ProjectsRethinking B2B payments for Italian SMEs
Imagining a new service experience to offer a BNPL solution to companies.
What are the needs, blockers, and opportunities for implementing a service for the B2B market that would allow businesses to spread the cost of the goods they buy?
We mapped the service to understand its interconnections and dependencies while conducting in-depth interviews with potential service users to understand their business payment processes and needs.
We developed a an experience playbook, containing all the information required to deliver the target journey to merchants and buyers, together with detailed specs for the enabling touchpoints to refine or create.
The idea of Opyn Pay Later is to allow SMEs (small to medium enterprises) to make B2B digital installment payments.
It is meant to facilitate businesses' cash flow by allowing them to spread the cost of their expenses for a specified time frame. By October 2022 the team developed an initial service model and a prototype for the key payment flow. Oblo was then asked to test the prototype and the service model, as well as develop insights that could inform their service strategy.
The first track of the process is aimed at mapping a service blueprint and its current development and dependencies. The second track was the recruitment of research participants that were equally distributed between buyers and sellers and had different business types, sizes, and maturity stages. The interviews were key moments to identify the various types of business behaviors and their needs concerning payments and purchases. After the interview sessions, we analysed all findings and defined specific requirements for the product refinement's UX and service strategy. At the end of the process, a final survey was conducted with a wider audience to gather quantitative data and validate the initial insights.
The research findings informed the UX design and service strategy. The UX feedback has been directly integrated to improve the product during its development, while the research insights regarding the payment approaches and methods were used to develop the broader service strategy. The experience guidelines playbook that we handed over to the client collects all the important information in one place: who we are designing for, what experience principles should guide every design decision, what is the target journey and what touchpoints could be designed or improved to deliver a satisfying experience, and finally what roadmap is guiding the development of the solution, combining user and company priorities.
