Pain point analysis is essential within eCommerce. It provides a method for assessing the severity of pain points across your website, allowing retailers to prioritise areas for improvement, and understand where their time, resources and budget will have the most impact. Companies investing in their customer journey must be clear about what value particular activities will generate. 

Common sense suggests to prioritise the issue which impacts the highest amount of people, however, this isn’t always the best approach. Perhaps 100 people are affected by an issue, however, this issue is minor, and will not cause any of those individuals to abandon your website. 

Meanwhile, 2 people may be experiencing a very severe issue. So severe that they abandon your website and never return.

Which is more important for your eCommerce team to prioritise?

Define your users, and customer journeys on your online store

Anybody can identify pain points throughout an online store, however selecting pain points to measure at random, rather than addressing customer journeys one by one, won’t enable any journeys to be fully optimised from start to finish. Instead, retailers should focus on identifying end-to-end customer journeys and optimising the weaker touchpoints. This way, we can focus on streamlining overall customer journeys and ensuring consistency throughout rather than individual pain points.

To do this, retailers should categorise their users and map out key journeys within these categories, defining important interactions within each journey.

Decide which key metrics you want to measure

Typically, measuring a pain point considers not just the number of individuals affected by it, but the severity of the pain point. There are a number of data sets an online retailer might harvest in order to measure the severity of a pain point, most notably, impact, reach and task completion time. These metrics are gathered automatically and can be harvested by eCommerce teams via analytical tools.

However, there are other valuable metrics we can leverage. A more holistic approach utilising a mixture of data sets provides a more comprehensive picture of which aspects of your website require your attention. These data sets require users to provide feedback on the experience and provide insights into a user’s perceived experience rather than the organisation’s assumptions based on user behaviours. These include customer satisfaction, customer effort and net promoter score (NPS).

A combination of the two data types provides a more comprehensive and accurate picture of a user’s experience with a particular touchpoint. 

Design a scoring system to assess pain-point severity

The easiest way to define the severity of a pain point is by rating each metric in a pre-defined and consistent manner. Internally, this will require your team to determine scales for each metric and agree upon fixed criteria that will categorise pain points into particular levels of severity upon the scale.

For example, a typical scale may look something like this:

• Critical: If we do not fix this, users will not be able to complete the scenario.

• Serious: Many users will be frustrated if we do not fix this; they may give up.

• High: There are a few barriers to a user achieving their goal.

• Moderate: Impacts core journey and users experience reduced performance.

• Minor: Users are annoyed, but this does not keep them from completing the scenario. This should be revisited later.

Measure

Let’s compile a list of the data sets we decided to gather earlier and rank each of these metrics on our aforementioned scale, where a score of 1 is a critical issue and a score of 5 is a minor issue:

1. Impact: score of 4 (moderate)
2. Reach: score of 1 (impacted upwards of 80% of users)
3. Task completion time: score of 5 (10 seconds – the quickest 20% of users)
4. Customer satisfaction: score of 4 (user was satisfied)
5. Customer effort: scored 5 (minimum effort)
6. NPS: scored 4 (likely to recommend)

Medium has generated a formula for calculating the overall pain point severity based on these metrics, however, retailers can create a formula that suits them – the important thing is that is consistent:

(Impact x Reach x Task completion time) +(Customer satisfaction x Customer effort x NPS)
Divided by total possible score (250)
Multiplied by 100 to find the percentage

(4 x 1 x 5) + (4 x 5 x 5) = 120

(120 / 250 = 0.48) x 100 = 48

So, our pain point score is 48!

What does this mean?

It is important that your team defines their own benchmarks internally to determine pain point thresholds. Typically, this becomes clear over time, as you become more familiar with which scores require immediate action. However, the higher the score, the better that touchpoint is performing.

As an example, you may decide that any score under 10 needs to be actioned immediately and is earmarked as a high priority. On the other hand, scores over 80 indicate that individuals have a higher tolerance – these will become a lower priority on the corporate agenda. Of course, threshold tolerance depends will vary from business to business.

Ultimately, this approach ensures quick wins that will have the largest impact. Many companies begin customer-experience efforts with plans to reinvent the wheel, however, one of the single most important things a company can do to achieve a gold-standard CX is link activities to the value they will add. Simply prioritising CX initiatives based on their severity is an important first step in the roadmap to eCommerce excellence.

Rachel King

Rachel is a Content Marketing Specialist, creating insightful materials on all things eCommerce, tech and Findologic that drive growth and awareness. Rachel has a wide understanding of the tech space, before joining Findologic, she produced content for global FinTech publications as well as working closely with industry leaders for a range of marketing initiatives.

Retail is in constant flux – storefronts are shuttered, then reopened and predicting or planning for any long-term goals seems futile. While there will undoubtedly be a shift towards online shopping post-pandemic for example, the return of brick and mortar will bring a downshift to the unprecedented growth we have seen in previous months.

In just three months, the eCommerce industry achieved 10 years of growth. It is important to recognise that while online stores might see exponential growth, it doesn’t come without its challenges and nothing lasts forever. As the market has grown, so too has competition, shopping behaviours have evolved and expectations have risen.

What we do know, is that this environment of uncertainty has presented a requirement to both make the most of the current eCommerce boom, but also ensure resilience within your online store post-pandemic, arming your business against volatility and preparing for the new normal. Simply riding the (very lucrative) wave with a short-term orientation isn’t sufficient. When Covid reared its ugly head, it became clear that the crisis will permanently change the way we live our everyday lives, including the way we shop.

Favoured online shops will be those who re-engineer eCommerce strategies towards tech and behavioural focussed operations, investing in their digital offerings rather than seeing it as an unnecessary expense due to 2019’s eCommerce boom.

Considered journeys

Competition and therefore expectations are rising, demographics are changing and demands are evolving. Behaviours have changed and relying on pre-covid customer experiences and touchpoints will impede performance. A number of trends have been identified over the past few months and that should force online retailers to rethink how they serve their customers.

For example, one of the biggest upticks has been from those aged 65+ – 43% of those in this age group have shopped more online since the start of the crisis. Pre-covid, this age group was the least likely to purchase online due to fears over viruses but have been forced to make the transition. The millions who have made the transition are relatively unsophisticated with online retail and require more supportive and seamless paths to purchase.

Increased competition in the eCommerce space over since the outbreak of Covid-19 has forced retailers to up their game, as well as bridge the gap between in-person and digital experiences. Taking into consideration the aforementioned points, customers will be more open to new ways of searching, exploring and purchasing products.

Creating a customer journey that somewhat mimics an in-store experience while taking into consideration new-found demands requires retailers to consider every touchpoint.

One of the main priorities should be a robust search function. Search is at the epicentre of product discovery and responsible for guiding a user throughout their journey and creating opportunities for upselling and cross-selling. Simply put, if a customer can’t find the product they are looking for, or fail to be met with relevant results they will abandon their search. There are a plethora of on-site amendments that can be made in order to create a powerful search tool, including product recommendations, UX and adaptations to filters. ‘Guidelines to an unrivalled on-site search experience’ details step by step actions retailers can follow to satisfy changing behaviours.

While A.I. is not yet ubiquitous in the industry, it is a game-changer in bridging the gap between online and in-store. Those that are leveraging the technology hold a distinct advantage with the ability to analyse user data to create more seamless experiences, as well as enhance internal operations. There are many use cases for A.I. across the industry, including a more intelligent search, personalised shopping and inventory management. 

Tech-centric businesses models

To survive these unprecedented times, tinkering at the margins of a stagnant, but sustainable business model isn’t sufficient. The best technologies drive higher conversions and overhauls of data and technology processes are critical to develop experiences that lead to a more resilient future.

Some may see investing in tech as an unnecessary expense due to the rapid growth the industry has seen in recent months, however delivering real-time experiences that bridge the gap between online and in-store requires retailers to rethink stagnant strategies. Internal operations also benefit from tech, allowing the analysis of data to make more informed decisions in uncertain markets. In fact, there are a number of arguments for tech-focussed strategies during these times, including:

• Consumers can access 1-to-1, personalised support that mimics an in-store experience in real-time, as well as creating the opportunity for upselling and cross-selling
• Tech helps manage, analyse and predict operational decisions intelligently (such as supply chain management or behavioural analysis) based on large data sets to keep up with unpredictable swings in trends
• Enable scalable growth through automating operations
• More control over the everyday management of your online store and additional, smarter features

Whether building internally or partnering with external providers, tech is vital in driving new revenue streams or increasing current ones as well as driving strategic resilience to ensure competitiveness for a hyper-digital future.

Data

Every day, as customers enter your website, large amounts of data are gathered. All too often, retailers fail to harness that data to identify behaviours or process it to provide better experiences. Now more than ever, it is imperative that we do not neglect data. Harvesting data and producing insights is one of the single most important things a business can do to optimise the customer journey and stand out in this ever-evolving ecosystem.

Improving the speed, quality and scope of data silos is a requisite for any online retailer’s growth. To get the most out of data, a holistic approach is required. When data is managed and evaluated by difference teams, more valuable insights can be drawn.

Besides the gathering and analysis of data, data can also feed into internal tech and processed in real-time to provide personalised, experiences. During the lockdowns specifically, people have consumed so much content online that brands have been investing in data analytics and insights to execute more relevant experiences. Personalised experiences allow users to feel understood, assisted by the consistently increasing sophistication of artificial intelligence and data analytics.

The year ahead

It’s no secret that eCommerce has done well during Covid, but this year, as with any big disruption, businesses will be presented with both obstacles and opportunities. Facing an unpredictable market, every seller should be transitioning towards digital-centric business models and arming themselves with the tools necessary to survive volatility, informed by the lessons learnt this year. 

Rachel King

Rachel is a Content Marketing Specialist, creating insightful materials on all things eCommerce, tech and Findologic that drive growth and awareness. Rachel has a wide understanding of the tech space, before joining Findologic, she produced content for global FinTech publications as well as working closely with industry leaders on a range of marketing initiatives.

Jessica joined Findologic’s Munich office as a Sales Consultant in November. Jessica’s responsibilities will revolve around endorsing the Findologic Platform and educating prospective clients on the vast benefits it can provide. We sat down with Jessica to get to know her a little better.

Q: What was your previous role before joining Findologic, and how did it prepare you for your new role?

A: Before Findologic, I was Team Lead Sales & Customer Success in a SaaS HR start-up from Munich. I learned a lot, especially with regard to my new role at Findologic, that fun always has a place in customer communication and authenticity always wins anyway. In addition, I learned to stay on the ball and to keep a cool head in uncomfortable and stressful situations.

Q: Why did you decide to join Findologic and what are you looking forward to the most?

A: I joined Findologic because I needed a new topic and a new challenge.

Q: What has been the biggest achievement in your career so far?

A: To build a functioning team in which motivation was a top priority and I didn’t lose any employee along the way despite the fast pace of today’s working world.

Q: What is the most innovative thing you have come across recently?

A: Findologic’s A.I. Platform, Li.S.A.! 

Q: What’s your secret talent that no one knows about?

A: I paint and totally lose myself in it.

Q: What topic could you give a 30-minute presentation on without any preparation?

A: Attention now – this might get boring. Why digital time tracking, vacation planning and shift planning are an issue that concerns every company.

Q: If you could meet anyone, living or dead, who would you meet?

A: Spontaneously, I would say Elon Musk, but he only gives 5-minute slots, and we would need more time for my questions to him – that’s why I choose Michael Jordan due to his mental strength.