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Developing business ideas for drone technologies
Developing business ideas for drone technologies

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2.1.3 Customer pains

Customer pains can have a different nature. According to Osterwalder et al. (2014) they can be grouped into three categories: undesired outcomes, obstacles and risks.

Undesired outcomes are the negative aspects that a customer may experience in getting a job done. They can be:

  • functional: a solution does not work
  • social: a solution is not appreciated socially
  • emotional: a solution does not create positive emotions
  • ancillary: a solution creates some annoyance.

Obstacles are the things that prevent customers from doing something. For instance, using a banking application on a smartphone can pose serious difficulties for some customers who are not confident in using the technology.

Risks are related to things that could go wrong while using the service. For instance, when using a delivery service such as Deliveroo, customers run the risk of food arriving damaged or cold, which is something that the app considers in its interaction with customers.

Referring back to the context of a hotel booking platform, you will now try categorising customer pains.

Activity 3

Timing: Allow approximately 5 minutes.

Match each type of customer pain with its category, considering a customer who would like to book a pet-friendly accommodation.

Using the following two lists, match each numbered item with the correct letter.

  1. Social problem

  2. Obstacle

  3. Functional problem

  4. Emotional problem

  5. Risk

  6. Ancillary problem

  • a.The platform sends too many marketing emails

  • b.The platform does not send a confirmation email of the booking

  • c.The platform is known to charge high fees to hotels and flat owners

  • d.The platform seems to have a weak data protection policy

  • e.There is a limited and very expensive supply of pet-friendly accommodation

  • f.The design of the platform website looks outdated

The correct answers are:
  • 1 = c
  • 2 = e
  • 3 = b
  • 4 = f
  • 5 = d
  • 6 = a