What is UX Strategy anyway?

When I talk to payment leaders, there’s often confusion about what UX (user experience) really means. Some think it’s just about “pretty screens” or fixing one or two pain points. Others see it as a one-time effort, something to “check off” after a redesign.

This misaligned view of UX is partly due to the failure of design leaders to articulate the impact of design on business. I would argue that this is a leading cause for design's lack of solid representation at the executive level, whether it's a lack of business acumen or a fear of "getting too corporate", or some other reason.

All of the creative work that we do as designers is important and not all of it can be quantified or given immediate business value to. However, we must be responsible and proactive in the evolution of our role, because it's so vital to business success. This evolution means understanding the impact of design and UX on business metrics and showing that it's so much more than a "nice to have".

UX is the sum of every interaction users have with your product, service, and brand—interactions that directly impact their trust, efficiency, and willingness to stick around.

At its best, UX strategy is a plan that balances user needs with business goals to create a seamless experience that works, grows, and evolves. In B2B payments, a great UX strategy can mean the difference between winning long-term customers and losing them to consistent frustration.

Let’s dive into what why UX is vital in B2B payments, and how ignoring it (or getting it wrong) creates problems that ripple across your entire business.

Creating a Good UX Strategy

To build an effective UX strategy, let’s start by clarifying what “strategy” actually means. A good strategy typically includes these 3 core elements:

1. An objective: A clearly defined goal that addresses a significant challenge.
2. A guiding policy: A set of principles or rules that steer decisions toward the objective.
3. Coordinated actions: A series of interconnected steps to implement the guiding policy and achieve the objective.

With this definition in mind, let’s break down how B2B payment leaders can create a UX strategy that ties directly to their business objectives.

Step 1: Set a Clear Objective

Start by identifying a business challenge or opportunity. In B2B payments, this could be:

• Reducing churn among mid-market clients.
• Improving operational efficiency by reducing manual workflows.
• Capturing market share in a new region.

For example, if your objective is to reduce churn, the UX strategy might focus on making critical workflows—like payment reconciliation or dispute resolution—more intuitive and efficient for users.

Step 2: Establish a Guiding Policy

A guiding policy outlines how you’ll address the objective. It’s a high-level approach, not a detailed plan, that sets the direction for your UX efforts.

Example: For reducing churn, the guiding policy could be to “eliminate friction in recurring user interactions.”

This could mean prioritizing usability improvements in core features like transaction tracking or automated invoicing while deprioritizing less impactful initiatives, such as redesigning marketing pages.

Step 3: Execute Coordinated Actions

Once the guiding policy is in place, implement a coordinated set of actions to bring the strategy to life. Here’s how this might play out in various B2B payment scenarios:

Scenario 1: Streamlining Invoice Reconciliation

Objective: Reduce manual intervention in invoice reconciliation.
Guiding Policy: Create tools that enhance clarity and offer flexibility for exceptions.
Actions:

• Implement intelligent automation that flags partial matches with clear reasons (e.g., discrepancies in amounts or missing details).
• Add override options so users can manually resolve issues without feeling restricted.
• Provide visual reports showing reconciliation accuracy over time, so finance teams can track improvements.

Scenario 2: Scaling in a New Market

Objective: Increase adoption among SMBs in Southeast Asia.
Guiding Policy: Build trust through localized user experiences.
Actions:

• Research cultural preferences and pain points specific to the target region.
• Localize payment flows, such as offering relevant payment methods (e.g., GCash in the Philippines).
• Add multi-language support, ensuring critical details like fees and terms are clearly communicated in users’ native languages.

Scenario 3: Improving Cross-Border Payment Transparency

Objective: Reduce customer support inquiries about cross-border transactions.
Guiding Policy: Deliver proactive transparency in fees and delivery times.
Actions:

• Redesign payment workflows to include real-time fee breakdowns and estimated delivery times before the user confirms a transaction.
• Integrate notifications that update users on the status of their payments at every stage.
• Conduct usability tests to ensure users understand the information being presented without confusion.

Why Is UX Important in B2B Payments?

1. Expectations Are Rising

Your users are comparing you not just to competitors but to the consumer experiences they use every day. When they can track a pizza delivery to their doorstep in real-time, they expect the same visibility for a $50,000 cross-border payment.

2. Friction Costs Money

A single clunky step—like requiring users to re-enter data unnecessarily—can increase drop-off rates or delay payments. Research shows that companies with strong UX practices see a 33% reduction in operational costs.

3. Trust Is Everything

If your platform feels unreliable or confusing, users will hesitate to trust you with their money. A well-designed experience communicates competence and reliability at every turn.

The Automation Conversation: Not a Silver Bullet

Automation is one of the hottest buzzwords in payments. And for good reason—done right, automation can reduce errors, save time, and streamline operations. But here’s the catch: automation isn’t a one-and-done fix. Without a user-centric lens, it can create more complexity than simplicity.

Consider these scenarios:

Invoice Matching

A company uses automation to reconcile invoices, matching line items against payments. But because the automation wasn’t designed with the end user in mind, it fails to flag partial matches or unclear descriptions, forcing users to manually review mismatches. The result? More work, not less.

Approval Workflows

An automated system sends approval requests to managers based on predefined rules. But if those rules don’t account for real-world nuances—like temporary delegations during vacations—the system creates bottlenecks instead of speeding up decisions.

Cross-Border Payments

Automation helps calculate exchange rates and delivery times. But when users can’t override automated choices to account for unique business needs, they’re left feeling powerless.

The takeaway? Automation is powerful, but it must be flexible, evolve with user needs, and center the user experience. Otherwise, it risks adding dysfunction instead of harmony.

Understanding UX Debt

Let’s talk about UX debt. If you’ve ever worked in payments, you’ve seen it—those clunky processes or outdated features that seem “too expensive” to fix right now. But over time, they pile up, causing inefficiencies, user frustration, and higher costs.

Here’s an example:

A payment platform that initially prioritizes feature-rich offerings over user-friendly design. At launch, the platform boasts a wide array of capabilities, but users quickly find themselves overwhelmed by a confusing interface and convoluted navigation.

As a result, they begin submitting frequent support tickets to address their frustrations.

Instead of investing in a comprehensive redesign, the company opts for quick fixes—adding tooltips here, tweaking menu layouts there.

While these patches might offer temporary relief, they ultimately create an inconsistent user experience that complicates navigation further.

Over time, developers find themselves spending more resources fixing bugs and addressing user complaints than innovating or adding new features.

This reactive approach not only frustrates users but also leads to increased customer churn as frustrated clients seek more intuitive alternatives.

This is UX debt in action—short-term savings that lead to long-term pains for both users and the organization.

Why Now? Why Invest in UX Strategy?

The time to act is now. Here’s why:

• Competitive Pressure: Fintechs and digital-native solutions are entering the market every day. They can easily take market share away from you with a better user experience. Don’t get left behind.
• Business Impact: A McKinsey study found that companies with strong design practices grow revenues at nearly twice the rate of their industry counterparts. Beyond this, a better user experience leads to lower churn, higher CLV, and greater lower CAC.
• Nimble and Innovative Companies: A user-centric culture enables you to quickly discover areas to create value-added services and products for your audience. This ability to build on top of existing products or services gives you an edge, especially when those new additions are just as or more user-friendly than existing offerings.

Why WDIR?

At WDIR, we solve B2B payment problems through UX optimization. We understand the nuances of B2B payments, from the CFO’s approval workflows to the supplier’s need for payment visibility.

Unlike generalist firms, we specialize in tying UX to measurable business outcomes: lower churn, higher adoption, and greater efficiency. We've worked with leading financial institutions and innovative fintechs globally to create seamless, intuitive, and secure B2B payment experiences.

If you’re ready to make UX your competitive advantage, we’d love to help. Get in touch today!