How to Spot Customer Pain Points Using Journey Thinking

Understanding customer pain points, or hotspots, is crucial for any business that wants to improve its customer experience (CX). Yet, many teams tend to react to problems without truly digging into the root causes. Did you know that 59% of potential clients will stop doing business with a company after several bad experiences? This highlights the importance of identifying and solving the pain points early.

That’s where journey thinking comes in. It’s a strategy that helps you look at your business from your customer's perspective. By mapping out the customer journey, reviewing internal processes, and running a gap analysis, you can pinpoint where things go wrong. In this post, we’ll walk you through how journey thinking works and how it can help you solve issues, improve the customer experience, and get better results.

Mapping the Customer Journey From the User’s View

When tackling customer pain points, mapping the customer journey from the user's perspective is the first step. This allows you to uncover where users might be experiencing frustrations or inefficiencies in their interactions with your business.

Here’s how to map the customer journey effectively:

Step 1: List All Touchpoints 

Identify where and how users interact with your brand (website, customer service, social media, etc.). Each touchpoint offers valuable insights into how visitors perceive your brand. Be sure to consider both online and offline interactions to get a full picture.

Step 2: Track Customer Emotions 

Understand how they feel at each touchpoint, which can highlight areas of frustration. Mapping the customer journey through their emotions helps you pinpoint moments of delight or frustration, allowing you to target areas for improvement. Use surveys or feedback to gauge these emotions accurately.

Step 3: Spot Roadblocks 

Look for points where they drop off or face difficulties, such as slow page load times or complex navigation. These roadblocks could be in the form of confusing forms or delays in communication. Identifying these obstacles helps improve the experience at key decision-making points.

Mapping the customer journey from their perspective gives you a clear view of where things are going wrong, which might not always be obvious from within the organization.

Using Process Review to Spot Breakdowns Behind the Scenes

Once you’ve finished mapping a customer journey, the next step is to review the internal process breakdowns that support interactions. A process review helps identify hidden breakdowns. These internal process hotspots are often overlooked but can have a significant impact on client satisfaction.

The following are key areas to focus on in a process review:

• Workflow Efficiency: Review the flow of tasks within your team. Are there any bottlenecks causing delays in technical support or order processing? Efficient workflows ensure faster delivery and a smoother experience while helping address issues more effectively.

• Team communication: Poor communication between teams can lead to delays or mistakes in customer service. Ensure that all teams (sales, support, etc.) have clear and open communication channels to effectively identify customer pain points and solve them quickly.

• System updates: Outdated systems can slow down service and lead to errors. Make sure your tools are up to date and able to efficiently address customer pain points.

  
  

Addressing these internal issues will improve their overall experience, helping to reduce frustrations and enhance satisfaction.

Running a Gap Analysis in the Customer Journey to Reveal Missed Moments

Running a gap analysis in the customer journey is a great way to find where things can be improved. These gaps are the moments where user expectations aren’t met, often leading to frustration or dissatisfaction. Fixing these gaps can help improve productivity and make your sales team more effective.

Here’s how you can conduct a gap analysis in the customer journey:

1. Compare Expectations vs. Reality 

Look for areas where expectations aren’t met. This is usually where frustration happens and hotspots pop up. Sometimes, these financial hotspots come from unexpected costs or pricing issues.

2. Review Feedback 

Check out surveys, reviews, and direct client feedback to see what keeps coming up. Knowing the types of hotspots that your users face lets you create solutions that hit the mark. Reviewing this feedback often can boost satisfaction and help your sales team keep potential clients happy.

3. Evaluate the Journey 

Go through each step of the journey to see where the users run into trouble. Whether it’s poor website navigation, slow technical support, or order delays, identifying these support hotspots makes it easier to fix the issues and deliver better customer service.

4. Assess Internal Communication 

Look at how your support team works with other departments. Poor communication between teams can slow things down, causing frustration for everyone. By improving communication, you can solve problems faster and prevent gaps from forming in the future.

5. Analyze Customer Touchpoints Across Channels 

Review interactions across all channels (website, phone, chat, etc.). Identifying which channels lead to the most common customer pain helps you prioritize improvements where the users are facing the most friction. Optimizing these channels can result in a seamless experience for your potential clients.

A thorough gap analysis in the customer journey enables you to identify pain points early and develop solutions to fix them before they escalate. This proactive approach will improve the experience and build trust, ultimately leading to greater brand loyalty.

Translating Customer Pain Points Into Fixable Experience Gaps 

Once you’ve identified key hotspots and gaps in the journey, it’s time to turn them into actionable improvements. These recurring issues often reveal deeper experience gaps.  By addressing these gaps, you’ll improve overall satisfaction.

Here’s how you can turn these patterns into actionable fixes:

Solution #1: Look for Recurring Themes in Surveys and Reviews 

Hotspots like long wait times or confusing navigation often point to underlying experience gaps. Recognizing these patterns allows you to fix the root causes, helping improve the mapping customer journey.

Solution #2: Not All Pain Points Have The Same Urgency

Some, like long wait times, have a bigger impact on the experience. Focus on the most significant hotspots first to make the biggest improvement. Running a gap analysis in the journey can help prioritize which issues to tackle first.

Solution #3: Product Pain Points Reveal Recurring Usability Issues

Recurring problems, such as confusing features, help you identify experience gaps. Solving these can greatly enhance user satisfaction. A process review can also identify internal workflow issues contributing to these problems.

Solution #4: Use Insights to Guide Improvements

Leverage insights and analytics to identify recurring issues. Addressing these issues proactively can significantly improve the user’s experience. Gap analysis in a customer journey ensures you focus on the areas that cause the most friction.

Solution #5: Turn Challenges into Opportunities

Hotspots can range from navigation issues to poor support. Focusing on these recurring issues turns challenges into growth opportunities, improving the experience and addressing weaknesses. A process review ensures ongoing improvements.

Start Fixing Pain Points Today

We understand the challenges you face in identifying and solving customer pain points. Many companies struggle to spot the root causes of long wait times, frustrating support, or other experience gaps. Left unchecked, these issues can harm your business’s performance and brand reputation.

At Proprietary Insights, we specialize in helping businesses like yours identify and understand the customer’s needs. Through journey mapping, gap analysis, and process reviews, we guide you in pinpointing and addressing these key issues. Our solutions help create a smoother, more efficient experience that boosts satisfaction and loyalty. If you’re ready, book a call with us today and start making real, lasting changes!