The best way to create and develop a product or service that consumers will buy and love is by addressing the customer pain points. Identifying these pain points will also help you future-proof your business.

Pain points refer to the problems that you customers typically face—things that inconvenience them, outdated processes, and inefficient procedures that take too much time, effort, and resources.

But how should entrepreneurs know what customers will buy before actual products or services exist? 

The answer to that question begs another more important question that could shed light on the former inquiry in the realms of Customer Experience: What motivates a person to buy anything?

People typically buy on two things on the most basic level—they spend money to ease pain and to seek pleasure. Pain and pleasure are listed accordingly for a reason. 

The more prevalent or intense is the pain, the more likely that you can offer a compelling solution to solve it. The more compelling the solution, the more quickly your customer will avail of your product or service.  The key is to provide a product or service your customers can’t live without.

In a business perspective, this means that you should strive to be in a “pain business,” addressing consumer pain points than in a “pleasure business” which can come as just an optional product or service for them. 

This is why most people refer to customer pain synonymous to customer needs and customer problems because pain is an experience. Your customers are people. They experience what bothers them first-hand, and your role is to offer them the solution through your products and services. 

What are their unmet needs and wants? What do they always complain about while nobody is listening? How did they work around it on their own?

Find the pain. Address it. Think of the things that hassle people. Find something disturbing, uncomfortable, and frustrating. And when your business offers the irresistible product or services customers always choose, then, you’re already geared to future-proof your business.

Knowing When Customer Pain Happens

As much as addressing the customer pain points is important, you should also focus on when your customers feel these inconveniences. Figuring out the time when people urgently feel them makes it easier to sell your solutions to them. 

For instance, you would always call an electrician or the police in an emergency because you know they are the people who could help you in getting your circuits in order or securing your home from robbers. It’s easier to sell something urgently needed.

It’s your job to solve their problems

So have identified their pain points. What now? It’s not enough to simply know, you should also know how to solve them. 

It’s the role of the entrepreneur is to show how to solve them. Most of the time, customers don’t even know exactly what they need. They are better at identifying what pains them the most. 

Ensure you’re asking the right questions and be open-minded. Continuously ask “Why?” over and over again until you understand the reasons yourself. Knowing your customers’ pain helps you to be a sustainable business because you know that your product or service is something they need.