50 Examples of Pain Points

John Spacey, updated on September 03, 2023

Pain points are perceived problems with products, services, experiences, designs, interfaces, processes, practices, industries, cities, transportation and anything else that impacts people's work or life. These can be used to improve things and create new value. The following are common examples of pain points.

Customer Pain Points

Perceived problems with products, services and customer experiences that can be used to improve quality or introduce new products with a valuable position in a crowded market.

Late deliveries	Rude employees
Slow response times	Not meeting commitments
Unfair prices and hidden fees	Inaccurate bills
Low quality	Inconsistent quality
Long wait	Crowded environments
Unclear policies	Limited selection and choice
Lack of customization options	Uncomfortable environments
Poor communication	Product defects
Low durability	Unreliable services
Unprofessional service	Inefficient processes
Unclean environments	Pushy sales
Incorrect orders	Poor usability
Lack of functions and features	More ...

Business Pain Points

Pain points within a business that can be used to improve systems, processes, culture and tools.

Communication gaps	Employee turnover
Systems and processes don’t align	Security vulnerabilities
Missed deadlines	Cost overruns
Lack of cooperation between teams	Wasted resources
Low management competence	Process inefficiency
Skill shortfalls	Low performing employees
Low performing teams	Low partner performance
Poor usability of systems	Inconsistent strategy and direction
Budget constraints	Employee burnout
Difficult customers	Failed projects
Lack of innovation	Stuck in reactive mode trying to copy the competition
Data quality issues	Legacy systems
Lack of authority to do job	More ...

A pain point need not be a real problem, as long as it a problem in the eyes of customers or stakeholders. They are typically elicited by asking a straightforward question such as "how could this be better?" Pain points are often valuable as ideas for improving governments, cities, organizations, services, products and advertising. The following are a few examples of pain points.

Cities

A city asks citizens how a city could be better and discover a common concern that air quality is poor. The city steps up smog checks on trucks as they are aware of low compliance to smog regulations amongst transportation companies in the area.

Governments

A tax agency asks taxpayers how to improve their services and they receive a large number of pain points. Based on the feedback they find ways to streamline rules, eliminate forms and make instructions clear using plain language.

Marketing

A technology company develops a new product based on the previous product but with all major pain points addressed. They specifically avoid new features that may trigger new pain points. Sales of the new version skyrocket as reviews are exceptionally positive.

Business Model

A banker notices that handling compliance reporting is a large pain point at most financial institutions. She founds a consultancy that takes the grunt work of compliance reporting and finds no lack of business.

Information Technology

A business analyst is tasked with performing a gap analysis on a sales system and process. They make their job easy by starting with interviews of sales people, sales operation staff and managers to identify pain points.

Overview: Pain Points
Type	Business Analysis Marketing Business Models
Definition	Anything that customers or stakeholders view as a problem in a given context.
Value	Solving pain points tends to add value and is a solid technique for developing products and improvements.
Related Concepts	Product Development Marketing Business Analysis Gap Analysis