How to Uncover the Business Pain Points of Your Customer?

If you don’t fully understand your potential clients or customers, you won’t know them. To take it one step further, understanding their current problems is not enough to understand how they deal with them. They are trying to do this all on their own and making quick decisions. How can you position your company to be the best solution? Find out their pain points.

It is a difficult task. This article will help you understand the different business problems that prospects might be experiencing. After you have a better understanding of these, you can then dive into our eight essential questions that you should ask your customers to get to the bottom of their problems.

 

What is a business problem?

A business pain point refers to a problem or challenge causing “damage” in a company. It requires a solution. An actual business problem is not a solution-oriented dilemma. It’s a budgeted, hair-pulling, have-to-get-it-solved challenge that’s been debated from the top down.

These are problems that need to be addressed if the company wants to grow and operate efficiently. Unfortunately, they also hurt the bottom line. It is easy to miss or misdiagnose pain points. Sometimes, businesses may not be aware they have a problem. That’s where we come in.

 

It is crucial to identify pain points

Salespeople and businesses that succeed can find pain in the opportunities they have. As a result, you become more than a product or service provider. Knowing your customers’ pain points can have an impact on both sales and marketing strategies.

It can influence your positioning, mission, and value proposition at the highest level. Knowing the problems of your prospects can help you adapt your presentation and offer the best solution.

This information can even change your advertising messaging and targeting. You can adapt your copy, promotions, or design to address their specific needs by understanding their problems.

It is crucial to identify and disclose these problems.

 

Different types of customer pain points

However, it is not as easy as it appears to identify consumer pain points. There is not a single solution that will work for all prospects. In addition, some consumers don’t know the root cause of their problems.

You need to understand your client’s pain points before you can help them identify them. So let’s look at some of the different pain points to see where they are coming from.

 

Productivity pain point

Customers want to be more efficient with their time. Their new solution Spending too much.

 

Financial pain point

Customers are less likely to spend money on their new solution and to overpay.

 

Point of pain

Customers continue to create organizational procedures and have issues with the structures and processes that they have.

 

Support pain point

Customers aren’t getting the help they need, especially at critical points in the customer experience or the sales process.

 

Eight questions to help you identify the pain points of your customers

Let’s now get an idea of the pain points, and then let’s look at a way to identify them. These eight questions will help you uncover your customer’s business pains while also allowing for a great conversation.

These are just starting points. It’s essential to adjust and modify your questions over time to suit your business and your customers. Let’s get started.

 

1. What is the biggest obstacle they face when trying to grow their business?

This type of question is an excellent way to get to the root of a problem quickly. It is because the main obstacle to any company’s expansion is often a significant problem.

It is something that many customers don’t give much thought to, but it can help you build your reputation. Talking to prospects about their current market situation will allow you to learn more about them while also informally showcasing your skills. In addition, you’re helping candidates to describe their current business status and their future goals.

The most common causes of market pain in this instance are clients, employees, inventory, venture capital, and sales. These can all be significant barriers to growth. These follow-up questions will help you get to the core of the conversation after establishing a baseline market position.

• What are your thoughts on X?
• How do you plan to resolve this problem?
• Do you think it will be easy or hard?
• It is the question: Who in the company is trying to solve it?

These questions can help you to break the ice. These questions will help you learn more about the pain of your customer and identify possible solutions.

 

2. Is your support staff faster than your competitors’?

Waiting for assistance is a common complaint. If real-time help is not available, customers may feel frustrated and have a terrible experience.

Negative reviews can be spread digitally and through word of mouth by unhappy customers. It can cause lost sales and a damaged reputation that could lead to further problems down the service chain. It is a crucial element to business success. You may have to show your customers how it is affecting their lives.

Customers’ expectations should be met by responding to all customer issues and solving them quickly. According to 82% of customers, the number one reason for excellent customer service is their ability to solve their problems quickly.

You may consider offering live chat support to customers to increase their loyalty. For example, you may use systems such as co-browsing and video chat to answer customer questions.

You want to make your case visible to the system. Then, you can either offer a variation of the solutions or other options to help them move up the chain.

 

3. What are their superior’s major concerns?

You don’t need to deal with the superior. You may speak with any person a few levels lower. However, it is in your best interests to get them involved as soon as possible. Three factors are responsible for this.

 

They make the B2B purchasing budget decisions

Their pain is not as great as one contributor. But they are the ones who must make the purchase.

 

Sometimes, the frustrations of a boss trickle down

Although a manager and a contributing party may have different views on the issue, a manager’s win would benefit her directly. Unfortunately, the majority of customers would have poor managers. It is why it is essential to keep them away from your backs.

 

 

It indicates a lack of expertise

The contact cannot close a contract if they do not know or may not be aware of their superior’s business pain.

It’s up to the top to find the company’s major problem. The best way to identify the problem is to talk with your superiors.

 

4. What is their most busy day like?

Focusing on the daily is another way to approach a client’s business pain.

According to salespeople, buyers value functionality more than worth it. So this question shows how tangible your product can be to your customers at an individual level.

Ask about the impact of solving a market problem for the prospect’s team. Can they spare at most two hours each day? How can they reduce the time spent in meetings? Find out what your candidate wants, and then dive into the core to see how you can help.

 

5. What problems are discussed repeatedly in meetings?

Repeated issues can be a blind spot for businesses. Businesses can fall victim to repeated problems like unsatisfied clients, declining sales, and the inability to keep cash flowing. As a result, they put them off for later. These problems are real, but they might feel too big and overwhelming to be solved.

You can dig deeper into these issues by asking, “What is a consistent issue?” Then, ask further questions to explore the frequency, duration, and changes made to the problem.

They can be more effective at analyzing the problem from a different perspective without feeling pressure to find a solution. Of course, you won’t likely help them solve all their problems, but you can ease specific pain points.

 

6. Are there any complaints from you or your employees?

Although it may sound trivial, the answers are critical.

A concern over not enough coffee can quickly turn into more severe problems, such as “Since our budgets have been cut this year, I am not investing in coffee.” As a result, we will now devote all of the budgets we have to advertise.

It seems that “lacking coffee” isn’t a significant problem. It’s not something we should care about. It is not directly linked to our revenues.

Do you know that a lack of exercise in the office can lead to serious productivity problems and a decline in revenue?

It’s essential to keep productivity consistent, just like how a weekend refreshes employees. But, unfortunately, while spending every dollar available may result in new orders, internal productivity will decline, and it will cause more harm than good.

 

7. What are the issues you face when closing a deal

 

It is an essential division of an organization. For example, the sales department may ask this question to reveal operational, positioning, or productivity problems.

These are some of the possible problems you might be facing. It wasn’t possible to build strong relationships

It is a critical part of marketing that reps sometimes ignore. Sometimes, a good relationship will overlook your faults. But, it can be helpful in times of crisis.

 

Budget constraints

You may have to disclose important information to your buyers. But, unfortunately, this could lead you to severe problems that you will not be able to fix. Simply put, be clear from the beginning about your financial concerns.

 

Failure to match the product with the buyer’s requirements

If the buyer has a problem, did you link your product/service directly to it?

Reps may also refuse to help because they lack the necessary application expertise. It is difficult to see how the product/service will solve buyers’ problems. Keep in mind the product or service you are selling.

If you can position your product/service in a way that assists sales and marketing departments gain more clients, you will be able to win over these bottom-line-focused policymakers.

 

8. Are you having trouble retaining or acquiring customers?

Customer loss can be excruciating. But, you might have a solution. What is the pricing structure? Is it their value proposition or messaging? Perhaps it is related to the customer service issue that we discussed earlier?

Another question that can give you lots of information about their company’s operations is this one. How do they deal with losing or gaining customers? What are the obstacles to their growth?

This information will help you to start a specific conversation about how you can help.

 

Position your pitch

Until you have identified the problem, it is impossible to decide how to relieve suffering for your customer. It is an excellent technique for business owners to use to be a problem-solver rather than a product-seller. It will help you grow your direct sales and help you define your competitive advantage in a particular market.

These questions can be used internally, in research, and when speaking with customers. It will help you identify their needs and position your business accordingly.

Disclaimer. The opinions and views expressed in this article are the authors Andrew Napolitano.