What is Customer Struggle Analysis?

Customer Struggle Analysis is a systematic approach to identifying, measuring, and prioritizing the difficulties customers face when trying to accomplish their Jobs To Be Done. Unlike traditional satisfaction surveys or pain point assessments that often focus on product features, Customer Struggle Analysis examines where, why, and how customers struggle to make progress in achieving their goals, regardless of what solutions they currently use.

This methodology combines qualitative research to understand the nature of struggles with quantitative measurement to prioritize which struggles represent the most valuable opportunities. By focusing on customer struggles in executing their jobs rather than reactions to existing products, Customer Struggle Analysis reveals opportunities for meaningful innovation that competitors often miss.

Why is Customer Struggle Analysis important?

Customer Struggle Analysis helps drive successful product strategy and innovation:

1. Reveals true purchase motivation

Customers buy products to make progress on goals where they struggle. Understanding these struggles explains why customers switch from one solution to another and predicts what new solutions they'll adopt.

2. Identifies highest-value opportunities

Not all customer struggles are equally important or addressable. Struggle Analysis helps companies identify which difficulties, if resolved, would create the most customer value and willingness to pay.

3. Creates differentiation opportunities

When competitors focus on feature parity rather than understanding underlying customer struggles, they miss opportunities for meaningful differentiation. Struggle Analysis reveals gaps that competitors don't see.

4. Reduces innovation risk

Products designed to address validated customer struggles have higher adoption rates and lower failure risks than those based on untested assumptions or internal ideas.

5. Prioritizes development resources

Clear understanding of customer struggles helps companies allocate limited development resources to the highest-impact opportunities rather than spreading attention across too many initiatives.

What are the key components of Customer Struggle Analysis?

A comprehensive Customer Struggle Analysis typically includes these components:

1. Job Step Struggle Assessment

For each step in the customer's job-to-be-done, the analysis identifies:

What difficulties customers face in executing the step

How these difficulties impact their ability to complete the job

What workarounds or adaptations they've developed

How much time and effort these struggles add to the process

How these struggles affect the outcome quality

This step-by-step assessment ensures you understand struggles throughout the entire job.

2. Struggle Metrics

For each identified struggle, the analysis measures:

Frequency - How often customers encounter this struggle

Severity - How much it impedes job progress when encountered

Universality - What percentage of customers experience this struggle

Emotional impact - How much frustration or anxiety it creates

Economic impact - What costs or losses result from this struggle

These metrics help quantify the importance of addressing each struggle.

3. Segment-Specific Struggle Patterns

The analysis identifies how struggles vary across customer segments:

Which segments experience particular struggles most acutely

How struggle patterns create natural segment boundaries

Which segments are most underserved by current solutions

How willingness to pay correlates with struggle intensity

What segment characteristics predict struggle patterns

These patterns reveal which customer groups represent the most attractive targets.

4. Competitive Struggle Gaps

The analysis examines how well existing solutions address customer struggles:

• Which struggles are well-addressed by current solutions
• Where significant gaps exist between customer needs and available solutions
• How different competitors perform on addressing specific struggles
• What competitive vulnerabilities exist in struggle resolution
• Where "white space" opportunities exist that no current solution addresses

This competitive assessment reveals strategic opportunities for differentiation.

5. Struggle Prioritization Framework

The analysis culminates in a prioritization framework that ranks struggles based on:

• Customer importance and impact
• Current satisfaction levels
• Market opportunity size
• Competitive landscape

Organizational capability to address

This prioritization guides strategic decision-making and resource allocation.

How do you conduct effective Customer Struggle Analysis?

1. Start with qualitative investigation

Begin by deeply understanding the nature of customer struggles:

Conduct switch interviews - Talk to customers who recently switched to or from solutions in your market to understand what struggles triggered their search and selection

Perform contextual inquiries - Observe customers executing their jobs in natural settings to identify struggles they may not articulate

Analyze support and service data - Review customer service interactions, support tickets, and complaint data to identify recurring struggle themes

Examine online communities - Study relevant forums, social media, and review sites where customers discuss their difficulties

Interview sales and customer-facing staff - Gather insights from employees who regularly hear customer struggles firsthand

This qualitative research provides rich understanding of the nature and impact of customer struggles.

2. Develop a comprehensive struggle inventory

Organize your findings into a structured inventory of customer struggles:

• Categorize struggles by job step to ensure comprehensive coverage
• Document the specific actions or decisions where struggles occur
• Capture customer quotes that vividly illustrate each struggle
• Note workarounds or adaptations customers have developed
• Identify emotional responses associated with each struggle

This inventory provides the foundation for subsequent quantitative analysis.

3. Quantify struggles through survey research

Measure the prevalence and impact of identified struggles:

• Develop survey questions that assess struggle frequency and severity
• Measure importance of job steps where struggles occur
• Gauge satisfaction with current solutions for each struggle
• Collect segment-specific data to identify struggle patterns
• Assess willingness to pay for solutions to specific struggles

This quantitative data enables statistical analysis and prioritization of opportunities.

4. Calculate opportunity scores

For each struggle, calculate metrics that indicate innovation opportunity:

Importance score - How important the affected job step is to customers (1-10)

Satisfaction score - How satisfied customers are with current solutions (1-10)

Opportunity score = Importance + (Importance - Satisfaction)

Struggle frequency - How often customers encounter this difficulty

Segment size - How many customers experience this struggle

These scores help identify which struggles represent the most valuable opportunities.

5. Conduct competitive struggle analysis

Assess how well existing solutions address identified struggles:

• Evaluate competitor performance on high-opportunity struggles
• Identify where all competitors perform poorly
• Discover unique approaches that address specific struggles well
• Analyze trends in how competitors are evolving to address struggles
• Assess emerging solutions that might disrupt struggle resolution

This competitive analysis reveals strategic opportunities and threats.

6. Create segment-based struggle profiles

Develop detailed profiles of how struggles vary across customer segments:

• Identify segments with distinct struggle patterns
• Quantify segment sizes and economic value
• Assess segment accessibility and growth potential
• Evaluate competitive positioning within each segment
• Determine which segments align best with organizational capabilities
• These profiles guide targeting decisions and go-to-market strategies.

What are common challenges in Customer Struggle Analysis?

Confirmation bias

Teams often focus on struggles their current products already address while minimizing or overlooking others. Rigorous methodology and external facilitation can help overcome this bias.

Solution-centered questioning

Research questions that reference existing solutions ("What problems do you have with our product?") yield less valuable insights than job-centered questions ("What challenges do you face when trying to accomplish X?").

Superficial struggle identification

Many analyses identify symptoms rather than root causes of struggles. Deep investigation is required to understand the fundamental difficulties customers face.

Over-reliance on stated preferences

Customers often can't articulate their most significant struggles or may normalize difficulties they've learned to live with. Observational research is essential to supplement what customers say.

Insufficient quantification

Without rigorous measurement of struggle impact and prevalence, prioritization becomes subjective and political rather than evidence-based.

How do you apply insights from Customer Struggle Analysis?

1. Develop struggle-centered value propositions

Create compelling value propositions directly addressing high-priority struggles:

• Focus messaging on resolving specific customer struggles
• Contrast struggle resolution with limitations of current approaches
• Demonstrate quantifiable improvements in job execution
• Address both functional and emotional aspects of struggles
• Speak the language customers use to describe their struggles

These value propositions resonate deeply because they connect directly to customer goals.

2. Create struggle-based product roadmaps

Build product roadmaps explicitly focused on resolving customer struggles:

• Prioritize features based on struggle opportunity scores
• Group related struggles into coherent release themes
• Balance addressing different struggles across customer segments
• Create clear success metrics based on struggle resolution
• Maintain focus on high-value struggles despite competing priorities

These roadmaps ensure development resources address the most valuable opportunities.

3. Design struggle-resolving experiences

Guide design teams to create experiences that directly address customer struggles:

• Structure interfaces around high-struggle job steps
• Design interaction patterns that minimize struggle points
• Create information architecture that matches customer job thinking
• Develop error prevention for common struggle situations
• Build feedback systems that confirm struggle resolution
• This struggle-centered design creates more intuitive, valuable experiences.
• 4. Develop struggle-based marketing and sales approaches
• Align marketing and sales activities with customer struggles:
• Create content addressing specific high-priority struggles
• Train sales teams to identify and discuss customer struggles
• Develop demonstrations that showcase struggle resolution
• Design lead qualification around struggle patterns
• Build ROI models based on struggle resolution value

This alignment creates more effective customer acquisition and conversion.

5. Implement struggle-reduction measurement

Track how effectively your solutions resolve customer struggles:

• Establish baseline metrics for key struggles before implementation
• Measure changes in struggle frequency and severity after implementation
• Monitor customer-reported effort for struggle-prone job steps
• Compare struggle resolution performance against competitors
• Track correlation between struggle reduction and business outcomes

This measurement creates accountability for customer outcomes rather than just feature delivery.

What metrics are most valuable in Customer Struggle Analysis?

Customer Effort Score (CES)

This metric measures how difficult customers find it to execute specific job steps:

• Typically measured on a 1-7 scale from "Very Difficult" to "Very Easy"
• Can be calculated for individual job steps or the overall job
• Strong predictor of customer loyalty and repurchase behavior
• More predictive of customer behavior than satisfaction or NPS for many jobs
• Directly connected to the struggles customers face

High effort scores indicate significant struggle and innovation opportunity.

Job Success Rate

This metric measures how often customers successfully complete their job:

• Calculated as the percentage of job attempts that achieve desired outcomes
• Can be measured overall or for specific job steps
• Indicates where struggles prevent successful job completion
• Often correlates with customer retention and advocacy
• Provides clear success criteria for innovation initiatives

Low success rates indicate serious struggles that need addressing.

Time on Task

This metric measures how long it takes customers to complete job steps:

Calculated as the average time required to execute specific steps

Can be compared against customer expectations or competitors

Indicates where struggles create inefficiency

Often correlates with perceived value and willingness to pay

Provides quantifiable improvement targets

Excessive time requirements indicate struggle opportunities.

Error Rate

This metric measures how often customers make mistakes during job execution:

• Calculated as the percentage of attempts that include errors
• Can be measured for specific decisions or actions within job steps
• Indicates where struggles lead to poor outcomes
• Often creates significant emotional impact and frustration
• Provides clear success criteria for solutions

High error rates reveal critical struggle points.

Opportunity Score

This calculated metric combines importance and satisfaction to identify opportunities:

Opportunity Score = Importance + (Importance - Satisfaction)

Ranges from 0-19 with scores above 15 indicating significant opportunities

Weights struggles by how much they matter to customers

Highlights gaps between importance and current satisfaction

How thrv helps with Customer Struggle Analysis

thrv provides specialized methodologies and tools to help companies conduct comprehensive Customer Struggle Analysis that drives innovation and growth. The thrv platform includes frameworks for identifying customer struggles, survey tools for measuring struggle impact, analytics for prioritizing opportunities, and roadmapping capabilities for translating insights into action.

For organizations seeking to identify breakthrough innovation opportunities, differentiate from competitors, and create products customers truly value, thrv's approach to Customer Struggle Analysis provides a clear path to customer-centered growth based on resolving the struggles that matter most to customers.