Find out and solve pain points with personas

What are Pain Points?

Customers purchase products or services for two reasons:

• Because they want something, because it increases their well-being, out of desire. This includes, for example, decorative items, games, luxury foods, massages, travel, etc. But also "better" versions of things that already satisfy a need: the fancier car, the trendier shoes, the more comfortable sofa....
• Because they need something to solve a problem, satisfy a need, maintain a desired status quo, or avert a (feared) negative experience: Car maintenance, vitamin pills, anti-virus software, a washing machine...
  B2B purchases also fall under this category: simpler accounting software, more efficient production machinery, a more practical logistics system...

Products and services in the second category protect customers from pain points. Or, if the pain point has already been reached, the product or service eliminates the pain point. Two more examples:

B2C: There are so many stuffed animals lying around in the children's room that you can't kick them because they have no fixed place. The closet is full of clothes, there is no space for a shelf and the child still has to find room to sleep in the bed. The parents' pain point is reached when they painfully trip over toys. They buy a stuffed animal net that can be hung from the ceiling. The floor is free, the room tidy, the Pain Point eliminated.

B2B: A company finds that although a large number of potential customers are interested in the products in its online store and even fill the virtual shopping cart, they then abandon the customer journey shortly before paying. As a result, the company misses out on a great deal of revenue. Internal research shows that the payment process in the online store takes too long and is too complicated. This is a pain point for customers, which thus becomes a pain point for the company.
The company invests in a user-friendly payment software. Customers have a better UX and no longer abandon their customer journey, and sales increase.

A pain point therefore reveals a potential market.
If you find out your customers' pain point, you can offer your potential customers a targeted solution to their problem.
If customers have a problem but have not yet reached the pain point, they will not take action and will not yet invest in the product that could solve their problem.

Personas and Pain Points

This is where personas come in handy: Personas not only give the target group a face and a name, but they also offer a deep insight into their lives, their working environment, and their pain points. B2C personas depict private life and the fears, problems and pain points that occur in it. B2B personas show exactly which pain points exist in the persona's company and position, whether he or she is a decision maker, manages the budget or has veto power, whether the persona is more skeptical or open-minded about new things and how he or she would like to be addressed.

If you know the pain points of your (potential) customers thanks to personas, you can not only solve their problem when the customers have reached the pain point, but you can lead them there, you can trigger the pain point with a targeted approach. Personas help to make customers aware of their pain points in such a targeted way that they reach them more quickly and then look for a solution to their problem.

How to find out Pain Points

A company that wants to find out the pain points of its customers can do this with customer surveys, internal research or large-scale market studies. In the B2B sector, direct inquiries are also possible. With this option, however, it is possible that the interlocutor may not respond as openly as desired, so as not to jeopardize good existing business relationships.
Precisely finding out the customer's pain points is time-consuming and personnel-intensive and requires a lot of coordination between different departments. To a large extent, it coincides with the effort it takes to create a data-driven persona to create a

The persona combines the advantages of a pain point analysis with a tangible person who is always present to all employees and on whom they can focus their work. It makes the team's work more effective because cross-departmental communication becomes more efficient: Everyone knows the persona and their pain points, fears and needs. As a result, product development, marketing, customer care and management all pull together efficiently. The company creates a targeted solution (product or service) for its customers' pain points, generating revenue, loyal customers and long-term success.