Seven Friction Points Every Business Must Eliminate

This article answers the question: What are the biggest customer friction points businesses must eliminate to create a better customer experience?

Answer: Businesses must eliminate common friction points like complicated processes, long wait times, poor communication, and a lack of flexibility because these issues frustrate customers and drive them to competitors.

Friction will drive customers away. Convenience will get them to return.  

I’ve been doing a deeper dive into the results of this year’s customer service and experience research. Several weeks ago, I wrote about the top 10 reasons customers don’t come back. There was a common thread in nine of the 10 reasons. When you take out the reasons of rudeness and apathy of an employee, there is one word to describe what customers hate: friction.

Friction is the bane of the customer experience. The root of bad customer service and CX comes from friction. It can mean the customer has to exert extra effort, it can waste their time, and it can cause “brain pain” from anger, anxiety, and frustration.  

In my book, The Convenience Revolution, I share six convenience principles. They are: 

1. Reduce Friction: This is a general goal. Just make it easy for customers to do business with you. 

2. Self-Service: Find easy and intuitive ways for customers to save time and effort with self-service solutions. Yes, that can include AI. 

3. Technology: When technology – and that includes AI – can make the experience better, use it. 

4. Subscription: Similar to a newspaper showing up every day on your doorstep or in your inbox, find ways to automatically get customers what they buy on a regular basis. 

5. Delivery: Depending on the type of business you have, don’t make customers come to you when you can deliver to them. 

6. Access: In the customer service world, this typically means hours of operation. Be accessible when customers want and need you. 

While that’s an oversimplification of the six principles, the goal is to eliminate friction. So, with that in mind, here are seven specific friction points to eliminate: 

1. Stop making customers fill out long and redundant forms. 

2. Don’t make checking out online difficult or complicated. 

3. Stop putting your customers on hold for long periods of time. 

4. Stop making customers repeat information to multiple agents. 

5. Don’t make customers use self-service (including AI chatbots) if they want to talk to a live agent. 

6. Don’t have rigid policies unless you 100% understand how customers will react to them. 

7. Don’t put employees on the front line if they haven’t been trained or aren’t empowered to make customer-focused decisions. 

Of course, there are many others, but this is a start to get you thinking. Your assignment is to sit down with your team and discuss all the potential friction points your customers might encounter when doing business with you. Use the list of seven to get the conversation started, then look at your most common complaints. Every friction point you eliminate is a step toward making it easier to do business with you and easier for them to choose to come back.

Shep Hyken is a customer service/CX expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. Learn more about Shep’s customer service and customer experience keynote speeches and his customer service training workshops at www.Hyken.com. Connect with Shep on LinkedIn.