The impact of look-and-feel customization in B2B SaaS

Everything we do at getusefeedback.com starts with research.

Before building Themes, we wanted to understand the impact of look-and-feel customization on our business metrics and brand perception, and on our customers' metrics and the end-user experience.

If you're building a B2B SaaS product not dissimilar to ours (a product for businesses that interfaces with their customers, a B2B2C), this research will be useful for you.

Emotional and perceptual benefits of customization

Allowing customers to tailor the visual design of an embedded widget or interface taps into a basic psychological driver: control. Research indicates that giving users customization options increases their perceived control over the software, which in turn enhances their comfort and trust in using it mdpi.com.

In a 2019 study on interface design, the ability to tailor a system according to users’ needs was found to strongly boost their sense of control, which then improved their security perception of the tool mdpi.com.

In plain terms, when a company can make a third‑party tool look and feel like an integrated part of their product, they feel more ownership over it. This sense of ownership and agency can translate into higher satisfaction.

Customization also has an expressive and identity benefit. Especially in B2B contexts, companies invest heavily in their brand identity and user experience design. The option to skin a third‑party interface, an in-app survey or chat widget with their own colors and styles isn’t just a cosmetic nicety — it’s emotionally important for clients to feel that the tool aligns with their brand’s personality.

Instead of an external service taking the spotlight, the client’s brand remains front‑and‑center, reinforcing their emotional connection with their end users. This perceived anonymity of the third‑party tool — i.e., it blends in so well that users may not realize an outside vendor is involved — can strengthen the client’s confidence that they remain in control of the user experience.

Cohesive branding, user trust and experience

From the end‑user’s perspective (the people interacting with the third‑party interface, an embedded survey, chat, or guide inside the client’s app), visual consistency is a cornerstone of trust.

Users form snap judgments about software credibility within milliseconds, and those judgments are overwhelmingly driven by visual appearance. Studies show that 94% of first impressions are design‑related — users form opinions about trustworthiness and quality often in the first 50 ms of viewing an interface envive.ai.

If the embedded widget’s style clashes with the host application or carries a different brand name, it risks feeling off or unprofessional to users in those critical first moments. Consistency creates a seamless experience that feels reliable.

As Nielsen Norman Group notes in web credibility research, a professional, unified design “feels solid” and signals respect for users — thereby implicitly promising a good, trustworthy experience nngroup.com.

There is quantitative evidence that brand consistency directly builds user trust and even revenue. In marketing research, consistent brand presentation across all platforms can increase revenue by up to 23% brandingstrategyinsider.com. This oft‑cited statistic from a Lucidpress report underscores that when users encounter a cohesive, well‑branded experience (no matter the channel or touchpoint), it reinforces brand recognition and reliability, making them more likely to engage and eventually purchase.

On the flip side, inconsistent branding tends to confuse and worry users: 71% of consumers say that inconsistent branding causes confusion about a company brandingstrategyinsider.com.

Confusion is the enemy of trust: if an in‑app survey suddenly pops up looking like it belongs to some other company or with mismatched styling, users may hesitate or question its legitimacy. In the context of embedded SaaS tools, a lack of look‑and‑feel integration can trigger exactly that reaction: a respondent might think, “Is this survey really from the app I’m using, or is it a phishing scam?”

All of this highlights that allowing B2B clients to customize the look and feel isn’t just about making things pretty. It has a real impact on user trust. A cohesive visual experience maintains the credibility that the client’s brand has established. It also reduces cognitive dissonance — users aren’t mentally jarred by a sudden change in style.

Effects on user engagement and response rates

One area where the impact of branding customization can be quantified is user engagement with surveys and in‑app prompts. When users trust and feel comfortable with an in‑app element, they are more likely to interact with it rather than ignore or avoid it.

There’s evidence that branding and familiarity can meaningfully lift response and interaction rates. For example, user experience researchers have observed that an email or notification coming from a known, trusted brand dramatically increases the chance a customer will open it and take action; if the same message comes from an unfamiliar third‑party, response rates drop and users might even flag it as spam measuringu.com.

Applied to in‑app surveys: a feedback prompt skinned with the app’s own branding will likely see higher participation than one obviously branded as a separate vendor. In industry terms, a branded survey can significantly increase response rates because recipients recognize the sender and trust its origin measuringu.com.

It’s not only surveys — feature engagement can improve when look‑and‑feel is customized. A compelling case study comes from Kommunicate, a B2B SaaS company offering chat support widgets. They discovered that encouraging customers to personalize the chat widget’s appearance was a key driver in those customers actually adopting and using the widget.

After introducing an in‑app checklist cue prompting admins to customize their chat widget’s style, an impressive 86% of users completed the customization step. This was not just an aesthetic win — it led to about a 3% uptick in usage of that chat widget feature among their user base userpilot.com.

The core insight: when users trust an element, they engage; when they doubt it, they bounce. Look‑and‑feel customization is a tool for earning that trust by leveraging consistency and familiarity.

See more strategies to increase trust and response rates.

Business outcomes for the SaaS provider and clients

Beyond engagement metrics, offering extensive customization options can influence broader business KPIs for both the SaaS provider and B2B customers.

For the SaaS provider, one obvious impact is on customer acquisition and retention. In many B2B scenarios, especially when selling to mid‑to‑large enterprises, the ability to offer a white‑labeled or highly brand‑consistent solution is a make‑or‑break requirement.

There’s also a monetization angle for the SaaS provider. Some SaaS companies tier their pricing such that advanced theming or white‑labeling is part of higher‑priced plans. Customers who truly need it are often willing to pay a premium for it, as it directly ties into their brand value.

While the exact pricing strategy is beyond our scope, it’s worth noting that if customization demonstrably drives better usage and retention (as seen above), it can pay for itself. The Kommunicate example showed a 2–3% revenue lift from a single customized feature’s adoption userpilot.com.

It’s important to acknowledge trade‑offs and other angles. One consideration: if a SaaS relies on its own brand visibility (e.g., a “Powered by …” badge on every widget for virality), offering full white‑labeling means forfeiting that form of marketing.

Finally, consider the user experience quality angle. If customization options are poorly implemented (for instance, allowing clashing color schemes or inconsistent UI patterns), it could backfire and harm the user experience.

Offering look‑and‑feel customization should go hand‑in‑hand with providing sensible defaults and guidance so that the integrated element remains user‑friendly and accessible. Assuming the customization feature is well‑designed, the outcomes discussed above remain overwhelmingly positive.

Conclusion and key findings

Allowing B2B customers to fully customize the look and feel of embedded or third‑party SaaS components can have a meaningful positive impact on both emotional factors and hard business metrics.

It empowers clients with a sense of control and brand ownership, leads to a more cohesive and trustworthy user experience for end‑users, and correlates with higher engagement levels.

These improvements ultimately translate into quantifiable benefits like higher response rates, better feature adoption, and increased revenue. The table below summarizes key findings from research and case studies.

Sources

• The Role of Consumers’ Perceived Security, Perceived Control, Interface Design Features, and Conscientiousness in Continuous Use of Mobile Payment Services (MDPI, 2019)
• What Is White Label Analytics: Why It Matters, Benefits & More (Qrvey)
• Brand-trust building metrics (Envive)
• Trust or Bust: Communicating Trustworthiness in Web Design (Nielsen Norman Group)
• The Invisible Power Of Brand Consistency (Branding Strategy Insider)
• What is a White Label Survey? (+ 7 Benefits) (SurveyLegend)
• The Pros and Cons of a Branded Survey (MeasuringU)
• [CASE STUDY] Kommunicate: how customization drove adoption (Userpilot)