Insights
What the research says.
What it means for your customers
Research, customer experience news, case studies and journey breakdowns, for teams who look after customers at scale. Every figure links to its source.
By the numbers
- 160,000long idle subscriptions Xero removed in H1 FY25, with minimal effect on revenue (NZ listed, 2024)
- 98%of new users inactive at two weeks, for half of all products (Amplitude benchmarks, global, 2025)
- 94.4%average satisfaction from 3M+ Service NSW customers giving feedback in 2024-25 (96.1% in 2023-24)
- 2,145people Optus failed to give Triple Zero access during the 8 November 2023 outage, ACMA found
- Case study · XeroXero removed 160,000 idle subscriptions: what counts as a real customerIn the half to September 2024, Xero removed 160,000 long idle subscriptions: ones undeployed for more than 24 months and not expected to be deployed. Xero said the removal had minimal effect on...30 October 2026 · 4 min read
- PerspectiveThe handover nobody owns: where new customers fall between sales and successThe most fragile moment in a software customer's journey is often the one nobody owns: the days between the contract being signed and onboarding properly starting. Sales has moved on, customer...30 October 2026 · 6 min read
- Journey breakdown · MicrosoftMicrosoft 365 and the Classic plan: where the renewal journey hid a choiceThe ACCC alleges that when Microsoft added Copilot to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans, about 2.7 million Australian subscribers were told to accept a higher price or cancel, while a cheaper...30 October 2026 · 4 min read
- ResearchIs software churn decided in the first two weeks? What product usage data showsLarge product usage benchmarks agree on one uncomfortable pattern: most new users of a software product stop showing up within days, and the products that keep people in week one tend to be the ones...30 October 2026 · 5 min read
- Case study · Service NSWService NSW: what one front door for government did and did not fixService NSW gave people one place to deal with dozens of NSW agencies: shopfronts, a 24/7 phone line, a website and an app. Its annual reports show customer satisfaction of 98% in its first full year...29 October 2026 · 6 min read
- Journey breakdown · OptusThe 2023 Optus outage: what customers were told, and whenOn 8 November 2023 more than 10 million Optus customers lost phone and internet access for up to 14 hours. A Senate committee later called Optus's public communication during the outage manifestly...29 October 2026 · 5 min read
- ResearchWhere subscription customers are really lost: what the churn data showsPublished churn data points to three quiet exits rather than one dramatic one. Customers stop using the product and cancel, payments fail and access lapses, and low price points attract customers who...28 October 2026 · 5 min read
- CX newsScam complaints get one ombudsman: what it means for customer journeysSince 1 September 2026, banks, telcos and digital platforms designated under the Scams Prevention Framework have had to be members of AFCA. AFCA consulted on its proposed Scam Rules from 31 August to...28 October 2026 · 4 min read
- ResearchCustomer effort versus delight: what the research actually showsA 2010 study of more than 75,000 customers found that exceeding expectations in service made people only marginally more loyal, while high effort pushed them away. The Customer Effort Score came out...28 October 2026 · 6 min read
- CX news · AtlassianAtlassian's October 2026 cloud price rise: what it means for the renewal journeyOn 13 October 2026, Atlassian lifted cloud list prices across Jira, Confluence, Jira Service Management, Guard, Bitbucket and Jira Product Discovery. The rise applies to renewals and upgrades as well...28 October 2026 · 3 min read
- ResearchWhat Australians do after a bad service experience, and what complaint data hidesAustralian evidence shows a bad experience rarely turns into a complaint an organisation can count. In research for the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, 46% of Australians with a telco problem...27 October 2026 · 6 min read
- Journey breakdown · eHarmonyeHarmony's subscription journey: where sign-up, renewal and cancellation misledOn 25 August 2026 the Federal Court found that eHarmony misled Australian consumers about free dating, monthly prices, plan length, automatic renewal and cancellation. Read as a journey, each finding...27 October 2026 · 4 min read
- Case study · DuolingoDuolingo and the streak: designing a reason to come back every dayDuolingo treats the return visit as the product's main job. Its published work shows a run of small, tested changes: making the streak easier to keep, building in forgiveness with streak freezes,...27 October 2026 · 6 min read
- Case study · Commonwealth BankCommBank's scam checks: designing the right friction into the payment journeyMost journey work tries to remove steps. CommBank's response to scams did the opposite: it added checks at the exact moments a customer is most exposed, such as paying someone new or taking a call...27 October 2026 · 5 min read
- Journey breakdown · QantasQantas ghost flights: where the cancellation journey broke customer trustBetween May 2021 and August 2023, Qantas sold tickets on flights it had already decided to cancel and did not promptly tell people who already held tickets. Qantas admitted breaching the Australian...26 October 2026 · 5 min read
- ResearchDo Australians trust AI in customer service? What three large surveys showThree large surveys of Australians published in 2025 point the same way. Australians are among the most cautious consumers in the world about AI in service: only 23% trust organisations to use AI...26 October 2026 · 5 min read
- Case study · CostcoWhat Costco's 92% renewal rate shows about designing for renewalCostco renewed 92.3% of its US and Canadian members and 89.8% worldwide, according to its 2026 annual report, and membership fees brought in US$5.9 billion. The renewal is not won at the renewal...26 October 2026 · 5 min read
- CX newsSMS Sender ID Register: unregistered branded texts now show as ‘Unverified’Since 1 July 2026, a branded text message in Australia only shows the sender's name if that sender ID is registered on the ACMA's SMS Sender ID Register, through every telco or message provider used....26 October 2026 · 4 min read
- CX newsThe ACMA's draft telco consumer standard: what changes for the customer journeyOn 29 September 2026 the ACMA released a draft Telecommunications (Consumer Protections) Industry Standard to replace the industry-written code. It reaches across the whole telco journey: information...26 October 2026 · 3 min read
- PerspectiveWhat an end-to-end customer journey map should actually includeA useful end-to-end journey map follows one type of customer through one goal, from the first moment they notice a need to the point they stay, leave or come back. It shows what they do, think and...24 October 2026 · 6 min read
- PerspectiveHow to find the moments that matter most in a customer journeyThe moments that matter most are the few points in a journey where the customer's feelings run highest, where a promise is made or tested, and where the experience ends. People remember those moments...24 October 2026 · 6 min read
Nothing matches that yet. New insights land every week.