What do you do if your logical reasoning fails to identify and address customer pain points?

'Walking in your customers shoes' is a term most people have probably heard at some point in their career. Whether b2b or b2c, until you truly try to understand your customers, their emotions, their needs and wants including the job they are trying to do through buying your product/service, you are unlikely to get close to understanding customer pain points. Empathy is critical in this process. Truly listen to your customers, seek to understand their perspectives and put yourself in their position.

When logic fails, magic works. Sometimes, just using logic isn't enough to solve customer problems. Feel: It's important to understand how they feel. By doing this, you might notice things that logic alone wouldn't catch. Listen: Listen carefully to what customers say, even if they don't say it directly. Care: By showing you understand and care, you can make your relationship stronger and build trust.

If logical reasoning doesn't address customer pain points, gather qualitative data through interviews or surveys to understand their experiences. Foster open dialogue, utilize empathy, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to develop tailored solutions. Continuously refine strategies based on feedback to deliver effective solutions that resonate with customers.

Feedback is gold-dust. It is a businesses opportunity to learn and improve. It's important the different types of feedback are gathered, from different channels including social media. Use this data to identify trends and continually enhance/add to the data. One key element I have found useful is having your senior leaders talk directly to customers themselves. I worked with a large grocery client (one of the top four) whose CEO regularly visited his local store and proactively spoke with customers about their challenges, pain points and general feedback. When engaging stakeholders in the need for change, use videos of customers or have your leaders speak to customer panels first hand. This will help reinforce your case for change.

Embracing empathy helps connect with clients emotionally and physically to identify needs. Monitoring client behavior and attitude is a great step to identify pain points. Insights received at all touch points can also be benefecial to clients when true empathy is practiced by approaching these insights using the "customers' lense" to better understand what gives them value.

How about another perspective? Perhaps it's time to reconsider how much weight we're giving to our existing data. Sometimes, we get too caught up in numbers and forget about the real people behind them. Instead of diving deeper into data, let's focus on engaging directly with our customers. By talking to them, listening to their stories, and understanding their needs firsthand, we can gain insights that no amount of data analysis could provide. After all, numbers can only tell us so much, but genuine human connection can uncover a world of understanding and empathy.

Encourage your team to embrace experimentation as a regular part of addressing customer needs. A culture that values testing and learning can adapt more swiftly to changing customer expectations

Collaboration is essential. In previous businesses, there has been a lot of focus on breaking down silos to create cross functional teams. These teams are then able to ensure every part of the business is considered in customer experience design or improving the CX across certain journey steps. It also enables back office teams to get closer to the customer and really understand the impact their role has on CX, something which is often not understood.

While technology can be helpful, let's not forget the human touch. Sometimes, relying too much on fancy tools can make us miss the personal side of things. Instead of solely depending on technology, let's focus on real conversations with customers. By listening to them directly, we can understand their pain points better than any software can. After all, it's the genuine connections we build that truly make a difference. I strongly believe that it needs to be HUMAN transformation, instead of DIGITAL transformation.