Picking a side when designing a B2B2C SaaS product

Who matters more — the consumer that uses your product, or the business that pays for it?

When building a B2B2C SaaS product, you may find yourself having to choose between the interests of the corporate clients that pay your bills and the consumers who end up actually interacting with your product. In a perfect world, the goals and objectives of client and customer are in synchrony and such a choice will be unnecessary. But our world is far from perfect.

But first, let’s clarify…

… exactly what is B2B2C SaaS?

The B2B2C SaaS model has one company (a software vendor), providing a SaaS product to another company (the client), who in turn exposes this software to its client base (the consumer). This model is prevalent in fields such as customer service, with flagship examples such as Zendesk, Intercom, Salesforce, HR & recruitment applications, such as Workday, Greenhouse, Workable, etc., and in ecommerce providers like Shopify.

What are the goals of client and consumer, and why are they different?

When looking at the customer service example, we can intuitively guess that the goals of both groups are in line — to solve the customer’s problem. However, with products such as knowledge bases, whose role is to educate and inform, and in doing so prevent customer support interactions further down the line, the lines are blurred. For the client, the objective of such a tool is to slowly become a substitute for the more costly direct service interactions — calls, chats and emails. From the perspective of the consumer, however, the goal remains unchanged: there is still a problem that needs resolving.

The dichotomy between what the client and the consumer want is even clearer in the example of recruitment and application tracking SaaS software. For job seekers, the goal is to input information easily, to seamlessly attach relevant documents, and to stand out from other applicants. For recruiters, the goal is very different — they want to create standard questionnaires, set limits on attachment file sizes, and to see all candidates on an even footing.

And in the example of ecommerce providers, the goals of the business and consumer are diametrically opposing. Consumers want to buy at the lowest price point, while businesses seek to maximize profit.

What is your role and what can you do about it?

As a product designer, your loyalties are split. On one hand, you want to keep internal stakeholders and clients happy by prioritizing their goals. On the other hand, UX best practices remind us to always put the user first.

The best way to avoid catastrophe, I have found, is to side with the consumer. At first glance, it is counter-intuitive — one would think that there is some middle-ground, a fine line that can be walked. There isn’t.

Every feature or functionality request that prioritizes the interest of the business at the expense of the consumer will end up hurting the business in the long term.

As a product designer, this should be your guiding principle. It is your responsibility to preach this mantra to product owners and managers, to your sales and account management team, to client stakeholders. Aim to reach a common understanding that the value chain of the B2B2C SaaS product begins and ends with the consumer and designing the product to meet their goals will generate value for the business.

Good luck, and keep the user flag flying high!