Web & Mobile Design
Improving Trust and Transparency Throughout The Car Purchasing Journey
COMPANY
CARSOME
DURATION
Feb 2025 – Apr 2025 (8 weeks design)
TEAM
Product Manager, Engineers, Business Fleet Administrators (BFAs), Customer Consultants (CCs), Finance Operations
TL;DR
Purchasing a car involves one of the largest financial transactions many customers will ever make yet customers had limited visibility into what they had paid, what remained outstanding, and where they were in the financing process. Payment links often arrived through WhatsApp without clear context, creating uncertainty and additional follow-up conversations with Customer Consultants.
At the same time, internal teams spent significant effort answering payment-related questions and coordinating payment verification.
I redesigned the payment experience by making payments easier to discover, improving visibility into payment progress, and surfacing loan information directly within the order journey.
The result was a more transparent payment experience that increased payment link adoption from 4.15% to 4.73% while reducing ambiguity for both customers and operational teams.
CONTEXT
Customers purchasing a vehicle through CARSOME had limited visibility into their payment and financing progress.
Payment requests, statuses, and loan information were fragmented across multiple touchpoints, resulting in customer uncertainty and increased reliance on Customer Consultants (CCs) and Business Fleet Administrators (BFAs) for support.
MY ROLE
Led the redesign of the customer payment experience across Web and Mobile, focusing on payment transparency, discoverability, and loan visibility
Worked closely with Product, Engineering, and Operations stakeholders to translate business requirements into a clearer and more trustworthy end-to-end payment journey.
RESEARCH
One of the most interesting challenges was that payment wasn't owned by a single team. Multiple stakeholders played a role in completing a transaction.
Customer Consultants (CCs)
Managed customer relationships, sales conversations, and order progression.
Business Fleet Administrators (BFAs)
Handled order processing, loan applications, payment verification workflows, and bank coordination.
Finance Team
Verified payments and approved transactions.
Customers
Needed confidence that their payments were secure, successful, and progressing toward vehicle ownership. This revealed that the challenge wasn't simply collecting payment. It was helping every stakeholder stay aligned around the same source of truth.
INSIGHTS
Working closely with the Product Manager, I reviewed feedback gathered from Customer Consultants (CCs) and Business Fleet Administrators (BFAs), who regularly supported customers throughout the payment and financing process.
01.
Customers struggled to trust payment links
Payment requests were frequently shared through WhatsApp, causing customers to question their authenticity.
02.
Customers lacked visibility into payment progress
Information such as outstanding payments, payment history, and loan details were difficult to access or unavailable.
03.
Internal teams became the source of truth
Because customers couldn't easily self-serve this information, CCs and BFAs spent considerable time answering payment-related questions and coordinating updates.
KEY PRODUCT DECISONS
1/4 · Making Outstanding Payments Impossible to Miss
One major issue was discoverability. Customers often had pending payments but no proactive reminder that action was required.
Instead of relying on customers to search for payment links, the experience proactively surfaced outstanding actions.
Customers gained clearer awareness of pending payments, reducing the likelihood of delayed payment completion.
I introduced payment visibility throughout the order journey:
Notification badges for pending payments
Payment reminders within account areas
Dedicated payment prompts
Clear call-to-actions directing customers to payment pages
2/4 · Transforming Order Details into a Payment Hub
Previously, the Order Details page focused primarily on order status. Payment information was fragmented across different touch-points.
Our first approach focused on integrating the new payment experience into the existing Order Details page. However, the page was already struggling to accommodate growing payment and financing requirements.
Instead of adding more components, we chose to reorganise the information architecture and redesign the experience around customer visibility and payment transparency.
I restructured the Order Details experience around payment transparency.
Customers could now view order fees, down payments, full payments, loan payments, & payment statuses and remaining balances all within a single view. Instead of treating payments as isolated transactions, I reframed the experience as a financial journey customers could track from start to finish.
3/4 · Supporting More Flexible Payment Scenarios
The product was enhanced to support multiple payment links within a single order. This capability addressed situations where customers needed to split large payments across multiple transactions due to banking or card limits.
Rather than designing the underlying operational workflow, I focused on making these new payment scenarios understandable for customers.
Multiple Payment Link Support
Payment Slip Upload
I designed a payment selection experience that allowed customers to:
View all available payment requests
Understand payment sequencing
See payment amounts clearly
Complete payments independently
This ensured additional flexibility did not introduce additional complexity.
4/4 · Bringing Loan Transparency Into the Journey
Financing is often one of the most stressful parts of purchasing a vehicle. However, customers previously had little visibility into their loan details after approval.
I introduced a dedicated loan information section within the Order Details page, surfacing financier, loan amount, loan tenure, interest rate & monthly repayment amount.
Customers could now understand both their payment status and financing status without contacting support.
IMPACT
+14%
Increase in Payment Link Adoption
3 Markets
Malaysia, Indonesia & Thailand
4 Stakeholder Groups
Customers, CCs, BFAs & Finance
REFLECTION
This project reinforced that transparency is often more valuable than adding new functionality.
While the underlying platform introduced new payment capabilities, the real design challenge was helping customers understand a complex financial journey involving deposits, financing, approvals, and multiple stakeholders.
By focusing on clarity rather than feature expansion, we transformed the payment experience from a collection of disconnected transactions into a cohesive journey customers could trust and confidently navigate.