Partners Platform
Redesigning a B2B partner platform end-to-end — from a KAM-dependent dashboard to a self-serve experience that cut onboarding drop-off by 40%.
Year
2022
Type
B2B web App
Timeframe
8-10 Weeks
Problem & Context
PayU's partner programme — developers, resellers, and enterprise platforms who refer merchants and earn incentives — was a strong growth channel on paper: 300 active partners, 350,000 referred merchants,
40 billion in transaction volume. In reality, the platform was failing everyone involved.
The business problem:
40% of partners dropped off during merchant onboarding — direct revenue loss
Every step that should have been self-serve required a KAM (Key Account Manager) call
Business was absorbing the cost in support time and lost conversions
60+ pain points across 7 journey stages, documented but unaddressed
No transparent timelines — KYC verification showed "TBD" instead of actual days
Incentive calculations were a black box — partners couldn't verify their own earnings
/01
Research & Discovery
The brief said "redesign the platform." I resisted the brief — a redesign brief almost always hides a more specific problem. Before opening Figma, I needed to know what redesign actually meant here.
Methods:
14 in-depth user interviews across 5 partner groups — deliberately including partners who quit
Groups: active resellers, new resellers, stuck resellers (abandoned midway), enterprise platform partners, internal sales stakeholders
Gap analysis — mapping user needs at each journey stage vs what the platform offered
Support ticket + KAM call log analysis — what were partners actually calling about
Journey mapping across all 7 stages from signup to incentive payout
View Atrifacts
/02
In Their Own Words
10 end users and 4 internal stakeholders interviewed across developer, reseller and enterprise personas. These moments defined what the redesign had to solve.
/03
Key Insights
The stuck resellers gave the most useful data:
Recruiting people who quit — not just people succeeding — revealed the real failure points. Their abandonment reasons were structural, not cosmetic.
It was never about the UI:
No transparent timelines, black-box incentives, forced KAM dependency at every step. The platform structurally didn't support self-serve at any stage.
The navigation reflected PayU's org chart, not partner jobs:
11 nav items ordered by PayU's internal product structure. A reseller thinks: add a merchant, check if they're live, see what I've earned. The IA fought them at every step.
KAM calls were a symptom, not a preference:
Partners didn't want to call KAMs. They called because the dashboard gave them no other path. Every call was a self-serve failure logged as a support interaction.
/04
Design Approach &
Principles
The strategic shift: restructure the platform around partner jobs-to-be-done, not PayU's product taxonomy — and make every journey stage self-serve by default, with KAM escalation as the exception.
Principles:
Task-based IA — navigation follows what partners do, not what PayU sells
Radical transparency — every process shows real timelines, every incentive shows its math
Self-serve first — KAM contact is an escalation path, never a requirement
Progressive onboarding — partners see value before completing full KYC
Status visibility — partners always know where every merchant is in the pipeline
/05
Ideation & Exploration
Before wireframing a single screen, I restructured the information architecture. Five primary sections
replaced eleven — organized around the partner's job-to-be-done.
/06
Design Decisions
Restructured IA from 11 product-based items to 5 task-based sections
What: Navigation reorganized around partner jobs: Add Merchants, Track Status, Earnings, Resources, Account.
Why: Research showed partners think in tasks, not PayU's product categories. This single structural change reduced time-to-first-action across every flow measured.
/07
Final Designs
The complete Partner Journey
From discovery to first incentive — 4 key stages, each redesigned to remove human dependency from the critical path.
/08
Outcomes & Impact
Drop-off reduction
40%
Faster onboarding
3x
KAM call volume
-55%
CSAT Improvement
+61%
Onboarding drop-off reduced by 40% — directly recovering lost activations
Onboarding completion 3x faster with self-serve flows and inline validation
KAM call volume significantly reduced — calls shifted from routine status checks to genuine escalations
Task-based IA adopted as the pattern for other PayU B2B products
Incentive transparency eliminated the #2 support call category entirely
/09
Reflections
What worked:
Resisting the "redesign" brief and finding the structural problem first — the IA restructure did more than any visual change
Recruiting stuck/churned partners for research — their data was the most actionable
Fixing trust (timelines, incentive math) before fixing aesthetics
What I'd do differently:
Involve KAMs earlier — they initially saw self-serve as a threat to their role; earlier alignment would have smoothed rollout
Instrument the funnel before redesign started — baseline data took weeks to reconstruct
Phase the IA change more gradually — existing partners needed more migration support than anticipated
/10
In Their Own Words
10 end users and 4 internal stakeholders interviewed across developer, reseller and enterprise personas. These moments defined what the redesign had to solve.
/03
Key Insights
/04
The stuck resellers gave the most useful data:
Recruiting people who quit — not just people succeeding — revealed the real failure points. Their abandonment reasons were structural, not cosmetic.
It was never about the UI:
No transparent timelines, black-box incentives, forced KAM dependency at every step. The platform structurally didn't support self-serve at any stage.
The navigation reflected PayU's org chart, not partner jobs:
11 nav items ordered by PayU's internal product structure. A reseller thinks: add a merchant, check if they're live, see what I've earned. The IA fought them at every step.
KAM calls were a symptom, not a preference:
Partners didn't want to call KAMs. They called because the dashboard gave them no other path. Every call was a self-serve failure logged as a support interaction.
Email:
hello@sagarkumar.site
Phone:
+91 70668 72321
I work with brands to define who they are, design how they show up, and create experiences that matter. Less noise, more intention.
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service
Design Approach & Principles
/05
The strategic shift: restructure the platform around partner jobs-to-be-done, not PayU's product taxonomy — and make every journey stage self-serve by default, with KAM escalation as the exception.
Principles:
Task-based IA — navigation follows what partners do, not what PayU sells
Radical transparency — every process shows real timelines, every incentive shows its math
Self-serve first — KAM contact is an escalation path, never a requirement
Progressive onboarding — partners see value before completing full KYC
Status visibility — partners always know where every merchant is in the pipeline
Ideation & Exploration
/06
Before wireframing a single screen, I restructured the information architecture. Five primary sectionsreplaced eleven — organized around the partner's job-to-be-done.
Make the full partner journey self-serve
From discovery to first incentive, every step completable on the dashboard — no KAM email, no offline form, no waiting.
Design for all 3 partner types
One platform, three journeys. Developer, reseller and enterprise partners each have distinct needs — the dashboard must serve all without compromise.
Build real-time incentive transparency
Daily breakdowns, pending amounts and claim status visible on the dashboard — eliminating the trust gap that was driving partners to competitors.
Design Decisions
/07
Restructured IA from 11 product-based items to 5 task-based sections
What: Navigation reorganized around partner jobs: Add Merchants, Track Status, Earnings, Resources, Account.
Why: Research showed partners think in tasks, not PayU's product categories. This single structural change reduced time-to-first-action across every flow measured.
Final Designs
/07
The complete Partner Journey
From discovery to first incentive — 4 key stages, each redesigned to remove human dependency from the critical path.
PARTNERS PLATFORM
Redesigning a B2B partner platform end-to-end — from a KAM-dependent dashboard to a self-serve experience that cut onboarding drop-off by 40%.
Year
2022
Type
B2B web App
Timeframe
8-10 Weeks
Problem & Context
/01
PayU's partner programme — developers, resellers, and enterprise platforms who refer merchants and earn incentives — was a strong growth channel on paper: 300 active partners, 350,000 referred merchants,
40 billion in transaction volume. In reality, the platform was failing everyone involved.
The business problem:
40% of partners dropped off during merchant onboarding — direct revenue loss
Every step that should have been self-serve required a KAM (Key Account Manager) call
Business was absorbing the cost in support time and lost conversions
60+ pain points across 7 journey stages, documented but unaddressed
No transparent timelines — KYC verification showed "TBD" instead of actual days
Incentive calculations were a black box — partners couldn't verify their own earnings
Research & Discovery
Methods:
14 in-depth user interviews across 5 partner groups — deliberately including partners who quit
Groups: active resellers, new resellers, stuck resellers (abandoned midway), enterprise platform partners, internal sales stakeholders
Gap analysis — mapping user needs at each journey stage vs what the platform offered
Support ticket + KAM call log analysis — what were partners actually calling about
Journey mapping across all 7 stages from signup to incentive payout
/02
Outcomes & Impact
/08
Drop-off reduction
40%
Faster onboarding
3x
KAM call volume
-55%
CSAT Improvement
+61%
Onboarding drop-off reduced by 40% — directly recovering lost activations
Onboarding completion 3x faster with self-serve flows and inline validation
KAM call volume significantly reduced — calls shifted from routine status checks to genuine escalations
Task-based IA adopted as the pattern for other PayU B2B products
Incentive transparency eliminated the #2 support call category entirely
Reflections
/09
What I'd do differently:
Involve KAMs earlier — they initially saw self-serve as a threat to their role; earlier alignment would have smoothed rollout
Instrument the funnel before redesign started — baseline data took weeks to reconstruct
Phase the IA change more gradually — existing partners needed more migration support than anticipated
What worked:
Resisting the "redesign" brief and finding the structural problem first — the IA restructure did more than any visual change
Recruiting stuck/churned partners for research — their data was the most actionable
Fixing trust (timelines, incentive math) before fixing aesthetics
Email:
hello@sagarkumar.site
Phone:
+91 70668 72321
I work with brands to define who they are, design how they show up, and create experiences that matter. Less noise, more intention.
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service