How can you ensure paying customers don't worsen the new user experience?

"But how is a new user supposed to use this?"

"A network map that only supports a defunct format. An import spreadsheet function for 500 items that seems impossible for new users to figure out. The problem is that this request would come from a paying customer with specific, customized needs."

"This is one of the biggest challenges in B2B Design: How do you balance designing for new users and paying customers, when their needs are fundamentally different? How do you push back when the business is motivated to keep paying customers happy?"

"Businesses need tangible outcomes, not just ideas. That statement from a design leader changed how I viewed this problem. I used to view this as..."

B2B design frequently confronts a trade-off between accommodating long-standing paying customers and creating intuitive, discoverable experiences for new users. Paying customers often require legacy-format support or complex import tools tailored to their workflows, which can introduce complexity that hinders onboarding. Businesses focus on tangible outcomes and retention, which drives prioritization of customer-specific requests. Designers can protect onboarding by proposing configurable or modular features, offering managed services for legacy clients, using data to quantify maintenance and usability costs, and aligning product decisions with measurable impacts on acquisition, retention, and operational efficiency.

Read at Medium