Hilton for Business: Designing Scalable B2B Tools for Small and Medium Businesses
From registration flows to role management, we designed flexible tools to support a wide range of business travelers. This work laid the foundation for a growing set of B2B features by balancing ease of use, backend complexity, and long-term scalability.
MY ROLE
I partnered with cross-functional stakeholders to build the business case for Hilton for Business and secure funding for the initiative. After aligning on strategy, I hired and coached the design team responsible for delivering the experience. My role spanned team leadership, stakeholder alignment, and ongoing design direction.
Supporting SMB Travel
Hilton for Business is a self-service platform built to support small and mid-sized businesses managing travel. Our design team was responsible for shaping the program experience across onboarding, account management, and loyalty tools, with a focus on reducing friction and advancing Hilton’s broader B2B growth goals.
The challenge was twofold: make it fast and intuitive for businesses of all sizes to register and manage accounts, while building a scalable design foundation that could evolve with the platform.
Uncovering Friction Through Beta Feedback and Behavioral Data
We partnered closely with our research team to understand the real-world challenges business owners and employees faced when onboarding. Using beta feedback, user interviews, and behavioral data, we uncovered several critical friction points:
Sign-in confusion led users to create duplicate accounts, breaking the link between personal and business travel.
Misrouted employees were landing on registration forms meant for business owners, triggering errors that blocked progress.
Data gaps in the registration flow prevented Hilton from capturing metrics like company size or number of travelers — limiting personalization and program insights.
Domain-based invites initially limited access, especially for larger or decentralized businesses.
These findings helped us focus our efforts on solving the right problems — both tactically and strategically.
Iterating Toward a Seamless Onboarding Journey
Our team delivered a wide range of features — from field-level optimizations to net-new tools:
Registration Optimization: Introduced real-time matching logic and clear company detail previews, reducing duplicate accounts and manual support needs.
Form Redesign: Clarified admin roles, reordered fields for better domain logic, and added real-time error handling to reduce confusion and increase success rates.
Role & Member Management: Built tools for assigning roles and managing access, forming the basis for future permission models.
Loyalty Dashboards: Enabled point tracking and self-service transfers, giving businesses more control over rewards.
We also advocated for the inclusion of key inputs during sign-up, such as company size and traveler count — enabling smarter segmentation and long-term program measurement.
Strong Early Results and a Scalable Foundation
Our design work helped drive the success of Hilton for Business in its first year:
200,000+ businesses registered
780,000 reservations booked
Registration success rates climbed from 40% to 53% following key optimizations
Internal support load reduced thanks to clearer flows and logic
Most importantly, we created a flexible foundation that supports Hilton’s growing B2B ambitions — accommodating everything from solo entrepreneurs to large, distributed organizations.