Remove Our Pain and We’ll Reward You For it (source)
It often puzzles me why companies and businesses don’t focus on the obvious pain points of their customers. Why do they not listen to the repeated complaints and criticisms that have emerged both online and offline by their regular customers?
Examples of commonly felt “pain” points include the following:
:
1) Being put on hold for 30 minutes or longer when calling telcos for much needed help.
2) Being asked to fill up lengthy forms repeatedly even though one has done it before for a different service.
3) Being made to wait… and wait… and wait… before a waiter or waitress (makes you wonder about the name of the profession) notices that you’re dying from thirst/hunger/frustration.
4) Being made to dig through layers upon layers of a website before finally reaching the information that you’re hoping to access.
5) Being made to stand or to miss a public bus day after day because it is too crowded during peak periods.
6) Most importantly, being made to feel like a stranger even though you’ve been patronising that company or business for months or years. Hello, I see you more often than my own parents these days!
Delighting one’s customers is one thing. Sweep us off our feet with the sheer brilliance of your service and we’ll remember you.
However, eradicating our most immediate, most acute, and most commonly felt pain points – BEFORE they occur – are probably worth a lot more than all the great after sales service that you can provide.
Don’t forget that once we’re bitten, we tend to be twice as shy.
It really does seem like there is a lock of empathy in the business world. I don’t think that we could risk losing clients by treating them poorly all the time, but maybe some places can?