Marketing your products internationally grants you the potential to gain exploding profits and a vastly expanded customer base. 

However, along with the difficulties you have already encountered when selling domestically, global ecommerce also brings additional challenges. 

When you understand the barriers that your overseas clients are experiencing and take steps to knock them down, you can reap the rewards.

What is a customer pain point?

Simply put, a pain point is any issue or problem experienced by a customer in relation to your brand, products or the purchasing process. 

When one of these is serious enough, it can lead a shopper to take their business elsewhere or post a damaging review about your company. For international buyers who may already be reluctant to send their money to a different country, it could mean the end of your relationship. 

But what are the most common pain points?

Process.

Process pain points refer to problems that crop up because of your company’s internal operational procedures. The most common of these are overly complex sales transactions, excessive delivery times and poor customer service.

When you accept international payments, these issues can take on additional intricacy. For instance, your website might not be configured to appeal to non-English speakers, or your prices might not be set in the local currency.

Logistics can also make shipping and delivery unpredictable. You might promise to have a box in your customer’s hands in two weeks when it does not actually arrive until the end of the third. 

Combining these difficulties with delayed, incompetent or poorly translated customer service can result in serious and even fatal damage to your business relationship.

Money is at the core of your company. When it flows smoothly and efficiently from your international customer’s account into yours, you can use it to bolster your inventory, pay your overhead costs, and build your future.

The pain points come in when the cost of buying products from you is more than someone is willing to pay. 

The most common charges that get under people’s skin are hidden checkout fees, high membership costs, and lower-quality products that require frequent replacement.

Team-related issues.

You have put your sales and customer support teams in place to make the entire shopping journey stellar for your customers. However, when problems arise, the trip can quickly become a nightmare.

Poor performance on the part of your sales and customer service teams can lead to serious troubles. The most frequently seen are slow response times after a complaint has been registered, a lack of knowledge about your products, and failure to resolve issues effectively. 

Although these concerns do not stem directly from your business’s internal company practices, they still reflect on you. 

And when you are trying to get your international company to surpass more familiar local competitors in the buyer’s home country, this problem can take on an even more sinister complexion.

Product-related defects.

When the goods or services you promise to your international buyers fall short, you will soon see significant reductions in the funds flowing through your international payment gateway. Never forget that people can almost always find your products elsewhere, and the last thing you want is to lose out to a seller in the local area.

The most frequently experienced product problems can stem from the items themselves or from the way they are delivered. 

For instance, they might not work as promised, be made poorly or contain underwhelming features. Consumers might also experience a delay in receiving the troubleshooting details they need or in getting replacements in the event of defective manufacturing. 

Finally, there might be issues with your servers that make ordering or communicating with you problematic.

Determining which pain points are affecting your business.

Now that you have a general idea of what the pitfalls can be, it’s time to get to the bottom of which ones are dragging your international business down. One of the best ways to get a handle on this is to go to your own customers for feedback. 

Qualitative market research and satisfaction surveys with open-ended questions can help you to learn about obstacles during the sales process, what the customer would change and how you can improve your customer service.

Another way to pinpoint areas of concern is to consult with your sales and support teams. These individuals have inside knowledge of where the roadblocks are occurring and often possess creative ideas to help you overcome them.

Finally, you should supplement the qualitative insights gleaned from customer surveys with quantitative data analytics. Delving into your key performance indicators (KPIs) is an excellent way to start. 

Consider statistics such as customer churn rate and insights (not just how many customers left but why it happened), average time to resolve issues, conversion rate, and cart abandonment rate. 

The “why” associated with each of these important data points can give you the information you will need to make tangible improvements that will prevent these negatives from occurring in the future.

Tips for resolving pain points.

First, be available. If your international customer has encountered a snag, they need to have immediate access to user forums, live chat, and perhaps even knowledge bases that facilitate independent problem-solving. 

Just as important, you should make it a point to provide live assistance at times and in a language your clients understand.

Next, look for trends in the pain points you are noticing. Once you have tracked key metrics, you can begin to detect patterns. They might reveal that you need to conduct better or updated training procedures, hire additional team members, or augment your stock of resources.

Once you have addressed customer concerns, go back to the source to see if the corrections you implemented were effective. This is how you will learn if you need to tweak any of your changes.

Finally, institute an ongoing customer service strategy. Keeping your international buyers’ needs at the top of your priority list will help to ensure that you never stop delivering superlative service that surpasses what your competitors are offering.

Doing your best to identify and resolve customer pain points should be one of your most important tasks as an international seller. When you delight your overseas buyers with top-of-the-line products, logistics and service, they will reward you with their ongoing business.