Designing Global Products for Local Realities with Merel van der Lei from Wyzetalk
- Nicola Calabrese
- Jan 27
- 7 min read
While office workers juggle dozens of communication channels, frontline workers often lack basic digital access to essential workplace information. Merel van der Lei explains how to design enterprise software that serves both C-suite buyers and the frontline employees who use it daily.
Merel van der Lei is CEO and Chief Product Officer at Wyzetalk, a company building frontline platforms that provide digital access to workers who traditionally lack corporate email addresses or digital tools. With smartphone penetration among frontline workers jumping from 64% to 94% in recent years, the opportunity to include these employees in digital workplace communication has never been greater.
The conversation explores a fundamental challenge in enterprise software: balancing the needs of buyers (typically C-suite executives), implementers (super admin users), and daily end users (frontline workers). Merel shares how her team allocates 70% of development effort to end users, 20% to admins, and 10% to demonstrating value for buyers—a framework born from 20 years of trial and error.
This structured approach to prioritizing user needs mirrors what product leaders like Melanie Heighway recommend when integrating localization into product roadmaps, as highlighted in our post on product localization best practices.
This episode matters for anyone building B2B SaaS products that serve diverse user groups. The discussion reveals how technical obstacles often outweigh cultural ones when creating global solutions, why communication remains a top-three employee complaint even in well-connected offices, and how to make product decisions when the loudest voice comes from buyers rather than the users who depend on your platform daily.
Episode 50, Broken Down
Use this timeline to jump to the topics most relevant to your multilingual content, localization, and global growth challenges.
Introduction and Wyzetalk's Mission
Merel introduces herself as CEO and Chief Product Officer at Wyzetalk and explains how the company provides digital access points to frontline workers who lack corporate email addresses, focusing on overcoming technical rather than cultural obstacles.
Balancing Universal and Personal Product Design
Discussion of how to create products that work universally while feeling personal to each workplace, emphasizing the difference between buyers, implementers, and daily users, and how core functionality remains consistent while branding and integrations vary.
Understanding Different Buyer and User Needs
Merel breaks down the distinct drivers for C-suite buyers (bottom line, compliance, reputation), super admin users (frictionless experience, efficiency), and frontline workers (getting home safe every day), explaining how each group perceives risk differently.
Feature Development Example: Acknowledgement Functionality
Real-world example of how data requests from publishers led to acknowledgement features that serve both employer needs (tracking compliance) and employee safety (confirming understanding of new procedures).
The 70-20-10 Product Development Framework
Merel shares her framework for allocating development effort: 70% to daily end users, 20% to super admins, and 10% to visible value for buyers, emphasizing the importance of not always following the loudest voice.
Communication Challenges in Diverse Workforces
Discussion of communication fatigue, channel overload, and the specific challenges frontline workers face when relying on noticeboards and word-of-mouth, leading to potential misinformation and low trust in leadership.
Closing Advice for SaaS Founders
Merel offers guidance on creating communication frameworks that ensure leadership speaks with one voice, and expresses hope that more tech energy goes toward solutions that genuinely improve people and the world, not just make money.
Core Sections at a Glance
The Digital Access Gap for Frontline Workers
Frontline workers represent a massive workforce segment that traditionally lacks basic digital workplace tools. While office workers manage multiple communication channels and subscriptions, frontline employees often have no corporate email address and must rely on paper forms, noticeboards, and word-of-mouth for essential information. With smartphone penetration among frontline workers reaching 94%, the technical foundation now exists to bridge this gap.
Wyzetalk's approach focuses on providing digital access through smartphones rather than requiring traditional corporate infrastructure. This enables frontline workers to access everything from leave requests to safety procedures digitally, addressing fundamental needs around certainty, confidence, and trust that are universal across cultures and geographies.
Why this matters for B2B SaaS and localization:
Understand that 94% smartphone penetration among frontline workers creates unprecedented opportunity for digital workplace solutions
Recognize that technical obstacles often matter more than cultural differences when building global solutions
Learn how to design products that work without requiring corporate email infrastructure
See how addressing basic human needs (certainty, confidence, trust) creates universal product value across diverse workforces
Balancing Buyer, Admin, and End User Needs
Enterprise software faces a fundamental challenge: the people who buy the product, the people who implement it, and the people who use it daily all have different needs and perceive different risks. C-suite buyers care about bottom line, compliance, and reputation. Super admin users need frictionless experiences and efficiency. Frontline workers focus on practical concerns like workplace safety and getting home alive.
Merel's framework allocates 70% of development effort to daily end users, 20% to super admins, and 10% to demonstrating value for buyers. This distribution acknowledges that while buyers have the loudest voice and ultimate purchasing power, the product's long-term success depends on daily user adoption and satisfaction. The key is understanding what drives each group and incorporating those drivers into both product design and measurable outcomes.
For a deeper look at how cultural nuances shape international product and go-to-market success, see our conversation with Hugo Pereira on Unlocking Cultural Nuances for International Expansion with Hugo Pereira.
Why this matters for B2B SaaS and localization:
Apply the 70-20-10 framework to prioritize development resources across different user types
Learn to resist the 'loudest voice' bias when buyers or power users dominate feature requests
Understand how to assess feature requests based on audience size and impact across all three user groups
Recognize that different user types perceive risk differently and require different value demonstrations
Communication Breakdown at Scale
Communication consistently ranks in the top three employee complaints, even among well-connected office workers who have access to email, Slack, Teams, WhatsApp, intranets, and multiple other channels. The problem manifests as both information overload (too many channels, too much content) and information scarcity (no information at all for disconnected workers).
For frontline workers without digital access, communication becomes even more problematic. Information travels through layers of management, creating a 'telephone game' effect where messages get distorted, context gets lost, and fake news emerges—not intentionally, but through translation errors and misunderstandings. This communication breakdown directly impacts productivity, employee trust in leadership, and workplace safety.
Why this matters for B2B SaaS and localization:
Recognize that multiplying communication channels often increases rather than solves communication problems
Understand how information traveling through management layers creates unintentional misinformation
See the connection between communication breakdown and decreased trust in leadership
Learn why communication remains a top-three employee complaint even in digitally connected workplaces
Measuring Value Across Different User Types
Different user types require different metrics and reporting approaches. Super admins actively use dashboards to track platform usage, content engagement, training completion, and other operational metrics—often checking at least weekly. However, C-suite buyers who purchased the platform rarely log in, creating a measurement challenge.
Wyzetalk addresses this by having super admins share insights with buyers and by sending automated monthly email reports that demonstrate value without requiring buyer engagement. The acknowledgement feature exemplifies this approach: it serves super admins who want to know if content is being seen, buyers who need compliance proof, and frontline workers who benefit from confirmed understanding of safety procedures.
Why this matters for B2B SaaS and localization:
Design metrics and reporting systems that match how different user types actually engage with your product
Use automated reporting to demonstrate value to buyers who never log into your system
Build features that simultaneously serve operational needs, compliance requirements, and end-user safety
Recognize that relying on admins to share value with buyers doesn't always work consistently
Communication Frameworks for SaaS Companies
SaaS founders often try to be authentic in their communication, which is valuable, but without frameworks this can lead to premature announcements, necessary retractions, or inconsistent messaging. As companies grow beyond 10-15 people, the need for structured communication becomes critical.
Merel recommends anticipating various communication scenarios—urgent situations, mistakes requiring resolution, good news to share—and establishing clear processes for each. Leadership must communicate with one voice and one message to prevent confusion and maintain trust. This applies both to internal company communication and to how the product itself enables communication for clients.
Why this matters for B2B SaaS and localization:
Establish communication frameworks before you need them, ideally before reaching 15-20 employees
Anticipate different communication scenarios and define response patterns for each
Ensure leadership speaks with one voice to maintain employee trust and prevent confusion
Balance authenticity with structure to avoid premature or inconsistent messaging
Highlights & Insights
Key takeaways for B2B SaaS teams working on multilingual content, localization, and international expansion:
Technical obstacles often outweigh cultural differences when building global solutions—the biggest challenge is reaching users without corporate email, not adapting to different cultures
Allocate development effort using a 70-20-10 framework: 70% to daily end users, 20% to super admin users, 10% to demonstrating value for buyers
Resist the 'loudest voice' bias—buyers and power users speak up most, but decisions should be based on impact across audience size and all user types
Smartphone penetration among frontline workers has jumped from 64% to 94%, creating unprecedented opportunity for digital workplace solutions
Communication consistently ranks in the top three employee complaints, even among well-connected office workers with multiple channels
Multiplying communication channels often increases problems rather than solving them—consolidation matters more than proliferation
Information traveling through management layers creates unintentional misinformation through the 'telephone game' effect
Different user types perceive risk differently: C-suite focuses on bottom line and reputation, admins need frictionless experiences, frontline workers prioritize physical safety
Design metrics and reporting that match how users actually engage—buyers rarely log in, so send them automated value reports
Establish communication frameworks before reaching 15-20 employees, with defined processes for different scenarios (urgent, mistakes, good news)
Build features that simultaneously serve multiple user types—acknowledgement features address admin tracking needs, buyer compliance requirements, and worker safety confirmation
Designing Global Products for Local Realities. What This Means for Localization Teams
Merel’s insights highlight a core truth of global product design. Successful localization is not about translating content after the fact, but about building with real users in mind from the start.
Frontline workers, admins, and decision-makers all experience products differently. When those differences are ignored, adoption suffers. When they are designed for, products scale more effectively across markets.
If you want to dive deeper into how localization enhances overall user experience and global product success, check out Enhancing User Experience Through Localization.
This is where Undertow comes in. We help SaaS teams localize content in a way that supports real users, real workflows, and real business goals. Because global growth only works when local realities are part of the product strategy from day one.
If you are expanding into new markets or rethinking how your product communicates across languages and regions, we would love to help. Get in touch with Undertow to explore how your multilingual content strategy can better support your global growth.
