Reserve Account
Ensures small and medium-sized businesses could process refunds during low cash periods by reserving funds upfront, increasing refund success rates by 13%.
Role
Product Designer
Researcher
Responsibilities
Discovery Research
UX/UI Design
Usability Test
Design System
Team
1 Product Owner
3 Developers
Timeline
6 Weeks, 2023
APay is a fintech company. Using its merchant app, merchants can:
When refunds exceed the business's account balance, transactions enter a 'pending' state. Businesses often delay adding funds, ultimately leading to failed refunds and an average success rate of only 84%—well below industry standards. This hurts their reputation and reduces APay’s merchant satisfaction and retention.
Refund failures were primarily caused by delays in adding funds, mainly due to cash shortages and inefficient processes. Since cash shortages were the leading issue, the cross-functional team prioritized designing a solution that enabled refunds even during cash shortages, tackling the highest-impact problem first.
Businesses can digitally add money to the Reserve Account to maintain a refund buffer. This ensures seamless refunds without disrupting daily cash flow.
Reserve Account
Access from the homepage. Educational content helps merchants onboard to this new feature
Digital Funding Process
Add money to the Reserve Account in just a few clicks on a single page
Auto-refill
Once auto-refill is set up, it automatically tops up the Reserve Account from a linked bank account when the balance drops below the required amount
Timely Alerts
SMS alerts keep merchants instantly updated, even offline, with a direct action link for quick and effortless responses
+13%
Refund success rate
Low cash and an inefficient funding process caused delays in adding funds
Refund failures were primarily caused by delays in adding funds. To identify the root causes of these delays, I consulted the customer service team, who interact closely with users, as direct user interviews were not feasible due to time constraints. I found 2 key causes of delays, with low cash flow being the most common among our users.
Merchants lack funds to top up their balance during slow sales periods
The process heavily relies on manual effort, slowing down transactions
After analyzing 5 global competitors, I proposed 3 solutions and evaluated them with our cross-functional team. We selected the 'Reserve Account' and refined it to hold a minimum amount of business funds upfront, addressing the critical issues of cash shortages and minimizing the impact on business liquidity. We then paired it with 2 digital funding options.
Merchants are busy and need an easy way to resume the add-money process if interrupted. Usability tests showed that the single-page design enabled faster recovery and required less development effort by using an existing design pattern. Given these benefits and our tight timeline, I persuaded the product owner to adopt a consolidated single-page approach for the add-money flow.
A clear and appealing entry point is key to auto-refill adoption. I began by analyzing indirect competitors with similar experiences for inspiration. They combine 'setup' and 'editing' under a single 'Add Funds' button caused confusion, especially for merchants updating existing settings.
To enhance clarity, I proposed separate entry points for initial setup and subsequent adjustments.
For scenarios not addressed by flow optimization, I introduced alerts. Developing a 5-step mapping process, I identified 20 potential alerts across 2 tasks, 3 states, 2 communication methods, and 2 urgency levels.
5-step alert mapping process
Detailed design specs for on-time launch
To deliver high-quality designs on time, I anticipated challenges and provided detailed specs (flows, wireframes, assets, copy, scenarios). Also, I synced daily with engineers to ensure accurate implementation.
Design specifications + content for alerts
Designing with the Big Picture in mind
In a fast-paced project environment, I realized the crucial role of holistic design thinking. It required me to anticipate user needs across environments, evaluate the long-term effects of our solutions on both users and the business, and identify potential challenges our team might face during implementation. Being preparing for these challenges in advance was key to improving the quality, effectiveness of our design and its implementation.
