User Experience for B2B Platforms

What if your biggest competitive advantage is hiding in plain sight in your competitors' customer complaints? While most B2B executives chase the latest growth tactics, strategic leaders are systematically mining competitor trust gaps to win enterprise deals. In today's procurement environment, trust isn't just a vendor evaluation criterion—it's become the decisive factor in contract decisions worth millions. The reality of enterprise buying is stark: procurement teams have stopped believing vendor promises. They demand transparency in pricing models, proof of service delivery capabilities, and verification of product claims. Most vendors fake this transparency with polished sales decks and case study theater. The winners convert their competitors' credibility deficits into contract wins. Here's how B2B growth leaders are operationalizing trust to capture enterprise market share: Audit Competitor Credibility Gaps. Deploy systematic analysis of competitor RFP losses, customer churn patterns, and service delivery failures. Every trust breakdown in their client base represents a qualified prospect for your pipeline. Engineer transparency into your sales process. Move beyond vendor presentations. Provide independent verification of ROI claims. Offer transparent pricing with no hidden implementation costs. Make radical honesty your competitive differentiation in the procurement process. Align revenue operations around building trust. Tie sales comp, customer success KPIs, and product delivery SLAs directly to trust-building behaviors. When trust becomes measurable in your CRM and tied to quota attainment, it becomes operationalized. Build enterprise trust intelligence. Create account-level dashboards tracking trust indicators across your target prospect base. Monitor competitor service failures, contract disputes, and client satisfaction scores to time your outreach perfectly. The enterprise opportunity is massive: procurement teams are actively seeking vendors they can trust with mission-critical initiatives. While competitors struggle with credibility issues, you capture their displaced enterprise accounts. Ready to transform competitor weaknesses into enterprise wins? Start with a systematic audit of trust vulnerabilities among your top 50 target accounts. The pipeline impact could be transformational. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eRV9sWAK __________ For more on growth and building trust, check out my previous posts. Join me on my journey, and let's build a more trustworthy world together. Christine Alemany #Fintech #Strategy #Growth

I strongly believe that technology can drive processes in a way that builds and strengthens trust between clients & vendors. Tech platform services have made processes in project procurement faster, data-driven, and transparent. Tasks like vendor scouting, assessments, and comparisons that once took weeks can now be done in days. Trust is built when decisions are backed by data and transparency—stakeholders understand why a vendor was chosen. Responsiveness is equally critical; when clients promptly address vendor queries, it fosters confidence on both sides. I remember we worked with a client struggling to find the right vendor for a specialized CapEx project. Through Venwiz, they: - Identified pre-verified vendors in a flash. - Assessed vendor capabilities with over 20+ custom data points. - Used the platform to share updates and ensure alignment with vendors. The result? A faster, more objective, and transparent process that strengthened trust on both sides. For me, the intersection of technology and trust makes decisions more objective and better informed. But these are my experiences, would love to hear your thoughts/additions. #Procurement #CapEx #Trust #Technology

𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐭𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐔𝐒 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬: Convenience sounds like a win… But in reality—control builds the trust that scales. We were working to improve product adoption for a US-based platform. Most founders instinctively look at cutting clicks, shortening steps, making the onboarding as fast as possible. We did too — until real user patterns told a different story. 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐣𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲, 𝐰𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞: -Added more decision points -Let users customize their flow -Gave options to manually pick settings -instead of forcing defaults -Conversions went up. -Engagement improved. Most importantly, user trust deepened. You can design a sleek two-click journey. But if the user doesn’t feel in control, they hesitate. Especially in the US, where data privacy and digital autonomy are non-negotiable — transparency and control win. Some moments that made this obvious: People disable auto-fill just to type things in manually. They skip quick recommendations to compare on their own. Features that auto-execute without explicit consent? Often uninstalled. It’s not inefficiency. It’s digital self-preservation. A mindset of: “Don’t decide for me. Let me drive.” I’ve seen this mistake cost real money. One client rolled out an automation that quietly activated in the background. Instead of delighting users, it alienated 20% of them. Because the perception was: “You took control without asking.” Meanwhile, platforms that use clear prompts — “Are you sure?” “Review before submitting” Easy toggles and edits — those build long-term trust. That’s the real game. What I now recommend to every tech founder building for the US market: Don’t just optimize for frictionless onboarding. Optimize for visible control. Add micro-trust signals like “No hidden fees,” “You can edit this later,” and toggles that show choice. Make the user feel in charge at every key step. Trust isn’t built by speed. It’s built by respecting the user’s right to decide. If you’re a tech founder or product owner, stop assuming speed is everything. Start building systems that say: “You’re in control.” 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐬. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬? 𝐋𝐞𝐭’𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐬. #UserExperience #ProductDesign #TrustByDesign #TechForUSMarket #businesscoach #coachishleenkaur LinkedIn News LinkedIn News India LinkedIn for Small Business

Last Tuesday, I watched a $1M software deal die in real time. The champion texted the AE afterward, "My team killed it. They loved the product, trusted the ROI, but said you felt too 'risky' for a company our size." Six months of perfect demos. Strong case studies. Pricing that made sense. But they'd been focused on one person while eight others were making the real decision. In B2B, deals often die from collective anxiety. Your champion can love your solution, but if the CFO, IT director, and three VPs have never heard of you, you're asking them to bet their careers on a company that feels invisible. What we call "trust" in B2B is actually cumulative familiarity across a buying group. It's not one person feeling confident, it's 6-8 people independently thinking, "Oh yeah, I've seen them around. They seem solid." This is where many B2B marketers leave money on the table. We optimize for the champions and decision makers while the real decision happens in rooms we're not invited to. Connected TV (CTV) helps solve for this. That CFO who questioned your pricing? Last night, they saw your 30-second spot during their favorite show. No laptop multitasking. No ad blockers. Just your brand message on a 65-inch screen while they're mentally relaxed. Your IT director saw your retargeting banner during their morning research. Your LinkedIn ad during lunch. Your CTV spot during their evening unwind. That's not multiple touch points. That's one familiarity campaign reaching different decision-makers in different mindsets. Our data at LinkedIn for Marketing shows this opportunity: - 94% of LinkedIn's professional audience can be reached via CTV, - 71% of CTV viewers aren't accessible through traditional TV, - CTV campaigns are 4.3x more effective at reaching B2B targets. Psychologist Robert Zajonc proved that mere exposure creates preference. We don't need to consciously process your message. Seeing your brand repeatedly in different contexts builds what behavioral economist Rory Sutherland calls "subconscious safety signals." When your champion walks into that second meeting, something's different. Your brand doesn't feel new anymore. It feels familiar. "Oh yeah, I've been seeing their ads everywhere" carries more weight than any case study. Because buying groups evaluate solutions and risk. Start building familiarity across ecosystems. Map your buying group. Understand where each decision-maker consumes content. Then orchestrate exposure across channels so by the time they meet to decide, you're not the unknown risk, you're the obvious choice. Because in B2B, trust is built through strategic, repeated presence across the moments that matter. #B2BMarketing #CTV #Trust #LinkedInMarketing

🚀 What separates a System Administrator from IT Support? It’s not just about resetting a password or clearing a Teams cache. It’s about owning the environment: making decisions that affect hundreds (sometimes thousands) of users, balancing security with productivity, and preventing tomorrow’s outage while fixing today’s issue. Here’s how I approach Microsoft 365 challenges as a System Admin: 🔑 Identity & Security First When a user can’t sign in, I don’t just reset MFA. I dive into Azure AD sign-in logs, Conditional Access policies, and group memberships. The question isn’t just “Can they log in?” but “Is the login secure, compliant, and auditable?” 📧 Outlook & Exchange at Scale Outlook crashes? Instead of repairing one profile at a time, I deploy fixes through Intune. Root causes like outdated builds or bad add-ins get eliminated tenant-wide. ☁️ OneDrive & SharePoint Reliability Sync issues aren’t just “user problems.” I review storage quotas, policy conflicts, and throttling limits. When needed, I push bulk policy updates instead of applying quick local fixes. 💬 Teams Governance If Teams meetings fail, I don’t just troubleshoot audio/video locally. I check service health, firewall policies, and device compliance. Sometimes the real fix is updating tenant policies so the issue never happens again. 🔒 Email Security & Compliance A quarantined email isn’t an inconvenience — it’s an opportunity. Every release/whitelist request gets reviewed against ATP rules, anti-phishing policies, and DMARC alignment. My goal? Protecting the org while minimizing false positives. ⚙️ Automation & Proactivity Here’s where the real power comes in: • I use PowerShell to reassign licenses, reset Teams policies, and manage permissions in bulk. • I monitor logs and alerts so I’m solving issues before the ticket hits my queue. • I focus on policies and automation so the same problem doesn’t land in my inbox twice. ⸻ 💡 System Admin Mindset: 👉 Solve today’s problem ✅ 👉 Strengthen tomorrow’s environment 🔒 👉 Scale solutions so no one else has to feel the pain 🌍 That’s what true IT ownership looks like. #SystemAdministration #Microsoft365 #AzureAD #ExchangeOnline #Intune #SharePoint #OneDrive #Teams #CloudSupport #ITAdmin #Automation #PowerShell

“Don’t fix the CRM. Fix why no one believes in it.” I was in a pipeline review with a VP of Sales at a global B2B org. He said something that stuck with me: “We can’t forecast. No one trusts the CRM.” It wasn’t a UI issue. The CRM worked. The data was structured. The fields were populated. And yet, every forecast conversation happened in Excel or Slack. Here’s what was really going on: – Reps padded the pipeline to match inspection expectations – Managers tweaked close dates to fit narrative arcs – No one had a shared definition of “next step” or “commit” The CRM wasn’t broken. The culture around it was. If your team sees the CRM as a compliance tool instead of a performance tool, it will always be underused and distrusted. ✅ Here’s what we changed: – Standardized pipeline stages with crystal-clear exit criteria – Built dashboards that showed reps how every CRM entry tied directly to quota progress and commission outcomes. – Shifted forecast meetings to live-in-CRM reviews, not PowerPoint walk-throughs – Created a feedback loop for reps to challenge bad fields or logic Suddenly, usage improved. Forecasts stabilized. Reps trusted the system because they helped shape it. 🎯 Why this happens: – Ambiguity Aversion: If a field feels vague, reps disengage – Learned Helplessness: If reps see that nothing changes, they stop trying – Confirmation Bias: Leaders rely on gut feel even when data contradicts it Trust isn’t just about having the right tool. It’s about giving people a reason to believe that what they input leads to something meaningful. 📌 When trust breaks, systems become theater. Everyone plays their role. No one believes in the script. 💬 What’s one small change that helped your team believe in the data again? 📥 Follow me for more insights. Repost if this resonated.

 In line with Snowflake's ethos of simplicity, Trust Center was designed to be user-friendly and accessible to individuals without deep SQL expertise. We are now democratizing the opportunity to help customers secure their accounts via Trust Center Extensions so all of our security partners and customer ecosystem can collectively build and share their Trust Center scanners. In fact, 4 of our partners (Hunters, TrustLogix, ALTR, and OneTrust) already built Trust Center Extensions which will soon be available in Snowflake Marketplace. Another particularly noteworthy advancement here is the integration of Copilot for Horizon into the Trust Center. This feature empowers users to ask security-related questions in natural language and seamlessly translate those questions into actionable scanners within Trust Center. This powerful capability eliminates the need for specialized SQL knowledge, making advanced security analysis accessible to a wider range of users. See our overall platform blog for more information. https://lnkd.in/g-TmdqjA Andy SiowSourav Mahajan František Rolinek Artin Avanes

63% of B2B execs now start vendor research by asking their network. Not Google. Not vendor websites. Not ads. This jumped from 58% last year. The "trust gap" between peer recommendations and vendor content is widening. The backchannel is the new sales channel. 82% of buyers have private conversations about vendors during their buying process. They're sliding into DMs, posting in Slack groups, and reaching out directly to people they know who use the product. Your prospects are researching you in conversations you can't see or control. Companies who are leaning into this network effect see: - 21% shorter sales cycles - 35% higher conversion rates - 18% larger deal sizes What this means for you: Stop hoping customers will stumble across your testimonials. Start connecting prospects with happy customers they already know and trust. The Trust Factor: 2025 State of Social Proof in B2B Buying report by Wynter and Noble offers advice for turning relational proof into a repeatable revenue engine. Link to full report in the comments.

Want data platforms people actually trust? It takes more than just tools. My practical experience shows four key ingredients... Many of us in the data world know the feeling. Too much time spent fixing broken pipelines, dealing with unreliable data, and feeling like we're constantly firefighting instead of enabling insights. Building data platforms that truly solve these problems and deliver lasting value requires a shift towards thinking about the platform itself as a product, designed to serve its users effectively. Having built and led data platform engineering teams across different industries, from online groceries, music tech, to finance (following years as a data engineer in other sectors), I've had the chance to see what works and what doesn't. In my latest blog post, I dive into these practical lessons learned. I explore four key ingredients necessary for creating data platforms that people find useful: 1. Thinking like a product owner: Understanding user needs deeply and curating the right solutions, not just offering raw technology. 2. Building helpful software abstractions: Going beyond basic infrastructure to create the tools and automation that genuinely simplify workflows and enforce standards. 3. Enabling a broad range of users: Designing for self service and safety, making sure everyone from application developers to analysts can work effectively. 4. Operating a truly reliable foundation: Recognizing that trust is built on stability and taking full responsibility for the platform's operations day in and day out. Getting these areas right is fundamental if we want to move away from constant firefighting and build data systems that provide a dependable foundation for the business. If you're interested in exploring these ideas further, you can read the full post on my substack (link in comments). #dataplatform #dataengineering

PwC’s Trust Report should scare every B2B founder. They discovered a 60-point ‘Trust Gap’. 90% of business leaders think customers highly trust their company. Only 30% of customers actually do. That gap is growing - up from 57 points.  No wonder PwC are calling trust “the new currency of business.” In 2025, we live in what I call the ‘Reputation Economy’. It doesn’t matter how good your product is, if people don’t trust you, they won’t buy. And trust isn’t a given, it’s earned. Google actually turned this into a science. Their 7/11/4 rule found that it takes: ✅ 7 hours of contact ✅ Across 11 interactions ✅ In 4 different places Before someone trusts you enough to buy. Think about the last time you made a significant purchase. You probably didn’t buy on impulse after a single ad. You researched. You compared. You read reviews. You invested time in building your own trust. That’s exactly what your customers are doing too. They want to see you consistently show up with insight, value, and proof that you’re the real deal. That’s why building authority has become non-negotiable in 2025. So we’ve spent the last 3 months building something to show just how much B2B marketing has change, and why it matters to you. The B2B Authority Guide. It’s the most comprehensive resource we’ve ever put together. Packed with insights from some of the sharpest minds in B2B. And built to help you: → Attract better-fit clients → Command premium prices → Stand out in a saturated market → Become the undeniable authority in your space We made this guide to help you rethink how you scale your business in the new era. It launches tomorrow ⏳