Customers come first. There are no discussions that counter the importance of customer satisfaction in businesses and companies. They are basically the Holy Grail of businesses! Every decision taken by business or company authorities is in accordance with what the customer will think or react to. And so, it’s important to understand what the customer needs and wants. To cope up with daily trends, customers are always looking for the trendiest products in the market to look ‘cool’ and modern. While creating products to please customers, business owners often fall short of ideas pertaining to their needs. Strategists, product developers brainstorm ideas to elevate the business’ stand in the marketplace but honestly, that’s not enough anymore. What most people can say is, businesses are running out of ideas, thus leading to the development of new products that are not really of use and are just for the aesthetics-that pertains to a small target audience. It’s a loss. Here is where ‘painstorming’ comes into play Painstorming is the ideation of ideas when customers face difficulties, problems or pains while attending to a certain service or product. For example, A health company is facing patient problems because they are missing appointments due to the unavailability of transport to the hospital in time, one can close this gap by proving the patients a ride to their health checkup exclusively. Painstorming allows ideators to hit the right target in order to deeply please the customers. This type of collaborated service provides safety, assurance, precision and availability according to their convenience. Hence, to painstorm, companies need to critically evaluate and strategise around their customer. The most efficient way is to break it down into steps: target audience, customer profile, customer insights and problems and then finally, solutions.

1. Target audience

If a particular product is being created, ideators should first compare the different sections of the customer base and then target the particular section of the audience who will want or benefit from the new product.

2. Customer profile

This includes analysing the targeted customer and knowing where their general interests lie, such as preferences, hobbies, average daily schedule etc. This helps to formulate a product based on the general profile representing customers of a certain section.

3. Customer insights and problems

This is deciding and coming to a single viewpoint as to what customers want the most in their life. The collective insight provided via surveys, forms, statistics etc. provide a reliable source of information, enough to base the new product.

4. Solution

Coming to the final stage, it is all about coming to a cumulative conclusion that a new product is needed to ease the customer’s pain, providing them with a range of comfort to accessibility. Those are the first things a customer looks at while buying or accessing a service. Painstorming is an incredible way to connect with customers by solving their most vulnerable ‘pain’. It may be difficult that brainstorming but it’s 100% effective, mainly because customer’s painful needs are being targeted, ensuing good profit as well.