For a product or service to gain traction, it has to address specific customer pain points. An acute pain makes it easier for sales and marketing professionals to offer a compelling solution. Consumers and B2B buyers appreciate things around them through the prism of their own experiences. Yet, in many cases they cannot conceive solutions to challenges that cause some degree of pain.
It is the responsibility of businesses to identify the pain and provide a viable solution.
To understand problems faced by prospects that you have identified as part of your target audience, you need to look for issues that they find urgent, disturbing, uncomfortable or frustrating. An in-depth understanding of these problems allows you to develop solutions that take away the pain. As a result, you will be able to predict products and services that customers need before they even exist.
The following questions provide a practical way to evaluate whether your organization is addressing real customer pain:
- Can you convince customers to buy a product or service using an elevator pitch?
- What pain does your brand solve?
- Can you provide valid reasons why the target market should care?
- Is there a substantive market that benefits from your company’s solution?
- Who benefits the most in removing the pain?
In many instances, the ideal solution has less to do with product features and more with the intangibles, such as, image and feelings. Mentioning key pain points in marketing messages and one-on-one meetings with customers enables them to better relate to your services and products. In turn, you will find it easier to build instant rapport, which can translate to higher trust factor and conversion rates.
The winner is not always determined by the deepest pocket, brand name or superior product. Oftentimes, the winner makes an effort to gain critical insights into prospects’ pain points and does the most effective job of addressing them.
Some customer pain points are more obvious while others require thorough digging. For instance, a tour operator that provides vacations to people interested in experiencing paranormal activities like sleeping in a haunted hotel or property in London or Berlin. Weird, but it is a real need and tour operators and hotels or property owners are getting bookings all-year round.
Automotive dealers may identify a few high net worth (HNW) customers that require a super car. A customer may actually seek a pricey vehicle that drives faster than the speed limit permits and carries only two people. Businesses that provide a superb solution for this need take the lion’s share.
How to Uncover Customer’s Pain Points
The process of identifying customer pain points is multi-dimensional.
Businesses should conduct consultative sessions with support and sales teams. This is aimed at identifying common service or product requests from customers. Meanwhile, consumer surveys and one-on-one structured or informal interviews with customers provide a viable way to gain key insights.
Many businesses conduct market research using customer focus groups. This approach involves group discussions between customers. An independent facilitator moderates the discussions. On the other hand, you can evaluate competitor offerings to identify trends.
Customer Pain Points Questions to Ask
When asking questions, you should obtain detailed feedback about the trigger that led customers to your solution. This knowledge helps your business articulate the practical value of a product or service through effective lead nurturing campaigns and consultative selling.
To get insightful responses, it is necessary to ask open ended questions. The longer you interact with the customer, the more information they will share. Tapping into the deeper level of the pain is always best.
When it comes to B2B selling, minimally, you should establish who they are, what solutions they offer and what they do.
Although business clients often share many similar challenges and pain points, the underlying cause may differ. Make an effort to address the underlying issue. For instance, a financial consultancy firm can offer clients solutions that address the need for positive cash flow. This applies to customers that indicate this particular need.
Yet, some financial challenges are due to the mindset, current situation, personality or beliefs. Once you identify the exact source of the pain and address it, the customer or prospect will become curious and listens. This provides you an ample opportunity to nurture the relationship.
Click here to review several more examples of effective B2B questions to ask.
Leveraging Customer Pain Points to Close the Deal
Asking clients what motivates them is a sure-fire way to gain a broader understanding of their needs. You can proceed to find out why they are in business. If the client’s story correlates with your own situation, let them know. This informs the client that you understand their experiences. Where appropriate, you can give practical examples of how you handle similar challenges.
Make an effort to establish the customer’s value in having the pain eliminated. Providing good solutions helps in bringing you closer to closing the deal. In addition, you will build a stronger, more fruitful relationship.
Experts recommended starting with the most frustrating and disruptive pain points. Doing so captures the customer’s attention, which makes the interaction more meaningful and immersive.
Here is a quick, easy-to-implement list of ideas of how use pain points to help close the sale.
Common Customer Pain Points
The majority of B2B customers have had a previous experience with one or more vendors. The transactions may create a pain point due to bad service. This creates opportunities for your business. To displace competitors, you need to establish their weak points that cause client pain.
Inadequate support services, poor workmanship and low quality products are good examples of issues that compromise customer satisfaction. When interacting with prospects, you can ask about service standards with their current vendor. You may discover substantial issues that cause pain. This creates an opportunity to make a move and win the account by offering a superior service or product.
Offering prospects a more efficient service supported by the latest technology attracts many B2B customers. Glitchy operations that cause delivery delays or errors in paperwork can make clients seek a more professional service provider. If your competitors are still using manual techniques like spreadsheets to record critical business data, then you can offer a more streamlined approach.
In some cases, buyers get frustrated because the vendor is not paying sufficient attention to their needs. This maybe the result of managing too many client accounts or taking small orders for granted. On the other hand, many clients have to work multiple vendors to solve a specific need. For this reason, they will be glad to meet a vendor capable of providing multiple solutions in one place.
This simplifies the entire process to create a unified solution that meets or exceeds expectations. In the end, B2B selling does not just revolve around data or pricing, it is also about feelings, perceptions, beliefs and more. The customers expect your business to help solve an ongoing operational situation that is causing a considerable amount business pain.