Pool Corporation's merchants were spending 12 minutes to complete a single payment. Customer support was overwhelmed. The company was losing money. And everyone thought they knew what the problem was: a clunky checkout flow.

THE PROBLEM

Merchants Were Flying Blind

The existing payment system was built 15 years ago. It worked, technically. But merchants hated it:

12 minutes to complete a single payment
No visibility into account balance or what they owed
Confusing 8-step checkout process
Support overwhelmed with "Why do I owe this?" questions

The old system: Merchants had to navigate multiple screens with zero context about their balance

Everyone assumed the problem was the checkout flow. They were wrong.

WHAT I DISCOVERED

I interviewed 15 merchants and watched them use the system. The real problem? Zero balance visibility.

"I just want to see what I owe before I pay it. Is that so hard?"

— Pool supply business owner, Houston TX

Merchants didn't hate checkout. They hated making financial decisions blind.

The Solution

Dashboard first, checkout second. Give merchants full visibility, then make paying easy.

New dashboard: Balance, transactions, and what's due, all at a glance
The old system: Merchants had to navigate multiple screens with zero context about their balance

Instant Visibility

See invoices and outstanding balance immediately

3-Step Process

Select → Review → Done

Payment Center in Portal

Simpliefied User Flow

Field Ready

Pay from job sites

HOW I GOT THERE

Research

15 user interviews, analytics review, 6 months of support tickets

Design

Wireframes → Prototypes → Usability testing (3 rounds, 68 participants)

Build

Worked daily with 2 engineers, shipped in 4 months despite messy legacy data

Launch

Beta with 50 merchants, iterated based on feedback, rolled out to 100K users

How we saved Pool Corp $1.2M by Listening to Users