A campus-commerce platform behind hundreds of universities · Higher-ed payments · B2B2C
Students paid tuition in one system, topped up dining cards in another, and carried their ID in a competitor's app. Their day didn't care who owned which.
Client identities withheld by design. Engagements delivered as lead across previous consulting roles; figures are each engagement's findings and committed design targets.
The situation
A payments platform powering commerce for hundreds of universities, with deep ERP integrations and marquee institutional clients — and public satisfaction ratings running a full point behind leaner competitors. Review mining showed why: students juggled separate logins for billing, dining, and campus life; parents got locked out of accounts they were trying to pay into; and administrators needed developer skills to launch a simple storefront. A mobile-native generation with zero tolerance for friction was meeting a platform organized around product lines instead of their day.
What the diagnosis found
The journey ignores the org chart
Mapping the student, parent, and staff journeys across access, billing, and campus commerce showed every persona hitting a seam where one product ended and another began. Users experienced the portfolio; they were sold the products.
Friction compounds — it never just adds
Fragmentation produced billing anxiety; anxiety produced support calls; support load strained the institutions; strained institutions started evaluating competitors. Not a list of issues — a loop.
Flagship clients told the story
At marquee campuses, students were living their daily financial life inside a competitor's app while the platform held the tuition contract. Owning the payment but not the experience is how incumbents get displaced.
The redesign
The campus wallet
One university-branded mobile hub for every financial touchpoint — tuition, meal plans, campus commerce, ID — replacing a tab-juggling experience with a single, familiar app.
A financial-wellness layer
AI guidance that answers before it's asked: proactive alerts, plain-language billing, personalized support that turns reactive anxiety into confidence — with fraud navigation built into the same layer.
No-code for the back office
A drag-and-drop storefront builder so a department can launch parking passes or event tickets without a developer — freeing institutional IT for strategic work.
Own the experience, not the rails
The strategic call: don't rebuild global payment networks — own the moment the student touches money. The experience layer is the moat competitors can't easily cross.
What the blueprint committed to
1
app designed to replace the three-plus systems students juggled
3
personas' journeys redesigned end to end
61%
of students prefer self-serve — the design meets them there
Journeys break at handoffs — and a student's Tuesday doesn't care which vendor owns which system.
The first principles at work
Recognize your own journey in this?
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