Understanding Customer Pain Points For Innovation

While it can be easily believed that customers are the ultimate experts about their own needs, there are ways to gain insights and knowledge that customers may not be aware of or able to articulate directly. While customers are the ultimate source of truth about their needs, product managers can complement this knowledge by employing a combination of research, data analysis, and empathetic understanding to gain a more comprehensive understanding of customer needs and expectations. The goal is not to know more than customers but to use various tools and methods to gain insights that can lead to building better products and delivering exceptional user experiences. ➡️ User Research: Conducting thorough user research, such as interviews, surveys, and observational studies, can reveal underlying needs and pain points that customers may not have fully recognized or articulated. By learning from many users, we gain holistic insights and deeper insights into their motivations and behaviors. ➡️ Data Analysis: Analyzing user data, including behavioral data and usage patterns, can provide valuable insights into customer preferences and pain points. By identifying trends and patterns in the data, product managers can make informed decisions about what features or improvements are most likely to address customer needs effectively. ➡️ Contextual Inquiry: Observing customers in their real-life environment while using the product can uncover valuable insights into their needs and challenges. Contextual inquiry helps product managers understand the context in which customers use the product and how it fits into their daily lives. ➡️ Competitor Analysis: By studying competitors and their products, product managers can identify gaps in the market and potential unmet needs that customers may not even be aware of. Understanding what competitors offer can inspire product improvements and innovation. ➡️ Surfacing Implicit Needs: Sometimes, customers may not be able to express their needs explicitly, but through careful analysis and empathetic understanding, product managers can infer these implicit needs. This requires the ability to interpret feedback, observe behaviors, and understand the context in which customers use the product. ➡️ Iterative Prototyping and Testing: Continuously iterating and testing product prototypes with users allows product managers to gather feedback and refine the product based on real-world usage. Through this iterative process, product managers can uncover deeper customer needs and iteratively improve the product to meet those needs effectively. ➡️ Expertise in the Domain: Product managers, industry thought leaders, academic researchers, and others with deep domain knowledge and expertise can anticipate customer needs based on industry trends, best practices, and a comprehensive understanding of the market. #productinnovation #discovery #productmanagement #productleadership

Here's a lil secret about “check in" or cadence calls with your customers. Many of us were taught that these touchpoints are to understand how the customer is using our product, address any issues, and identify expansion opportunities. Here's the fatal flaw in that theory. Your customer hasn't woken up thinking about your product today. They're not sitting around wondering how to use more of your features. And they certainly haven't assembled a list of needs for you to solve. They have a job, with a job description and priorities they need to execute. So, at best they think of your product maybe 40% of their. At worst its 0%. So, how could we approach customer discovery in a constant fashion? 1 - Build a hypothesis on what business objectives this account is trying to achieve this quarter/year, and seek to understand what you're missing as an outsider. Find this in their latest earnings call, leadership announcements, press releases about new initiatives. Bring it to the call, and frame it as, "This is what I can observe from my research - what did I miss?" 2 - Be curious about HOW your champion currently believes they will accomplish those goals, and seek to understand HOW they formed that opinion. Example: Company's goal is to reduce customer acquisition costs by 30%. Your champion believes they need better lead scoring. They believe this because Marketing keeps sending "bad leads" to Sales. 3 - Introduce evidence that contradicts those beliefs/assumptions. Our goal isn't to tell them they're wrong. It's to introduce an insight that reveals a crack in their thinking. "We analyzed 200 companies in your industry and found the ones with the lowest CAC actually focus first on conversion rate optimization, not lead scoring." 4 - Give them a formula to calculate the implications of continuing with their current approach. This is NOT about your ROI. This is about the cost of continuing down their current path. Always tie this back to a P&L impact: increased costs, decreased revenue, or missed growth opportunities that affect the bottom line. Make it concrete, not conceptual. 5 - If you've piqued their curiosity, suggest that they collect the inputs needed to calculate the size of the problem, and bring those to the next call. Don't jump to how your solution helps yet. Just agree that you'll explore the size of the opportunity together. Customer success calls shouldn't feel like a product usage review or a veiled sales pitch. They should feel like two colleagues looking at the business landscape together, with you bringing outside perspective they can't see from within. The most valuable CS teams don't just ensure adoption—they impact their customer's P&L. When your discovery connects directly to revenue growth, cost reduction, or margin improvement, you transform from a vendor contact to a strategic advisor. What would happen if your CS team approached discovery this way?

“The customer is always right.” Right? Well… yes. But not in the way you might think. In Customer Success, we hear this phrase all the time. And while I do believe the customer is always right, it’s not because we should say yes to every request or scramble to build every feature they mention. It’s because they’re right about the pain. They’re right about the friction, the gaps, the confusion. But they might not be right about the solution 😬 That’s where we come in. The magic happens when you go beyond the request and uncover the real problem. Because here’s the truth: Most feature requests are symptoms. Our job as CSMs is to diagnose the cause. Let’s say a customer says: “We need a new page on our dashboard” Now here’s the classic trap: CSM: “Sure! Let me request this for you. I’ll add it to the roadmap!” WRONG APPROACH! 🙅♀️ Here’s why: jumping straight to a solution without understanding the why behind the request leads to misaligned expectations and, most likely, frustration down the road. Instead, here’s a better approach - a simple 3-step process I use often: 1️⃣ Step 1: Validate the request... but don’t commit yet + hypothesize the underlying need The customer is raising something important. Acknowledge it, but leave room for discovery… after all, you suspect what they want isn’t a new page - they want easier access to a specific piece of data. So you need test that theory. CSM: “Thanks for surfacing this - if I sent you that data weekly, or gave you a shortcut to it, would that help for now? This serves three purposes: 1. Keeps the conversation open and shows you’re here to understand, not just execute 2. It gives them an immediate sense of support and momentum 3. Helps you figure out whether this is about UI structure or data accessibility 2️⃣ Step 2: Dig into the “why” Now that you’ve tested a quick fix, it’s time to zoom out. CSM: “What’s driving the need for that data? What decision or action depends on it?” This is where you uncover gold 🌟 The real issue might not be visibility - it could be workflow-related, team reporting pressure, or something else entirely. And that’s what you really need to solve. 3️⃣ Step 3: Collaborate on the right path forward Once you understand the root of the request, you’re in a much stronger position to propose a better solution or bring a well-informed case to your product team, if needed. —— Our job as CSMs is not just to collect feedback. It’s to interpret it. To ask follow-up questions. To uncover the why behind the what. One of my favorite lines from a recent post by Sagan Schultz, MD, MBA at Linear says it perfectly (link in comments): “The most valuable skill in product development lies in understanding what remains unsaid, beyond the explicit feedback.” The same applies to CS. Great relationships are built not by reacting to what’s said - but by listening closely enough to hear what isn’t.

I’m not asking my CSMs to resolve support tickets. I’m asking them to leverage them. Support tickets aren’t just a backlog of problems; they’re customer truth bombs waiting to explode. If you’re not mining them for insights, you’re flying blind—and that’s exactly how churn sneaks up on you. Every Customer Success team I’ve ever led has been trained to use Support tickets strategically. Why? Because they’re packed with insights that make us better at our jobs. ✅ We learn more about the product. ✅ We spot trends before they become problems. ✅ We understand our customers’ use cases more deeply. If you’re not tapping into support data, here’s what you’re missing: 🔥 Emerging Pain Points Recurring issues expose friction in the customer journey. Ignore them, and those minor frustrations turn into churn-worthy headaches. 🔥 Product Gaps Customers vote with their tickets. If the same feature requests or usability complaints keep surfacing, your roadmap is practically writing itself. 🔥 Engagement Risks A spike in tickets isn’t just noise—it’s a flare. Users don’t submit tickets when they’re thriving; they do it when they’re stuck, frustrated, or in need of more enablement. Here are a few ways my team and I are using these insights: ✅ Spot & Engage Struggling Users A surge in ticket volume? Proactively reach out before frustration turns into a cancellation. ✅ Create Targeted Content If the same questions keep coming up, turn those insights into help docs, webinars, or office hours. ✅ Surface Expansion Opportunities Seeing frequent feature requests? Build them—or better yet, use them to tee up expansion conversations. ✅ Map Out User Behavior Support tickets tell you who’s onboarding, who’s adopting new features, and who’s stuck. Use that data to drive deeper engagement. ✅ Collaborate with Product Your product team needs this intel. Share support trends regularly to influence meaningful fixes and features. High ticket volume isn’t necessarily a bad thing—but you need to know how to use it to your advantage. Bottom line? CSMs don’t need to fix support tickets. But the best ones know how to use them to drive retention, expansion, and adoption. _____________________________ 📣 If you liked my post, you’ll love my newsletter. Every week I share learnings, advice and strategies from my experience going from CSM to CCO. Join 12k+ subscribers of The Journey and turn insights into action. Sign up on my profile.

Your Product Managers are talking to customers. So why isn’t your product getting better? A few years ago, I was on a team where our boss had a rule: 🗣️ “Everyone must talk to at least one customer each week.” So we did. Calls were scheduled. Conversations happened. Boxes were checked. But nothing changed. No real insights. No real impact. Because talking to customers isn’t the goal. Learning the right things is. When discovery lacks purpose, it leads to wasted effort, misaligned strategy, and poor business decisions: ❌ Features get built that no one actually needs. ❌ Roadmaps get shaped by the loudest voices, not the right customers. ❌ Teams collect insights… but fail to act on them. How Do You Fix It? ✅ Talk to the Right People Not every customer insight is useful. Prioritize: -> Decision-makers AND end-users – You need both perspectives. -> Customers who represent your core market – Not just the loudest complainers. -> Direct conversations – Avoid proxy insights that create blind spots. 👉 Actionable Step: Before each interview, ask: “Is this customer representative of the next 100 we want to win?” If not, rethink who you’re talking to. ✅ Ask the Right Questions A great question challenges assumptions. A bad one reinforces them. -> Stop asking: “Would you use this?” -> Start asking: “How do you solve this today?” -> Show AI prototypes and iterate in real-time – Faster than long discovery cycles. -> If shipping something is faster than researching it—just build it. 👉 Actionable Step: Replace one of your upcoming interview questions with: “What workarounds have you created to solve this problem?” This reveals real pain points. ✅ Don’t Let Insights Die in a Doc Discovery isn’t about collecting insights. It’s about acting on them. -> Validate across multiple customers before making decisions. -> Share findings with your team—don’t keep them locked in Notion. -> Close the loop—show customers how their feedback shaped the product. 👉 Actionable Step: Every two weeks, review customer insights with your team to decipher key patterns and identify what changes should be applied. If there’s no clear action, you’re just collecting data—not driving change. Final Thought Great discovery doesn’t just inform product decisions—it shapes business strategy. Done right, it helps teams build what matters, align with real customer needs, and drive meaningful outcomes. 👉 Be honest—are your customer conversations actually making a difference? If not, what’s missing? -- 👋 I'm Ron Yang, a product leader and advisor. Follow me for insights on product leadership + strategy.

If Henry Ford were alive today, he’d roast most Contech founders. There’s a quote by Ford that tech founders love to drop. “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” — Henry Ford BAM. Mic drop. Get in your Tesla and roll out. A legendary innovator proving that customers don’t know what they need? Who could argue with that? Let’s dig beyond the surface of that quote, though. Here’s what nobody brings up when they use that statement: Henry Ford understood the problem he was solving. He rode horses. He sat in carriages for miles on unpaved roads. He knew the back pain, the slowness, the maintenance headaches. Many founders today use Ford’s quote as a hall pass to avoid talking to their market. It isn’t. Customers might not always know the solution, but they always know their pain points. Ford knew the challenges of his peers: - “Travel is too slow.” - “Horses need too much care.” - “Long rides are physically painful.” Ford listened to these problems—and solved them in a way people hadn’t imagined yet. What many tech founders accidentally do when listening to this quote is ignore the pain points entirely. That’s not what Ford is prescribing here. They assume they already know the problem. that the knuckle dragging construction community needs their brain to solve the biggest challenges. Innovation doesn’t come from ignoring your customers. It comes from understanding them better than they understand themselves. That means: - Talking to industry professionals - Watching how they work - Asking what frustrates them daily - Understanding the real-world context before you assume you have the answer The construction industry doesn’t need your ‘genius.’ It needs your ears. Ford didn’t succeed because he rejected customer feedback. He succeeded because he translated their problems into a better solution than they could articulate. So before you go quoting “faster horses” like some kind of tech prophet, ask yourself this: Are you really that much better at innovation than Henry Ford? Or are you just too lazy to listen? #construction #technology #innovation

Henry Ford famously said: "If I had asked customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." Most people use this to justify not listening to customers. I think that's the wrong lesson entirely. Customers were actually telling Ford two things: The Pain: "We want to get places faster" Their Solution: "Give us a speedier horse" Ford heard the pain. He ignored their solution. He solved it in a better way. The lesson I learn: Customers are really good at describing their problems. They're usually don't do as great a job at prescribing solutions. The framework: ✅ Listen deeply to the pain ❌ Don't blindly build their proposed solution Customers will hand you the problem. Your job is to find a solution. Make sure you are capturing the offhand comment in a support ticket, the frustration mentioned on a call, the workaround described in an email. That's where customers reveal their true pain points.