Business-to-business (B2B) products and services can be the most interesting projects to be part of as a UX researcher. Unlike in business-to-consumer (B2C) industries, UX maturity and general technology adoption remain incredibly low, meaning we often have much more opportunity to make an impact. Itâs not uncommon to find software that looks like it has not changed since the 1990s, and thatâs probably because it hasnât. However, some of those products receive hugely positive feedback from users. In the B2B world, aesthetics take a back seat to efficiency and effectiveness.
If youâre familiar with conducting B2C research and want to learn more about how B2B research differs, then youâre in the right place. With the help of some seasoned pros, weâve rounded up top tips for leveling up your B2B UX research.
Knowing where to start and who you should talk to in B2B research can be a challenge. Often the subject is so far removed from anything you experience in your personal life that it can be daunting. Your naivety of the subject area is often a strength because you donât have any pre-existing biases. However, you do need to learn the basics fast to be able to speak the language of your participants and uncover deep insights.
âDo as much background research on the subject matter as possible before conducting any primary research.Â
âI was researching software used in the construction of roads, something I know nothing about. After a bit of YouTubing, I found a company that conducts roadwork and produces weekly behind-the-scenes videos for half a million followers. I learned all about the different grades of aggregate, concrete mixing, machinery and some of the challenges of the industry. When my first participant interview came around, I could already speak the industry language and skip all the entry-level questions to get into the details.
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B2B products exist to solve business problems. In the B2C world, weâre interested in individuals' needs, but in B2B, there is so much more to discover. The jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) framework, which involves âhiringâ a product to solve a problem, is a great way to think about this. B2B products aim to shift key performance indicators (KPIs) that businesses use to measure success or progress. Examples include increasing revenue, reducing costs, and improving efficiency.Â
To successfully influence B2B products, itâs imperative that we build a strong understanding of the business context.
B2B products are not measured by their ability to surprise and delight in the same way that B2C products are. Instead, they are measured by their ability to deliver commercial outcomes. User satisfaction is often still an important metric (because it impacts employee satisfaction and churn) but is generally overshadowed by efficiency and effectiveness metrics.
âEmbrace your inner toddler and keep asking participants âwhyâ until you reach a commercial objective.
âI was working with a fraud team to understand the tooling they use to investigate insurance fraud. We all know that fraud is bad, but have you ever stopped to consider its actual commercial impact on a companyâs bottom line?
Hereâs a summary of the interview transcript:
After asking âwhyâ five times, I finally arrived at the commercial reason why investing in fraud prevention is so important. Ultimately, it influences the price the organisation sells its product. If it can better prevent fraud, it can be more competitive in price. Fraud investigators arenât hired to stop fraud; theyâre hired to keep pricing competitive.
When youâre new to an industry, itâs very easy to feel like youâre asking silly questions with obvious answers (like why fraud is bad). However, you have to master the simple questions to gain commercial context and understand the business problems that need solving.
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With B2C products, the user is generally also the customer, the decision-maker, and the purchaser. In the B2B world, they will most likely be different people. In enterprise products, the end user may have no idea who or how the product theyâre using was purchased. Meanwhile, the executives purchasing a product might have no idea who will ultimately be using it.
As B2B UX researchers, weâre uniquely positioned to transform entire business operations. Connecting executives who make product decisions with the people who use the products to run the business day-to-day is something few disciplines have the power to.
B2B products have many different users, so itâs not uncommon for your research to uncover new users as you start exploring. Start with the people you know the most about, and be on the lookout for unknown users.Â
âWorking up through an organisational hierarchy can be a great strategy for determining your users. Start with the most frequent users and then talk with their managers and then their managers. Youâll reach a level where the participants donât use the product daily but do have needs for it. For instance, a team leader needs to understand productivity rates to forecast work demand.
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âI was working on software used in an administration centre. One aspect of the product produced letters with a button to print the letter. When I asked the participant what happened when they pressed the print button, they said, âit prints the letter, obviouslyâ. I asked where the letter physically came out, but they didnât know.
I walked the building and ended up in a mail room in the basement. I asked if they could show me where the letter I just saw being produced came out. The lady opens up the software product Iâm researching and starts managing a print queue, assigning printers and running the print job. When I presented the results to the product owner, they had no clue their product could be used to manage print queues or print jobs. At first, they didnât believe me.
The printing aspect of the product hadnât been touched in 20 years, and unsurprisingly, we identified significant opportunities for improving that aspect of the product.
Businesses work in cycles that vary in length depending on their objectives. Some processes might repeat each day, others monthly, quarterly, annually, or another interval. Conducting research at the right time and over the right period is critical to gathering accurate insight.Â
Ask participants if how theyâre using the product when youâre conducting the research is typical and encourage them to share how usage, needs, and behaviours change at different times.Â
âI was working with a team that manages the insurance process for people buying classic cars. The project was running in October, which in the UK is not a very popular time for buying classic cars because itâs cold and raining. Volumes were low, and although the process and tooling was a bit clunky, the team managed well and hit their targets.
I asked one participant why they thought the company wanted to change the system because it appeared to work okay. They said, âbecause youâre here in the low season. Come back in June; itâs completely different.â Neither I nor the product team had considered that their product was seasonal. We all agreed trying to understand the issues that arise in high season during the low season wasnât a very sensible approach, and we rescheduled the research.Â
Businesses are complex beasts that often scale organically and donât always have a logical structure. The same is true for B2B software. Products are regularly built or purchased to fix a single problem (a point solution), and then features are added and added until multiple products seemingly do many different things (platform solutions). Participants you talk to will do the same things in completely different ways. They often use different products or solutions even when they all work in the same department and achieve the same outcome.
As a B2B researcher, you can easily find yourself with your head in your hands, having no idea how to make sense of this giant mess that youâre slowly uncovering.
Focusing on a single product in B2B environments will limit the value of the insights you collect and the value that can be added for the product team. Instead, focus on the process that the business is doing, why theyâre doing it, and how it can be improved.
âTry mapping your research results in a service design blueprint. This will illustrate how the people, processes, technology, and other artefacts connect to achieve an outcome. A service design blueprint can also be beneficial when planning research. It visually shows gaps in knowledge and illustrates processes that donât connect, telling you something is missing.
âI was working with a billing team to understand how the company charges their customers. In B2C, itâs very simple. In B2B, this is a process that can take months and include several departments and technical systems. I interviewed people who worked in billing and started mapping the process out in a service design blueprint. When I was interviewing, the process made sense and joined up. Only when I started drawing it out did I start to uncover gaps.
For instance, I noticed that after a customer made a payment, participants told me it was assigned to their account. But I was missing how that happened. In my next interview, I asked about linking payments to customer accounts, and the response was that I needed to talk to a different department. No one had previously mentioned this other departmentâI had no idea they existed. They used a different product and technical system, so it never came up. The process was incredibly manual and prone to errors, identifying a big opportunity for the product I was working on to deliver value.
If I hadnât used the service design blueprint, that entire process could have been missed entirely, limiting the improvements that would be made to the product.
Recruiting participants for B2B research can often be one of the most challenging aspects of the entire project. Finding the right people and incentivising them to talk to you shouldn't be underestimated.Â
However, not all B2B projects have complicated recruits. If youâre looking for people who do fairly generic jobs in common industries, then your typical recruitment panel will often make recruitment a breeze.
For example, Great Question makes it easy to invite your own users to participate in research. Securely import user data via CSV or through integrations with Salesforce, Snowflake, and Zapier. Looking for non-users? You can also tap into Respondent's panel of 3M+ verified B2B and B2C participants, right in Great Question. You can learn more and start for free here.
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There is no magic solution to all problems in B2B recruitment. When writing this article, every researcher I talked to shared their pain and frustrations regarding participant recruitment. However much you might be struggling, take comfort that you are not alone.
Related read: How to recruit the right research participants (almost) every time
Earlier, we discussed how important it was to build an understanding of the commercial context. Thatâs not just to understand the context of the product youâre researching. Itâs also a powerful framing tool for sharing the benefits of the research insights.
One of the biggest frustrations for researchers is that insights can be seemingly ignored. Understanding the commercial context and presenting insights through that lens is the most effective way to achieve impact from the research.Â
âDonât try to calculate commercial benefits on your own. Collaborate with business and finance colleagues to give you a clear view of the benefits of the insights coming from the research.
âI worked on a project to reduce calls to a contact centre. The research identified many ways to offer self-service solutions to avoid calls. We found the average cost of someone working in a call centre and the average number of calls they take each day, and did some simple math to calculate the potential savings.
We excitedly presented this to our stakeholder team, but we left that meeting very red-faced. The finance team looked at our calculations and instantly reeled off a list of costs we hadnât considered. Tax, pensions, holidays, sick cover, the list went on and on. The great work weâd done was shadowed by us trying to illustrate value in a context we truly didnât understand.
I learned my lesson that day: always collaborate with finance teams to calculate cost savings. In the same way weâd not want them designing a journey, they donât want us trying to calculate cost benefits.Â
B2B research is such an exciting space to work in. Youâll learn about industries, companies, and job roles that you never knew existed. There are many challenges to overcome, ranging from establishing who your users are, mapping out complex ecosystems that make little logical sense, and calculating commercial benefits. B2B research is a fantastic opportunity to really push yourself to develop as a researcher. I absolutely love it! đ
Jack Holmes is an independent UX researcher and designer from Bristol, UK. For 10 years he's supported the biggest corporations and tiniest startups to understand people and build better products. He's chaired several UXPA International conferences and enjoys sharing insights and stories at events around the world.
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