer pain points. A pain point is any problem that the users face while interacting with a product or service. This issue can be encountered at any point in the customer journey. It is critical to note that if user experience designers fail to identify pain points and address them appropriately, these can leave a bad impact on the perception and performance of the product.

What are user pain points?

User pain points refer to the issues that users face when interacting with a product or service. These problems, if not resolved, can leave a bad impact on the overall user experience, thus leading to dissatisfaction among customers.

Modern organizations spend a lot of resources on understanding the needs and pain points of the customers. Designers try to find out the major concerns of users by conducting qualitative and quantitative research. It is important to invest time and money into this practice, as the results can revolutionize the design of a product or service. The findings of such research studies truly justify the ROI of UX design by alleviating the issues that can leave a bad impact on the overall user experience.

Identifying customer pain points is an important element of user research. Designers and researchers go into the field, talk to existing and prospective customers, gather their feedback, and understand the problems they face at any journey level. This helps in getting insights into the overall user experience, which can then help in creating effective strategies to overcome the issues.

Types of user pain points

At any interaction level, customers can run into several issues. These can be related to different aspects, such as technical issues with the product or service, the design of any element, the presence or absence of a feature, the information architecture, etc. Depending on their level and severity of impact, customer pain points are of different types, such as navigation pain points , interaction level pain points, financial pain points, product pain points, and many others.

What are the four types of customer pain points?

There are four major types of customer pain points.

Navigation pain points

User experience pain points, technical pain points, product or service pain points.

In this section, we discuss four important types of customer pain points.

Navigation pain points are one of the most common types of customer pain points. These include the issues that users face because of bad, unresponsive, or unexpected behavior of navigation. For example, when a clickable item in the drop-down menu does not lead to any webpage, the users get frustrated. Navigation issues are not restricted to a specific journey level pain point, instead, their frequency can be much greater. The best way to understand and resolve these pain points is to conduct comprehensive user testing.

The Problems of Bad Navigation ( Nielsen-Norman Group )

User experience pain points are the ones that are most closely associated with the overall satisfaction of the users. The presence or absence of these issues has the power to dictate the relationship level of customers with the product or service.

Identifying pain points related to the user experience is important for researchers and designers, as the success or failure of a product heavily depends on them.

Technical issues in accomplishing the tasks and the bottlenecks faced in the form of process pain points fall under the category of technical pain points. These usability issues can arise because of some technical issues in the product, service, or platform.

For example, the problem one can face when transferring money, sending a gift, or placing an online order because of some unknown technical error. These issues cannot be resolved without proper collaboration between the design and development teams.

Service or product pain points are the ones that are directly related to the design and delivery of the interface platform that the customers interact with. These include aspects such as the usefulness of a particular product, the aesthetic elements, and the overall utility of the product or service itself.

These issues can also occur because of a certain financial pain point in the user journey. Product or service pain points can be the hardest to rectify as these closely align with the business model and goals.

Strategies for addressing user pain points

Understanding the nature and significance of customer pain points is only the beginning. It is important for UI/UX designers to highlight the importance of these issues, prioritize them according to their impact, and then address them appropriately.

When it comes to addressing customer pain points, UI/UX designers have tried and tested several strategies, identifying the ones that work best. It is always a good idea to incorporate these strategies into the design process , so the key principles and overall goals do not get neglected.

What are the main strategies to address user pain points?

Some of the strategies to address user pain points are as follows.

Empathy and understanding

Gathering data, prioritizing and solving, continuous monitoring.

When addressing a user pain point, the following four strategies can prove highly effective.

One of the fundamental principles of UI/UX design is to develop empathy for the customers. This rule comes in handy when understanding issues and addressing the users’ needs. Empathy and understanding here mean that when the designers identify pain points, they should keep their own biases and expertise aside.

Sticking to the UX design mantra, i.e., ‘the users are not like me’, helps in this process. By focusing on the users, designers can give attention to specific issues and understand the reasons that support pain points. An objective and thorough approach can go a long way in resolving the issues.

The users play a critical role in the entire process of identifying and resolving the pain points. This is where the designers and researchers can bring their expertise to the table. Carefully designed user interviews and usability testing sessions ensure that useful information is gathered from the target audience.

If the designers have fewer data, and therefore little information, about customer pain points, it will become increasingly difficult to resolve the issues. Data collection requires careful selection of participants and attention to detail. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods are helpful in understanding the pain points of users.

Gather Data from User Tests ( UsabilityHub )

Once the UX researchers have gathered all the data necessary for each customer pain point, the next step is to understand how critical each one of these is. This is where qualitative feedback and observations are extremely helpful. Based on the information gathered from usability tests and interviews, the designers then prioritize pain points.

This helps in creating an effective problem-solving strategy, with specific timelines and milestones. In any UI/UX design process, time is of the essence. Prioritization of user pain points helps the teams stay on track, thus ensuring the timely delivery of solutions.

It is important to note that the resolution of a handful of customer pain points does not guarantee that the users will not face any issues in the future. The needs of users keep on changing at a rapid pace, therefore, giving rise to new issues.

For any successful organization, it is important to ensure constant monitoring of the product or service. This means going back to an already resolved pain point, understanding the change in performance, identifying new issues, and going through the iterative design process of meeting the needs of the target audience.

Impact of user pain points on customers

The abundance of pain points in any product or service can significantly impact the overall customer experience. When pain points keep appearing in the user journey, it leads to frustration and dissatisfaction with the design, thus leading the users to abandon the product or service.

There are several examples of bad UX design where a single poor design choice at the customer journey level is enough to drive the users away. Since there are many alternatives available for customers in today’s competitive digital market, it only takes one error for them to switch to a better option.

How do user pain points impact customer experience?

User pain points leave a significant impact on customer experience.

Decreased satisfaction

Decreased loyalty, decreased productivity, increased churn.

Some of the most significant impacts of pain points appear in the following ways.

When using a digital or physical product, we want the experience to be smooth and free of any issues. Our relationship level with any design is defined by the amount and nature of the feelings we get before, during, and after the interaction. In case of excessive customer pain points, the level of satisfaction is bound to go down.

A product can never be regarded as a successful one if it has dissatisfied customers. Therefore, irrespective of their nature, designers identify the causes that support pain points and ensure their eradication, thus providing a better experience to the users.

User Pain Points Decrease Customer Satisfaction ( One Contact Center )

It is no surprise that when customers are dissatisfied, they are never going to stick with your product or service. If one is being fair, the customers cannot be blamed for this. When the customer experience is filled with pain points, there is no joy in using the product, hence the only logical thing to do is to move away. It is important to note that all relationship level pain points, whether before, during, or after the interaction, can drive the target audience away from the design, along with the added impact of reducing the number of prospective customers.

Therefore, it is important to carefully analyze, prioritize, and address all the customer pain points, thus ensuring customer satisfaction and loyalty.

When the customer journey is filled with process pain points, it becomes harder for the users to accomplish their tasks. The time on task, along with the number of errors and failures, increases, thus leading to decreased productivity.

The design, therefore, does not help the users in achieving their goals, leaving a bad impact on the overall experience. It is important to note that the priority of any designer is to make the lives of the target audiences easy. If the users keep running into issues, there is no way they can have a smooth and easy experience.

The churn rate is defined by the number or percentage of customers who stop using a product or service after a certain time. If the customers are not satisfied or happy with their experience, they will not be loyal to the product, and will, therefore, stop interacting with the design. The presence of a critical pain point, therefore, directly impacts the business and profitability of the organization.

The field of UI/UX design and research has a direct relationship with the success – or failure – of a business. It is important to give due consideration to the pain points and breakages in the customer journey, so the users can get a meaningful experience.

Best practices for resolving customer pain points

Expert researchers and designers have tried and tested several methods of addressing customer pain points. From conducting qualitative research, gathering quantitative data, performing heuristic analysis , designing user tests and observational studies, and managing focus groups, there are several ways to ensure that the voice of the customers is not only heard but understood and considered during the design process.

However, there are several best practices that are common in all the popular approaches to resolving customer pain points.

What are the best practices when resolving customer pain points?

The best practices to address customer pain points include:

Understanding the problem

Prioritizing the problem, finding solutions, continuous monitoring and improvement.

Sticking to the following best practices can ensure better design and proper resolution of user pain points.

The first and most important step when resolving an issue is to understand the nature and severity of the issue. This attitude helps designers identify customer pain points, highlight a specific problem, and then take steps for its resolution. Some of the best ways to understand a pain point are by talking to the customers by conducting user interviews and focus groups. It is important for researchers and designers to be open in such sessions, so they can get a better understanding of the users’ perspectives.

Understanding Customer Pain Points ( CommBox )

When working on identification issues, it can sometimes get overwhelming for the design team to focus on a specific pain point. This is why prioritization of the pain points at any customer journey level is extremely important. For example, is it better to resolve the financial pain points first and then move to any other relationship level pain point? This is where collaboration and communication between different teams and among the members of the design team come in handy.

Once the customer pain points are identified, understood, and prioritized, the next best thing to do is to devise strategies to resolve the issues. This is where all the data gathered from user research, usability tests, interviews, and the knowledge of the designers and researchers come together with the aim to find the best solution. It is important to note that this process can be time-consuming and iterative in nature, but the goal is to conduct constant tests and ensure that the best experience is created for the customers.

The process of finding and resolving pain points is iterative. As the needs of customers evolve, it is natural for new issues to arise. It is, therefore, one of the best practices to keep a constant check on the new pain points, and also to analyze the solutions previously adopted. This way the designers can keep their products and services updated, ensuring that all concerns of the customers get addressed quickly and efficiently.

Regular Monitoring of the Product or Service ( Dribble )

For any product or service, whether in the physical or the digital environment, the feedback of users, their concerns, and their needs are of extreme importance. This holds true for the existing as well as the prospective customers.

A comprehensive analysis of customer pain points, in the light of design principles and best practices, ensures that the users’ needs are not overlooked during the design process.

The data gathered by identifying and understanding a single pain point can give designers a lot to think about, thus motivating them to come up with innovative and effective solutions for the target audience.

In this article, we introduced the concept of customer pain points, along with the four most common pain points, and the strategies to address them. It is important for all organizations to conduct thorough research so they can identify these and other pain points, and then adopt the best practices discussed above to ensure their timely resolution.

A product or service can never be successful if the customers keep running into issues and their experience keeps getting impacted by pain points. Therefore, designers and design teams must pay close attention to the existing and emerging pain points, thus identifying areas for improvement.

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Customer Journey Map: Everything You Need To Know

Updated: Aug 7, 2022, 7:08pm

Can you describe a customer’s experience with your brand or company? If you’ve never made a customer journey map, that description is probably lacking some valuable details. Creating a customer journey map will help you understand a customer’s experience before, during and after buying your product or service, so you can identify barriers and create the best possible experience for every customer. Here’s what you need to know to better understand your audience.

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What Is a Customer Journey Map?

A customer journey map is a visual tool that helps you define your customers’ needs, problems and engagement with your brand. When used properly, a map can be a vital component of effective project management.

The map is laid out as a timeline that plots every interaction a customer has with your business from awareness to repeat business. It helps you see what the customer experiences at every touchpoint.

For example, a customer journey map might help you see that a customer has trouble evaluating your product through your mobile website, couldn’t find the information they needed online, appreciated your in-store customer service and decided to purchase again.

Benefits of a Customer Journey Map

A customer journey map helps you gain a better understanding of your customers so you can spot and avoid potential concerns, make better business decisions and improve customer retention.

The map helps you see which touchpoints your customers love, so you can emphasize those, and where there are common pain points you want to improve.

You can use the map to create standard operating procedures in your business, train your staff, help all team members better understand your customers, and improve your product or service for a better user experience.

Elements of a Customer Journey Map

Customer persona.

You can’t understand your customer’s experience until you know who your customer is. If you haven’t already created a customer persona to represent a group of your customers, start there.

A phase is the general stage of decision making and purchasing the customer is in. You can break down buying stages in several ways, but here’s a basic outline:

• Awareness: The customer realizes they have a need, problem or opportunity.
• Research: They research solutions to determine whether to make a purchase and evaluate options.
• Consideration: They decide they’ll make a purchase to address their need, and they narrow down their options.
• Purchase: They choose a solution and buy it.
• Support: The customer uses the product or service, engages with the company and decides whether to purchase again.

Touchpoints

Touchpoints are every interaction the customer has with your brand throughout the buying journey. Phases may each include several touchpoints.

The touchpoints of your customer’s journey depend on your approach to marketing, sales, product and customer service. They might include things like:

• Marketing collateral, like posters, stickers, billboards, flyers, commercials or display ads
• Physical properties, including your storefront or office space
• Digital properties, including your website and social media pages
• Interactions with your staff, such as cashiers, customer service reps and sales reps
• Purchase experience, including the price and checkout process
• Any post-purchase follow-up from your company, like an email or phone call
• Ongoing customer support
• Renewal or cancellation of your service

Customer Thoughts, Actions and Emotions

This is where you plot the precise customer experience at each touchpoint. What are they thinking to themselves? Which steps do they take? How are they feeling?

Don’t guess at this information! Get real feedback from your customers through surveys and—even better—live interactions with your customer support staff. Basic CSAT (customer satisfaction), NPS (net promoter score) and CES (customer effort score) questions are a great place to start.

Opportunities

Once you’ve plotted your customer journey, you can include room to note opportunities based on what you see on the map.

Opportunities are anywhere you can remove pain points and improve the buying journey for your customer—where are your customers hitting roadblocks that keep them from buying (or coming back)?

Six Steps to Creating a Customer Journey Map

To create a customer journey map:

• Decide what to measure. Get clear on your goals, so you know what to look for as you plot your customer journey.
• Create your customer persona. Start with knowing which buyer you’re focused on and what their general needs and wants are.
• Define your customer buying phases. What are the stages your customer goes through between discovering their problem and deciding to purchase your product or service? Which stages happen after purchase?
• Plot your touchpoints. Within each phase, where does your customer interact with your brand?
• Add customer thoughts, actions and emotions. At each touchpoint, what is the customer prompted to think, do and feel?
• Note your opportunities. Based on your goals and what you discover through your customer journey map, which changes can you make at each touchpoint or within each phase to improve the customer experience?

There’s no correct way to design your customer journey map.

You could build it in a simple spreadsheet that includes swimlanes for phases, touchpoints, thoughts/actions/feelings and opportunities. Some journey maps are more intricately designed, with touchpoints and emotions illustrated and wrapped around a series of phases.

Validating Your Journey Map

If you create a map internally based on the phases and touchpoints your company identifies, you’re relying on assumptions that aren’t necessarily valid.

To validate your customer journey map, you have to bring the customer into the process.

Using surveys and customer interactions to determine customer thoughts, actions and emotions is a good start—you’re not assuming your customers’ reactions to your touchpoints.

But what if you’ve missed touchpoints in the customer journey? Or assumed they encounter them in one phase when they actually encounter them during another? Talking to your customers can help you identify any misguided assumptions and ensure your map accurately reflects the customer experience.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the sections of a customer journey map.

A customer journey map generally includes a summary of your customer persona, purchase phases, touchpoints with your company, customer thoughts/actions/emotions and opportunities to improve the customer experience.

What do you use a customer journey map for?

Companies use a customer journey map to better understand their customers’ experience when interacting with their brand. Knowing what a customer is experiencing during each touchpoint with your brand can help you identify pain points and improve the customer experience.

How do you define customer journey?

The customer journey is the series of phases and steps a potential buyer experiences before, during and after purchasing your product or service. It can include everything from their independent research and your advertising and marketing to the shopping experience and your customer service and retention efforts.

Why is mapping the customer journey important?

Customer journey mapping is an essential tool used by businesses to help them understand their customers’ expectations better and help them improve their overall customer experience (CX) level.

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Become a partner, understanding customer journey and pain points using ai.

Beck Pura | June 5, 2023 | 5 min read

In today's digital age, businesses are constantly seeking ways to understand their customer's behaviors and preferences better. AI-driven user behavior analysis has emerged as a powerful tool in this pursuit. By harnessing the capabilities of artificial intelligence, businesses can uncover valuable insights into the customer journey and identify pain points that hinder customer satisfaction.

This blog will explore the significance of understanding the customer journey and pain points and how AI enhances user behavior analysis.

Customer Journey

The customer journey refers to a customer's process when interacting with a business or brand. It consists of several stages: awareness, consideration, decision, and retention. AI systems can gather valuable information about customer interactions through data collection and aggregation.

AI also helps identify touchpoints and contact points between the customer and the business. By leveraging AI, companies can personalize and customize customer experiences based on their preferences, improving customer satisfaction. Moreover, AI enables predictive analytics, allowing businesses to anticipate future customer journeys and make data-driven decisions.

User Behavior Analysis

User behavior analysis involves studying how customers interact with a product, service, or platform. It gives businesses valuable insights into customer preferences, needs, and motivations. Several types of user behavior data can be collected, including demographic, interaction, engagement, and conversion data.

Techniques such as descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analytics are used to analyze this data. AI-driven user behavior analysis takes these techniques to the next level by leveraging artificial intelligence algorithms and models to extract meaningful patterns and insights from large volumes of data.

AI-Driven User Behavior Analysis

AI plays a pivotal role in user behavior analysis. Firstly, AI facilitates efficient data collection and processing. With AI algorithms, businesses can collect, aggregate, and analyze user behavior data in real time, providing up-to-date insights. AI also excels in pattern recognition and anomaly detection. By identifying patterns in user behavior, businesses can gain a comprehensive understanding of customer preferences and pain points. Additionally, AI enables real-time monitoring and response, allowing companies to address issues promptly and provide immediate assistance. Furthermore, AI automates insights generation, saving time and resources while providing businesses with valuable information to drive decision-making.

The benefits of AI-driven user behavior analysis are numerous. It enhances customer understanding by giving businesses in-depth insights into customer behaviors, preferences, and pain points. Companies can proactively address issues and improve the customer experience by identifying pain points.

AI enables personalized recommendations and experiences, allowing businesses to tailor their offerings based on individual customer preferences. This level of personalization enhances customer satisfaction and increases the likelihood of customer retention.

Understanding Pain Points

Pain points refer to the specific areas or issues customers encounter during their journey that cause dissatisfaction or frustration. Identifying pain points is crucial for businesses as it enables them to address these issues and improve the overall customer experience.

AI techniques are instrumental in identifying pain points. Sentiment analysis, for instance, analyzes customer feedback and reviews to determine the sentiment associated with specific touchpoints or experiences. Text mining and natural language processing techniques extract valuable insights from customer feedback, giving businesses a deeper understanding of pain points.

Social media monitoring allows companies to track customer conversations and sentiments, providing real-time feedback on pain points. Additionally, AI-powered customer support chatbots can analyze customer interactions and identify recurring pain points, enabling businesses to address them efficiently.

Leveraging AI for Customer Engagement and Personalization

AI-driven user behavior analysis goes beyond understanding the customer journey and pain points. It also plays a crucial role in customer engagement and personalization. By harnessing the power of AI, businesses can create highly targeted and personalized experiences for their customers, leading to increased engagement and loyalty.

AI enables businesses to analyze vast amounts of user behavior data, allowing them to gain insights into customer preferences, interests, and buying patterns. With this information, companies can develop targeted marketing campaigns and personalized recommendations.

For example, an e-commerce platform can use AI algorithms to analyze a customer's browsing history, purchase history, and demographic data to suggest products that align with their interests and preferences. This level of personalization enhances the customer experience and increases the likelihood of conversion and repeat purchases.

Furthermore, AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants enable real-time customer engagement and support. These intelligent chatbots can understand and respond to customer queries, provide product recommendations, and even assist with transactions. AI-powered recommendation engines can also personalize website content, displaying relevant products or articles based on a customer's previous interactions.

Combining AI and customer engagement allows businesses to provide seamless and tailored experiences at scale. Customers feel understood and valued when companies anticipate their needs and provide relevant recommendations. It leads to higher customer satisfaction, increased engagement, and, ultimately, stronger customer relationships.

Case Studies

Example 1: E-commerce platform

An e-commerce platform utilizes AI-driven customer journey mapping to understand how customers navigate their websites. Analyzing user behavior data, they identify pain points such as slow page loading times and complex checkout processes. With this knowledge, they implement personalized recommendations based on individual browsing history and preferences. This level of personalization significantly improves the customer experience, leading to increased customer satisfaction and higher conversion rates.

Example 2: Mobile banking app

A mobile banking app leverages real-time user behavior analysis to detect pain points in the user experience. By monitoring user interactions and engagement data, they identify issues such as confusing navigation and slow response times. To address these pain points, they integrate an AI-powered chatbot for customer support. The chatbot quickly resolves customer queries and assists, leading to a smoother user experience and improved customer satisfaction.

Challenges and Ethical Considerations

AI-driven user behavior analysis presents challenges and ethical considerations. Privacy concerns and data protection are of paramount importance. Businesses must collect customer data securely and obtain consent for data usage. Bias and fairness in AI algorithms are also critical considerations.

AI models should be developed and trained using diverse and representative data to avoid perpetuating biases. Transparency and explainability in AI-driven analysis are vital to establishing trust and enabling customers to understand how their data is used.

Future Trends

The future of AI-driven user behavior analysis looks promising. AI and machine learning advancements will enable businesses to gain deeper insights into customer behaviors and preferences.

Integrating AI with other technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR), will provide a more holistic understanding of the customer journey. Ethical guidelines and regulations specific to AI-driven user behavior analysis will emerge to ensure responsible and ethical usage of customer data.

AI-driven user behavior analysis is a powerful tool for businesses to understand the customer journey and pain points comprehensively. Companies can collect and analyze user behavior data by leveraging AI algorithms and techniques, leading to enhanced customer understanding and improved decision-making.

Identifying pain points through AI techniques allows businesses to address customer concerns promptly, leading to increased customer satisfaction and retention. As AI advances, companies must embrace its capabilities and leverage AI-driven analysis to understand their customers better and deliver exceptional experiences.

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6 Customer Communication Pain Points in SaaS + How to Resolve Them

11 min read

Left unaddressed, customer communication pain points can cause dissatisfaction and eventual churn.

This article aims to help you avoid that. We cover:

• Types of customer pain points.
• How to identify customer pain points.
• Six common customer pain points.
• In-app support strategies to eliminate them.
• Customer communication pain points refer to the problems customers encounter when trying to get help through your support channels.

Benefits of addressing customer pain points:

• Improved customer experience .
• Increased retention .
• Better customer support .
• Competitive advantage.
• There are various types of customer pain points, including financial pain points, process pain points, productivity pain points, and support pain points.

Tools that help identify customer pain points:

• NPS surveys with open-ended questions.
• CSAT surveys.
• Resource center analytics.
• Funnel analysis.
• Path analysis.
• Session recordings.

Six common customer pain point examples

• Inaccessible customer support channels.
• Delayed replies to user queries.
• Generic support without any personalization.
• Support agents unable to answer queries.
• Users stuck in AI response loops.
• Users unaware of product updates.

Steps to eliminate customer pain points:

• Offer personalization with omnichannel support.
• Provide multiple support options with a resource center.
• Collect passive customer feedback to improve the in-app experience and more.
• Analyze customer data and improve in-app communication with interactive guides.

Ready to track, understand, and address customer pain points for your SaaS? Learn how Userpilot can help! Book a demo now.

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What is a customer communication pain point?

Customer communication pain points are the problems customers encounter when your company fails to communicate effectively with them. This could mean they’re unable to get answers, troubleshoot app issues, or learn about product updates on time.

From poor onboarding to slow response times and inadequate self-serve support, customer pain points significantly impact the customer experience, potentially leading to dissatisfaction, negative online reviews, and churn.

Benefits of analyzing customer communication pain points

It will cost you time and effort (plus money?) to identify customer communication problems, but the payoff is worth it. Here are some of the key benefits:

• Improved user experience : Understanding customer pain points lets you identify the precise elements causing friction within their journey. By addressing these issues, you create a smoother, more intuitive customer experience .
• Increased retention : Customers who feel heard and valued are more likely to become loyal advocates. By resolving communication pain points like confusing processes, inconsistent messaging, or difficulty reaching a live person, you’ll build trust, improve retention , and positively impact your bottom line.
• Better customer support : The data from analyzing customer communication pain points helps you understand customer needs. Based on this, you can optimize your support channels and resources to provide proactive and personalized customer support .
• Competitive advantage : Research by Hiver reveals that 66% of customers prioritize efficient support when making purchase decisions. This means customers will abandon brands with poor communication, opening up an opportunity for your business to stand out. By establishing a reputation for excellent customer service, you’ll not only retain customers but also create a powerful point of product differentiation .

Types of customer pain points

Pain points emerge from unmet customer needs , and they fall into four main categories:

• Financial pain points : These pain points center around costs. Financial pain points arise when customers feel they’re paying too much compared to the product value . Factors like hidden charges and the lack of flexible payment options further compound the problem.
• Process pain points : Inconsistencies or friction in a company’s processes leads to customer frustration. Examples of this pain point include lengthy and complicated signup flows with too many forms or inadequate onboarding that leaves users feeling lost.
• Productivity pain points : These pain points are connected to anything that slows users down or wastes their time. Think complex interfaces, confusing features, a steep learning curve, friction in user flows, and the like.
• Support pain points : These arise when customers have trouble getting the help they need. Customer support pain points could be due to slow response times, unhelpful representatives, or an overall lack of support resources.

Our focus today is to help you identify and resolve customer communication (aka, support) pain points.

How to identify customer pain points

Feedback surveys and user behavior analysis are the best ways to find customer communication pain points. This section explores both strategies.

NPS surveys with open-ended questions

An NPS survey is a customer sentiment analysis tool that revolves around a single, central question: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?”

Trigger NPS surveys immediately after users perform a critical action like completing your onboarding process or contacting support.

Based on their scores, categorize customers as:

• Promoters (9-10) : Loyal, enthusiastic customers who are likely to spread positive word-of-mouth.
• Passives (7-8) : Satisfied but not overly enthusiastic, and potentially vulnerable to competitors.
• Detractors (0-6) : Unhappy customers who may damage your brand’s reputation through negative feedback.

You don’t have to do the categorization manually (it’s hard, even if you have a really small customer base). Use tools like Userpilot to automatically collect and analyze NPS responses :

You might be wondering how this helps you uncover customer pain points. The key is to trigger an open-ended follow-up question that prompts users to reveal more.

For an NPS sent after users interact with your support portal , you can send a follow-up like this “Can you tell us more about your chosen rating?”

Tag the responses based on their main themes to easily identify recurring patterns . For example, you can have themes like:

• Long wait times.
• Unhelpful support staff.
• Difficulty finding contact information.
• Unclear messaging.

Again, Userpilot’s NPS dashboard makes it easy to track recurring responses with NPS tags.

CSAT surveys

Trigger contextual CSAT surveys to gauge customer happiness with specific interactions across your support channels.

Collect the data and identify experience gaps to fill. For example, checking in with users after they read a knowledge base article helps you assess whether the article was easy to find and provided value. If you have recurring negative responses, that’s a customer communication pain point right there.

One CSAT best practice is making your surveys easy to fill with MCQs or one-click responses. Customers are unlikely to respond if they find the feedback process cumbersome.

Resource center analytics

Track the performance of resources and modules in your resource center . Aim to identify the most viewed articles, time spent on each article, and search terms that don’t return helpful results.

Based on this actionable analysis , you can spot common pain points and areas where customers are seeking more guidance. High traffic to specific articles is a good indication of a recurring problem or confusion about a particular feature.

Funnel analysis

Track the funnel progression for all steps in your customer journey and identify friction points causing drop-offs.

For example, let’s say your funnel analysis report shows many users are dropping off when interacting with a specific feature, and you also found a spike in support requests for the same feature. That’s a sign that the available help isn’t resolving the issue—meaning you need to dig further and provide better solutions.

Path analysis

Path analysis is a more advanced form of funnel analysis that doesn’t assume a linear progression. Instead, it examines the various paths customers take through a website or app, including all the detours and loops they might encounter.

Implement it to track all the paths your users follow to complete key actions (e.g., account upgrade ). Track the drop-offs along each path and investigate why they might be occurring.

For example, if users frequently navigate to the support page after using a specific feature, that’s a sign your in-app flows aren’t solving user issues. You probably need to revisit your engagement strategy .

Another example: multiple users ending up on your chat module via many different paths and dropping off signals that the chat isn’t resolving their problems.

Heatmaps visually represent how users interact with your UI elements. By generating heatmap reports showing where users click , scroll, and ignore, you can determine areas of your tool with high and low engagements.

Use heatmaps to track your pages with the most requests for customer support and identify user pain points there. For example, you might find that many users are unable to find a new feature, which could signal that you haven’t communicated it to them effectively.

Session recordings

Watch session replays to track user interaction with your app. Aim to monitor where users hesitate and where they abandon the journey.

These work similarly to heatmap reports by tracking user sessions. For example, you can monitor a few user sessions that include interactions with your help center to track whether user issues were resolved in them.

6 common customer pain point examples

Customer communication pain points are more common than you think. We outlined six mistakes most companies make—go over them and see if you’re guilty of any.

1. Inaccessible customer support channels

Customers expect to reach out for support through various channels, such as email, phone, live chat, and social media. When these support channels are hard to find, unavailable, or limited in their hours of operation, it creates a significant barrier to obtaining help.

Some companies try to solve customer support problems by relying solely on a self-service resource center . This approach doesn’t work because some issues need more hand-holding to resolve. Moreover, some users prefer speaking to customer support teams to interacting with a support portal. This is why it’s vital to offer live support as a support channel.

2. Delayed replies to user queries

On the flip side of the coin, some companies offer live chat options or provide customer support through email but don’t reply on time.

Timeliness is a critical component of effective customer service . Delays in replying to emails or keeping customers in long queues can exacerbate issues, diminish trust, and lead to customer dissatisfaction.

3. Generic support without any personalization

A customer service culture that sees customers as nothing more than ticket numbers is a breeding ground for user frustration. Imagine describing a complex problem in detail to a support rep, only to be transferred and have to start over.

With generic support, each conversation feels like it starts from scratch, with no consideration of the customer’s previous efforts to get help . Not only is this inefficient, but it makes customers feel like their time isn’t valued, leading to a sense of frustration and even a feeling of being undervalued.

4. Support agents unable to answer queries

When a customer service team isn’t equipped to answer complicated questions, it creates a poor customer experience . Instead of the quick and helpful resolution users expect, they face agents who lack knowledge, understanding, or resources to solve their problems.

This undermines the customer’s impression of the company and may lead them to seek alternatives irrespective of how good other aspects of the product experience are.

5. Stuck in AI response loops

Automated customer service systems, like chatbots, can handle a significant volume of inquiries efficiently. However, they may not always understand or appropriately respond to complex or nuanced customer queries.

Customers begin to feel irritated when they find themselves stuck in loops of irrelevant automated responses without the option to contact live support.

6. Unaware of product updates

Customers form habits around software products: they log in, visit their key features, complete tasks, and leave.

Most customers don’t spend time exploring the app for new updates, meaning they might miss out on them (or discover them late) without proper in-app announcements. Sometimes, these updates are features users have been eagerly awaiting—leading to unnecessary dissatisfaction despite the new developments.

How to eliminate these pain points to increase customer satisfaction

Implement the following strategies to eliminate support pain points.

Offer personalization with omnichannel support

Provide seamless support experience across your customer support channels (email, chat, phone, social media, etc).

Track conversations across different channels and pair them with the user’s in-app activity to offer personalized support. This way, users don’t have to explain the same problem again for every channel or new agent they meet.

A good example of omnichannel support is using NPS scores to reach out to users via email or SMS to inquire about their experience. You can do this by sharing your in-app NPS data with your CRM app.

Userpilot-Salesforce integration helps you transfer user data between the two apps easily.

Provide multiple support options with a resource center

A robust support portal empowers users to eliminate their pain points on their own. It also reduces the load on your support team, allowing them to focus on addressing more serious issues.

The key to winning with a resource center is having multiple support resources to cater to varying user preferences. Include FAQs, knowledge base articles, video tutorials, and an option to contact live support.

Make the resource center as easy to use as possible. For example, by grouping content and including search functionality, you’ll save your users from scrolling through your app endlessly.

Collect passive customer feedback with a feedback widget

Embed a passive survey widget within your resource center. This lets users share feedback at any time during their experience. Make this widget easy to find by embedding it in your resource center or main settings menu.

This strategy encourages users to provide immediate feedback , helping you quickly identify customer pain points and areas for improvement.

Regularly analyze the collected feedback, identify common patterns, and implement changes to continuously enhance the user experience . Your marketing and sales teams can also take advantage of insights from passive feedback to improve their sales process and customer acquisition strategies .

Improve in-app communication with interactive guides

Use modals, banners, or slideouts to make new feature announcements , as in the example below.

Once users click the “Get Started” button (or whatever CTA you use), trigger an interactive onboarding guide that shows them how to make the most of the new feature. Implementing this customer communication strategy will boost your feature discovery rates, improve the user experience, and reduce support requests.

Customer needs and expectations are constantly evolving, plus what counts as a minor inconvenience for one customer could be another person’s deal breaker.

What you should aim for is proactive identification and rapid response: listen to your users and constantly track the in-app experience to identify areas for improvement.

Userpilot can help. Book a demo to see how to analyze user behavior, trigger in-app surveys, and deploy engaging experiences code-free.

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How to Identify and Handle Customer Pain Points

Understanding the needs of your customers is essential for business success. Anyone can catch a customer’s eye with flashy marketing, but it takes dedication and quality of service to keep people coming back.

That’s why we’ve put together this guide to customer pain points, how to spot them, and the best solutions to offer.

What is a pain point?

A pain point is a problem a customer is dealing with. On one hand, this can include pain points in the customer experience. Obstacles and issues that discourage potential buyers from following through with their purchases. On the other hand, pain points also exist in our personal and professional lives. These are opportunities for businesses to offer solutions.

Good or bad, customer pain points are valuable data for your preferred customer intelligence software . The question is, why do they matter so much?

Why you shouldn’t ignore customer pain points

If you’ve been getting by fine so far without considering things like customer pain points, you might wonder what the point is in starting now.

Whether you’re running an established multinational corporation or just starting a small business , you must maintain an awareness of customer pain points. We’ve already touched on a couple of reasons why they’re important as well as the issues and opportunities they can present businesses. Now, let’s examine these things in more detail.

Pain points in the customer journey limit the effectiveness of your business. Whether it’s pricing issues, poor web design, or anything else, unresolved pain points drive customers away. Even into the arms of your competitors.

That said, this cuts both ways. Understanding common industry pain points gives you something to manage around. If other competitors in your industry price out large sections of the market, you can capitalize on that by developing a more affordable product or service. If long delivery waits and poor installations are common, you can distinguish your brand with efficient and effective service.

The different types of customer pain points

So far, all this talk of pain points has been quite general. Let’s fix that by diving into the specifics. In theory, countless variations of pain points potentially affect both your business and its customers, but many of them can be matched to one of four categories.

1. Processing

‘Processing pain points’ are inefficient or difficult parts of the customer journey. For example, if your website is difficult to navigate or customer notifications don’t function consistently, it becomes much harder for people to engage with your brand.

This means that, compared to internal productivity issues, processing pain points are relatively easy to spot if you’re collecting (and paying attention to) customer feedback. Fortunately, between social media and online reviews, there’s no shortage of feedback.

Unfortunately, by the time process issues create noticeable customer pain points, damage to your brand has already been done. In other words, try to catch these things at the internal stage before customers pick up on them.

Of course, some difficulties in the customer journey are inevitable. That doesn’t make them any easier to deal with from either the customer or employee side, though. For example, maybe you’re with a B2B company trying to sell businesses on some shiny new call center software, with just one snag.

Your potential clients already have software, and rolling out a new installation may be a long and expensive undertaking. How can you alleviate these issues or make them worth dealing with?

One of the most important decisions for any business is the kind of price points they set for goods and services. Too little and it’s hard to profit. Too much and you pull your brand out of reach of a lot of people. This is where knowing margin vs. markup comes into play.

Of course, some things are just expensive, no matter how you look at them, like cars, houses, or any number of electronic devices. That said, there’s no sense in pricing out huge sections of the market when you don’t have to.

It’s not always the upfront cost that puts people off. Expensive delivery fees can be just enough to make customers reconsider purchases just before the point of conversion. Then there are things with extra costs, like vehicle insurance or installation fees.

As with many customer pain points, asking customers directly is a good way to be aware. That said, it’s also useful to research your target market independently. What are average incomes like, and how does your pricing structure compare to that?

3. Productivity

‘Productivity pain points’ concern how your business functions internally. As such, it’s harder for customers to actively make you aware of them because they aren’t necessarily privy to how things run behind the scenes. For example, outdated tools or software can make it harder for employees to deliver timely results no matter how competent they are.

On the other hand, productivity problems can also stem from things like poor employee engagement and high attrition. Some types of customer service roles, like call center workers, may typically be associated with high turnover. As such, it’s vital to develop customer call center retention strategies to maintain an effective service.

After all, what customers will notice are the knock-on effects of these pain points. Slower service and more mistakes. That means you’ve got to be proactive in identifying the underlying causes of these issues yourself.

‘Support pain points’ are issues preventing you from solving customer queries and other pain points in your business. This can include issues with how your support team communicates, how tickets are managed, or even whether you’re discussing pain point issues in the first place.

Support issues can also include a lack of effective onboarding or tutorials for your service. Especially when you work in a software company full of devs, it’s easy to forget that not everyone is particularly tech-savvy.

The best way to identify issues like these is to ask people who aren’t as close to your product as you are. Customers are one option, but of course, you want to make a good impression. So, starting with product testers can be a good strategy before you release the final version.

How to handle them

Identifying customer pain points is only half the battle. It doesn’t matter how aware you are of a problem if nobody’s working to solve it. You need to include workable pain point solutions in your strategies for business survival . Especially in times like these, when people are tightening their belts and muttering about recessions.

Handling processing pain points

Resolving processing inefficiencies is essential for maintaining customer satisfaction. Hard-to-use interfaces alienate customers and poor ticket and response times leave them out of the loop.

The two key places to start are your tools and your practices. You need to replace outdated software to maximize efficiency, but the newest applications are useless if your people can’t work together properly.

That means you’ve also got to evaluate your work and collaboration procedures. Establish an effective system for working together, then coach your team in it.

Handling financial pain points

If you want to broaden your target market, you need to consider differences of income. There’s nothing wrong with having upmarket, expensive products, but consider how you could help more people afford what you have to offer.

That might mean budget-friendly products and services or ways to alleviate the costs, like a limited subscription or paying off a purchase in installments. It’s essential to thoroughly research customer needs to determine what options you should offer.

Handling productivity pain points

Dealing with internal productivity issues can be easier said than done. It all depends on what the underlying causes actually are. If lack of employee awareness is the culprit, consider a new system for timesheet management , or better-dedicated goal-tracking.

If, on the other hand, poor productivity stems from a lack of engagement, you need to energize your team. That might mean improving compensation, providing employee recognition, or addressing toxic elements of your workplace culture.

Handling support pain points

When improving customer support access, it’s all about efficiency. When we reach out with a problem, we crave a response as soon as possible. Even if it’s just an automated trigger email, an immediate response is vital.

Beyond that, your people need to be able to follow up on every issue effectively, no matter how much it gets bounced between different people and departments. It can help to centralize omnichannel support work information in one platform, to make sure nothing gets overlooked.

For onboarding and support for services, you have to take the time to create dedicated, user-friendly tutorials. A lot of tech-based businesses offer live demo calls to help new clients find their way.

Distinguish your brand by eliminating pain points

It’s tempting to dismiss some pain points as industry norms or facts of life, but resist the urge. When competing businesses offer broadly similar products and services, the little things make all the difference.

You might pick which grocery store chain you use based on which one has better prices, or which one you had a better home delivery experience with. When you’re renting out a house, the letting agency you pick may well be the one that responds most quickly or comprehensively.

By putting yourself in your customer’s shoes, you can see the obstacles they experience and elevate your brand in their eyes.

This is not intended as legal advice; for more information, please click here.

These views are made solely by the author.

Austin Guanzon

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Q&A: Personalizing the Customer Journey with Post-Transaction Ads

Retailers and media companies are navigating a new frontier as they embrace the rapid rise of commerce media . On-site ads, a natural entry point for retailers, offer familiar formats like sponsored content and display ads. Among them, post-transaction ads stand out as a low-effort, high-reward solution.

As with any new feature, the introduction of on-site ads brings with it the risk of alienating a retailer’s most valuable asset – its customers. However, there are ways to leverage post-transaction advertising to enhance the customer experience rather than detract from it. 

According to a Fluent survey , 64% of retailers have reported positive consumer responses to ads on their websites. While these supply-side players are paving the way for a bright future in commerce media, there is still work to be done to ensure positive post-purchase experiences for both retailers and their customers.

Q&A with Irina Zhizhina

We spoke with Irina Zhizhina, Senior Product Manager at Fluent, to explore ways in which retailers and media companies can strike a healthy balance between unlocking a new revenue stream and maintaining a positive customer experience.

Read the full Q&A for expert insights into:

• Achieving seamless integration
• Optimizing messaging and creative
• Delivering personalized offers

As a product manager for adflow, Fluent’s post-transaction ad offering, how do you ensure a positive experience for both retailers and consumers?

Effective communication, collaboration, and empathy are key. As a first step, it’s important to gain a deep understanding of the challenges that both retailers and consumers face. As a consumer myself, I’m always thinking about the frustrating components of the post-checkout experience, as well as the exciting innovations that are making life easier. From a product standpoint, it’s all about understanding the retailer’s needs and taking proactive steps to align with their goals. By collecting feedback and iterating on our adflow product, we can continue to enhance the overall experience for both parties.

In what ways can post-transaction ads help to enhance the customer experience and boost loyalty?

Post-transaction ads allow for greater personalization. They enable retailers to tailor ad content, visuals, and messaging to consumers’ unique interests and preferences. When the consumer sees an offer that resonates with them, it reinforces the idea that the company values and understands their needs. By delivering exciting and relevant offers based on signals like purchase history and browsing behavior, retailers can foster brand loyalty and drive repeat purchases.

What are some best practices for seamlessly integrating post-transaction ads into the overall customer journey?

First, timing is key – you want to present offers at the right moment when customers are ready to take action. Next, they should match the look and feel of your site, creating a smooth UX that adds value without disrupting the flow of their shopping experience. Finally, the call to action should be crystal clear. Take the consumer by the hand and guide them seamlessly to the next step in their journey. 

How can retailers and media companies leverage A/B testing to optimize post-transaction ad placements and messaging?

Retailers and media companies can use A/B testing to fine-tune their post-transaction ad strategies in a few ways. First, they can experiment with different creatives and messaging elements like headlines, body copy, and images to see what resonates best with their audience. 

Second, they can test various ad placements, like an overlay or embedded experience, to determine which one drives the highest engagement. A/B testing ultimately allows retailers and media companies to optimize their approach based on what works best for their audience. 

When it comes to testing, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Take, for example, the varying results we’ve seen across different partners. What works well for Partner A might fall flat for Partner B. To find the sweet spot for maximum performance, it’s important to tailor your approach to your specific site.

Do you have any examples of A/B tests that yielded particularly surprising or unexpected results?

The team recently ran some tests to compare how the adflow modal would perform with and without a progression bar. The results turned out to be a bit of a head-scratcher. While the bar ramped up the progression from one offer to the next, it also had unintended consequences, causing a drop in our effective conversion rate – our “North Star” metric.

The team used this small setback as a learning experience and an opportunity for growth. We revisited our product roadmap, brainstorming ways to let users go back and check out offers they skipped to help nudge those conversion rates back up. While the test didn’t go exactly as planned, it gave the team a chance to iterate on a new path forward.

What kinds of offers convert the best in a post-transaction ad environment?

From free trials to percentage-off discounts, offers that hit the mark are those with immediate value and a strong connection to the customer’s needs. Personalization is key here too, making sure the offer speaks directly to the customer. It’s all about delivering something they can’t resist directly after a transaction.

What are some pitfalls retailers and media companies should strive to avoid as it relates to preserving the customer experience?

Misuse of data can lead to a breach of consumers’ trust. Retailers should prioritize data privacy, leveraging opted-in, first-party data to create ad experiences that feel relevant and authentic to the consumer – not “spammy” or intrusive. Additionally, tapping into real-time customer feedback can help to inform UX optimizations. Active feedback loops keep retailers agile and responsive to customers’ unique needs and concerns.

What would you say to a retailer or media company that is hesitant to launch a post-transaction ad offering?

“Requiring very little set-up or technical integration, post-transaction ads offer a huge value add to not only retail and media companies but also to the consumer. Going beyond just reach and profitability, they allow retailers to tailor valuable offers to each customer, increasing satisfaction and loyalty.”

How can retailers identify and address potential pain points or negative perceptions associated with post-transaction ads?

Here are a few ways retailers can identify and address potential weaknesses in the post-transaction ad experience:

• Conduct user testing to observe firsthand how customers interact with the post-transaction ad experience.
• Analyze data, such as conversion rates and engagement metrics, to determine what optimizations are needed to improve the customer experience.
• Monitor social media through social listening to gather real-time feedback on customer sentiment and experiences.
• Tap into customer support channels to gather recurring complaints or issues, offering valuable insights into common pain points.

What emerging technologies are likely to influence the future of post-transaction advertising over the next five years?

AI and machine learning will continue to play a big role in post-transaction advertising, helping to make ads hyper-relevant and personalized based on user behavior. Plus, I predict there will be some neat design features to spice things up and get consumers more excited and engaged.

Ready to elevate the customer journey with post-transaction ads? Get in touch with us here .

Check out more resources to get fluent in:

Commerce Media | Post-Transaction Advertising | Contextual Data