Customer journey pain points: finding the most painful step

Short answer

To find the most painful step in the customer experience, link every conversation to a stage of the customer journey: choosing, buying, paying, delivery or service, use, support, renewal. Then look at three numbers for each stage: the share of enquiries, the share of problem enquiries and the share of problems that end unresolved. The most painful step is not where most enquiries arrive but where most problems — and most unresolved problems — gather.

For the result to be useful, every stage needs a responsible team. The customer journey crosses several teams' work, and pain often arises at the handover between two teams — where nobody fully owns it.

What a customer journey is and why to look at it through conversations

The customer journey is the set of steps a customer goes through, from first contact to repeat purchase. It is usually drawn on a whiteboard in a workshop — based on how the company thinks of itself. Conversations show the real journey: at which step the customer struggled and had to write, at which step they asked the same question twice, at which step they did not get what they expected.

In a sense, every enquiry is a sign of friction somewhere along the journey. The split of enquiries by stage is a friction map.

Defining the stages

1. 1ChoosingThe customer learns about the product, options, price. In conversation: information questions, comparisons.
2. 2Buying and payingOrder, payment method, documents, contract. In conversation: "how do I order?", "my card doesn't work".
3. 3Handover or serviceDelivery, installation, attending an appointment, activation.
4. 4UseUsing the product, the first experience. In conversation: "how do I set it up?", "it doesn't work".
5. 5Support and returnsProblems, warranty, returns, refunds.
6. 6RenewalRepeat purchase, subscription renewal, an add-on product.

Three numbers for each stage

• Enquiry share: what percentage of all conversations are at this stage.
• Problem share: in how many of this stage's conversations the customer reports a problem, difficulty or complaint.
• Unresolved share: how many problem conversations end without resolution.

Put the three side by side and the pain map appears. The choosing stage may have many enquiries but a low problem share — that is normal interest. The payment stage may have few enquiries but a high problem share — that is pain.

Evidence: why it hurts

The numbers show where the pain is; the evidence conversations show what it is. Read 20 conversations from the most painful stage and write down the problem in the customer's own words. Two or three repeating causes usually appear: unclear instructions, long waits, an unsuitable payment method, information lost when handed from one team to another.

Segment differences

The same stage can hurt differently for different customers. For a new customer, "use" is the hardest stage because they do not know the product; for an existing customer, "renewal" — because the terms have changed. Channel matters too: customers who phone often come with more complex problems. Build the pain map separately for new and existing customers at least.

From stage to owner

Write down each stage's responsible team: choosing — marketing and sales; payment — finance or product; handover — logistics or operations; use — product and support; returns — support and finance. If the pain sits at the handover between two teams (for example, sales takes the order and logistics receives incomplete information), both teams need to be at the table. Ownerless pain goes unsolved for months.

Combining with the prioritisation model

Once the most painful stage is found, the problems within it need ranking. Use the frequency, impact, fixability and evidence model for that (customer pain point prioritization). Then go to the root cause of the first problem.

Illustrative example

This is an illustrative example. On an online education platform, most enquiries are at the "choosing" stage and leadership is thinking of strengthening the sales team. The pain map shows something else: at the "use" stage the enquiry share is small but the problem share is very high — new students cannot get into their first lesson because the access link arrives by email and often lands in spam.

The owner is the product team. The access link is also sent by SMS and messenger, and a reminder is added the day before the first lesson. The next month, the problem share at the "use" stage is tracked.

Report format

1. 1Map tableStages in rows, the three numbers in columns, change versus the last period.
2. 2The most painful stageIn one sentence: where, why, in customers' words.
3. 3Owner and stepWho will do what, and when it will be checked.
4. 4CoverageThe share of conversations analysed and the "stage unclear" share.

When the stage is unclear

In some conversations it is impossible to tell which stage the customer is at: a short question, a greeting, general information. Do not force them into a stage — keep an "unclear" value. Track that share: if it is very large, either the stage definitions are imprecise or the conversations are too short to carry context. In both cases read the results with care.

Typical mistakes

• Treating the stage with the most enquiries as the most painful.
• Drawing the customer journey only in a workshop and never checking it against conversations.
• Not assigning a stage owner.
• Mixing new and existing customers on one map.

Limits

• Conversations only see where customers wrote or called; silent friction is invisible.
• The stage is estimated by AI — check with a sample for the first two weeks.
• A pain map is more reliable when complemented by survey or usage data.

The pain map in Vexvon

In Vexvon the company builds fields such as "journey stage", "problem present" and "problem resolved" itself; AI picks from the customer's words in each conversation. The panel's AI assistant gives the split by stage, a stage × problem cross-tab and period comparisons, and the conversations behind each value can be opened. The cross-tab counts conversations, so the number does not inflate even when one conversation has several values. More: Vexvon analytics.

Next step

Write a 5–8 stage customer journey for your business and sort last month's 100 conversations into stages by hand. Start with the stage that has the highest problem share. For the root cause method, see complaint root cause analysis; we can build the map together in a demo.

Further reading on this topic: customer escalation analysis.