Finding purchase friction in B2B decisions

Types of friction worth naming

Cognitive friction appears when buyers cannot reconcile claims with their mental model—such as “AI closes the books” versus the lived reality of reconciliations. Procedural friction lives in security questionnaires, legal redlines, and multi-threaded approvals. Emotional friction shows up as fear of being the person who broke the month-end close. Switching friction is the labor of leaving a status quo stack; in many U.S. SMBs that stack is QuickBooks or a QuickBooks-centered web of add-ons.

degrex asks researchers to label friction type before proposing fixes. A homepage rewrite will not dissolve a procurement maze. A new integration badge will not calm a champion who lacks political cover. Naming the type keeps product and marketing honest about which lever they actually control.

Detection methods

In interviews, listen for pauses, hedges (“we almost signed”), and workarounds that persist after purchase. On touchpoint maps, mark nodes where stories diverge—sales says “easy import,” customers describe weekend cleanup. In observation, note where competitors over-promise speed; that gap is often a shared industry friction buyers already discount.

• Timeline gaps longer than participants expected
• Repeated mentions of a single tool, role, or policy
• Artifacts created to “make leadership comfortable”
• Post-sale workarounds that look like pre-sale objections

Turning friction into research questions

Each friction cluster should become a question for the next wave: What evidence would reduce this hesitation? Who needs to see it? What language makes the risk feel manageable? Feed answers into pattern synthesis, then into claim drafts on positioning from evidence. Resist dashboards that declare friction “solved” because a form field was shortened.

Friction is information about power, labor, and trust—not a bug to hide with brighter buttons.