If you're tired of guessing what your customers actually care about, you're in the right place. This guide is for folks in customer success, product, or sales who want a straightforward way to uncover real customer pain points—without a bunch of fluff. We’ll walk through the practical steps to use Cuvama, an online tool that helps teams have better value conversations and actually document what customers need.
No silver bullets here—just clear steps, honest advice, and a few warnings about what doesn’t work.
Why bother mapping customer pain points?
Let’s be real: most teams think they know their customers’ problems, but usually they’re just guessing. Mapping pain points isn’t about making a pretty report. It’s about:
- Figuring out what’s actually blocking your customers from getting value
- Helping sales and CS teams speak the same language as buyers
- Avoiding wasted dev cycles on features no one wants
If you skip this, you’re flying blind. If you overcomplicate it, you’ll never get buy-in. The goal is to find real, actionable insights—without getting lost in the weeds.
What is Cuvama, and what’s it good for?
Cuvama is a SaaS tool for mapping, tracking, and sharing customer pain points and value drivers. It’s built for B2B teams who want to have better conversations about value—not just push product features.
What Cuvama does well: - Guides you through structured discovery calls - Makes it easy to document pain points as you talk to customers - Links pain points to the outcomes your product delivers - Creates shareable summaries for internal teams
What it won’t do: - Read your customers’ minds for you - Replace real conversations (it’s not a magic button) - Fix bad discovery habits
If you just want to tick a box, skip Cuvama. But if you want a real framework, it’s worth a look.
Step 1: Prep before you open Cuvama
Don’t just fire up a new tool and hope for the best. Before you even log in:
- Identify your target customers. Who are you mapping pain points for? Pick a segment, not your entire customer base.
- Get your team on board. Anyone talking to customers (sales, CS, product) should understand why you’re doing this.
- Gather what you already know. Pull up existing notes, feedback, and support tickets. If you’re starting from scratch, that’s fine—just don’t ignore what you already have.
Pro tip: Don’t invite a cast of thousands. Two or three people who actually talk to customers is enough to start.
Step 2: Set up your discovery framework in Cuvama
Once you’re ready, log into Cuvama and set up your workspace.
- Choose or customize your discovery template.
- Cuvama offers pre-built templates for different industries, but you can (and should) tweak them.
- Focus on sections like “Current Challenges,” “Desired Outcomes,” and “Impact.” Ignore the rest for now.
- Define your key value drivers.
- What does your product actually help with? List the main problems you solve—keep it under five to start.
- Set up outcome mapping.
- For each pain point, link it to a real-world outcome (e.g., “Reduce manual data entry” → “Save team 5 hours/week”).
What to ignore: Don’t waste time filling in every field. The goal is to have a framework that makes customer conversations easier—not a bloated form no one uses.
Step 3: Run structured discovery calls
This is the meat of the process. Here’s how to make your calls count:
- Book time with real customers or prospects.
- Prioritize folks who are engaged (not just the happiest or angriest).
- Use Cuvama as a live note-taker.
- Ask open-ended questions: “What’s the most frustrating part of your workflow?” “What’s slowing your team down?”
- As they talk, add pain points directly in Cuvama. Don’t over-edit—capture their actual words.
- Dig for root causes.
- Don’t settle for surface-level complaints. If someone says “Reporting is slow,” ask “What happens when reports are late? Who’s impacted?”
- Map each pain to a value driver.
- Use Cuvama’s linking feature to connect pain points to outcomes or metrics.
What works: Being genuinely curious. Customers can tell when you’re just filling out a checklist.
What doesn’t: Treating Cuvama like a script. If the conversation goes off the rails (in a good way), follow it.
Step 4: Prioritize and validate pain points
After a few calls, you’ll notice patterns. Here’s what to do next:
- Group similar pain points.
- Cuvama can help tag and cluster pains by theme or frequency.
- Rank by impact and urgency.
- Not every complaint is a dealbreaker. Focus on pain points that actually block value or adoption.
- Validate with more customers.
- Share your mapped pains with a few more customers. Ask: “Does this sound right?” “Anything missing?”
- Document what’s not a pain.
- Sometimes you’ll uncover things people don’t care about. That’s just as useful—don’t ignore it.
Pro tip: If a pain point only comes from one customer (and it’s not a big account), don’t let it drive your roadmap.
Step 5: Share insights with your team—without drowning them
A common trap: mapping pain points, then letting them rot in a spreadsheet. Here’s how to avoid that:
- Use Cuvama’s summary views.
- Export or share pain point reports with product, sales, or exec teams.
- Keep it short.
- Highlight the top 3-5 pains and the outcomes customers want. No one reads a 10-page doc.
- Make it actionable.
- For each pain point, suggest next steps: “Can we address this in the next release?” “Do we need a better help doc?”
- Review regularly.
- Set a monthly or quarterly check-in to update and revisit pain mapping. Don’t let it gather dust.
What works: Bite-sized, visual summaries. People pay attention to a chart, not a wall of text.
What doesn’t: Sending giant decks or expecting everyone to log into Cuvama every week.
Step 6: Turn pain mapping into real action
Don’t stop at mapping—use what you’ve learned:
- Feed pain points into product planning.
- If a pain comes up across customers, it’s a good candidate for your roadmap.
- Update sales and CS playbooks.
- Give reps the actual pain language customers use. It’s more convincing than generic benefit statements.
- Track if pains are being addressed.
- Use Cuvama’s follow-up features or your own system to check if you’re moving the needle.
Warning: If you don’t act on mapped pains, customers will notice. This isn’t a one-time exercise.
What to skip (or at least avoid overdoing)
- Don’t turn pain mapping into a bureaucracy. If it starts feeling like a chore, scale back.
- Skip fancy scoring unless you really need it. Most teams get more value from a simple “high/med/low” impact rating.
- Don’t expect Cuvama (or any tool) to solve a lack of customer conversations. The tool helps, but you still have to pick up the phone.
Keep it simple, keep it real
Mapping customer pain points isn’t rocket science—but it does take a bit of discipline. Cuvama gives you a structure, but the real work is listening and acting. Start small, iterate, and don’t get hung up on making it perfect. The goal: understand what’s blocking your customers and do something about it.
If you’re stuck, ignore the bells and whistles and focus on the basics. Your customers (and your sanity) will thank you.