Managing SaaS platforms means balancing customer expectations, platform availability, and fast-paced development cycles, all while optimising developer time for maximum efficiency. Constantly delivering an exceptional customer experience (CX) and maintaining seamless performance are essential. Downtime, slow response times, or bugs in key user journeys directly impact customer trust, satisfaction and Gross Revenue Retention (GRR). To address these challenges, it’s vital to have true, end-to-end visibility of how your platform performs for users 24/7 . We explore some of the key challenges impacting digital CX, customer retention, and GRR for SaaS businesses - and how to overcome them. Challenge 1: True visibility of CX & end-to-end availability Many SaaS providers rely on limited insights from traditional monitoring tools that focus on uptime and technical metrics but fail to account for the real-world customer experience. These solutions often overlook issues that actual users encounter, such as navigation bugs, inconsistent speed or availability across user journeys and errors triggered by specific user actions or particular scenarios. This can leave teams blindsided by complaints or churn, especially when issues only appear under specific circumstances. True CX visibility goes beyond basic metrics to uncover the subtle, often-overlooked issues that impact user satisfaction, platform reliability and ultimately renewals. How real-world CX Intelligence monitoring elevates SaaS CX Real-world monitoring is an approach that replicates genuine user interactions on your SaaS platform 24/7. Utilising real browsers on genuine operating systems and gathering Intelligence into your platform's experience around the clock. This approach allows you to: Detect Complex Errors: Identify problems that don’t surface in conventional testing or monitoring. Understand CX Impact: See your platform through the eyes of your users, the true impact of CX issues leading to customer frustration. Resolve Issues Quickly: Use clear, actionable evidence, empowering the right team to resolve problems faster and more effectively. By catching these issues swiftly, software businesses can ensure a seamless user experience and build long-term customer loyalty. Challenge 2: Reducing the burden on development teams Another common challenge in maintaining SaaS platforms is the heavy reliance on development resources for monitoring and troubleshooting. A managed monitoring service can alleviate this burden by: Scripting User Journeys: No developer time required, scripting is carried out for you. Ongoing Journey Maintenance: Scripts are maintained to ensure journeys work throughout the development cycle. Faster, smarter error resolution: Video replay of CX issues plus evidence-based insights and alerting enable fast, informed fixes. A managed service approach is fast and easy to implement and use and frees up technical teams to concentrate on fixing bugs and platform improvements, rather than routine monitoring tasks. Challenge 3: Maximising customer retention Constantly maintaining high levels of CX to maximise customer satisfaction and reduce churn is critical. This requires ongoing understanding of your platform's CX and user behaviour whilst addressing pain points and performance issues, and delivering continuous improvements. Challenge 4: Mitigating the risk of rapid development cycles Continual updates, new features, and improvements can introduce bugs or cause instability if not carefully managed, creating a need for continuous testing and monitoring throughout development cycles. Significant business benefits for SaaS platforms SaaS companies using real-world monitoring see significant business outcomes, including: Improved platform stability & availability: Continuous testing uncovers issues early, reducing downtime and disruptions. Enhanced customer satisfaction: Smooth, error-free user journeys boost loyalty, increase renewals and reduce churn. Increased team efficiency: With minimal developer involvement, teams can address issues more efficiently and focus on platform development. Increased GRR & NPS: Happy customers mean higher renewals and greater revenue retention. Alex Jeffery, Cloud Engineering Director at The Access Group , explains how this approach benefits growing SaaS businesses: "The ability to maximise 24/7 CX and reduce time to bug detection, while boosting NPS scores and minimising staff resource needs, is a game changer for any SaaS platform." Key Takeaways Adopting a real-world monitoring strategy enables SaaS providers to: Maintain seamless CX: Maximise CX with minimal disruption for all customer touchpoints across user journeys. Save developer time: A fully managed service handles all the complexity to no tech headaches. Reduce time to error resolution: Video replay, hard evidence, alerting and data drill-down enable quick verification and fixing of errors. Protect GRR: Build trust and satisfaction with users, safeguarding revenue and retention rates. thinkTRIBE's DCX Intelligence Service delivers a true, end-to-end view of CX and platform performance 24/7, enabling SaaS businesses to remain agile and competitive whilst ensuring optimum CX and performance. By focusing on ongoing visibility and user-centric monitoring, you not only protect your platform’s reliability but also strengthen the foundation for long-term customer trust and success. What next? Download our top level intro to SaaS monitoring to share with your team. Discover how our DCX Intelligence service can help maximise CX for SaaS solutions with no developer time .

There comes a time in most websites’ lives, when the only option, in order to meet customer needs and technology demands, is to upgrade your website’s platform. Whether this be after upscaling within your current platform has reached its limit, or you’re wanting to achieve new goals not available on your existing platform, you need to make sure you’re fully prepared to have a seamless and as minimal damage migration as possible. Platform migration can create many opportunities for your business, but what are the risks? Downtime can be a serious problem – the longer your site is down, the longer you’re not making sales, the longer you give your customers to lose faith and search for their products elsewhere. If you don’t plan and carve out a sufficient amount of time to prepare, work on and test a site on a new platform, you are leaving yourself open to a number of glitches and bottlenecks, which you then won’t have time to rectify. This will lead to a poor customer experience when the site is live and could result in prolonged downtime. Loss of customers. This can be easily done when it can be so easily avoided. As discussed above downtime, glitches and bottlenecks can lead previously loyal customers to lose faith in a previously trusted site, or make new customers turn away instantly if achieving their goal takes too long, has too many hoops to jump through or they receive error messages at pivotal stages (such as payment). These issues can be overcome, and the risks to your business removed to achieve a smooth and positive platform migration – this is where thinkTRIBE’s FREE Ten Point Checklist will help: Audit your business processes – which parts of the old system need to be incorporated into the new one – how can processes be modified to make the most of the features of the new platform. Create goals – establish ways of measuring success or failure to better understand your ROI. Devise a timetable – ensure every department is aware of their involvement and goals for the migration and maintain regular meetings to ensure all are on track. Prioritise data and product migration – how will the new platform interface with your existing inventory. Sort out your SEO – ensure your optimisation is transferred appropriately and ensure enough time is allowed for this to be done properly. Allow time for training – Staff will need to get up to speed on the new platform, schedule this in at the beginning Test early and often – Assign a way of testing the new site before it is set live, when it goes live and then regularly to avoid glitches and bottlenecks. Keep your old site – run your old site in parallel until you’re 100% happy with your new site. Maintain customer communication – if any part of your customer service has changed, let them know. Monitor performance throughout – measure your KPIs on your old platform and then on your new, keep this maintained at regular intervals to ensure you can measure the impact of changes. For a more in depth step by step guide to maintain Customer Experience throughout your platform migration project download thinkTRIBE’s eBook!

Owning the customer experience all the way to order confirmation In online retail, checkout should be the most reliable and seamless part of the digital journey — the moment where customer intent turns into revenue. Yet for many brands, it’s also where the most invisible failures happen, silently disrupting conversions and eroding trust. The quiet cost of not knowing Retailers often come to us knowing there’s a problem with their site. They may be aware of traffic dropping off during checkout — but don’t know the cause or fully understand the impact on their eCommerce conversions. What they’re picking up on — whether through a dip in traffic or conversions, or a support ticket spike — is real, but they don't have enough information to quantify or troubleshoot the issues. Typical dashboards may show good availability and page load times. But customers are dropping off, and there's no clear error in sight. This is especially common on sites that rely on third-party systems integrators or managed eCommerce platforms, where technical ownership is shared — but responsibility for CX isn’t. The 3 blind spots most retailers face: Lack of error visibility Not all problems throw an error code. A failed API call or a third-party script timeout can cause customer friction without setting off alarms. Journey-level CX gaps Traditional monitoring or uptime checks don’t reflect the real customer journey. They miss more subtle yet damaging failures — such as a discount not applying at checkout, a payment option not appearing, or a postcode validation failing silently. Third party fog When eCommerce platforms or IT systems are managed by third parties, issues often fall into the grey area between teams. Without hard evidence, it’s difficult to escalate or resolve with confidence — and finger-pointing delays fixes. Why this matters more than ever In a competitive retail environment, friction at checkout is a silent revenue killer — and these failures often go unnoticed until someone reports them, or worse, walks away. Every missed transaction isn’t just lost revenue, it’s a lost relationship, a missed repeat sale, and a dent in customer trust. eCommerce conversion errors the path forward CX Visibility, not guesswork Retailers don’t need to guess anymore. A service replicating real user journeys around-the-clock — including add-to-basket, promotions, logins, checkout processes — gives teams hard evidence on where, why and how often issues cause drop-offs. Crucially, it enables: Faster identification of errors and anomalies Evidence to hold third parties accountable Smarter prioritisation of fixes based on actual customer impact Reduced time lost to internal troubleshooting and cross-team debates It’s not about blaming third parties. It’s about owning the customer experience — all the way to order confirmation. Real-world journey based CX Monitoring gives you the visibility standard tools miss, capturing how actual users experience your site, across all the steps that matter. With a true view of your digital journeys, you can pinpoint issues faster, hold third parties accountable, and protect your conversion rates where they’re most vulnerable. If you're ready to see what your customers are really experiencing, we can show you where the blind spots are — and how to fix them. Further Resources Read our Boden case study to learn how they use thinkTRIBE to maximise conversions and prevent lost sales globally Read our luxury retail Case Study to understand what happens when high-end eCommerce meets high traffic—and hidden API flaws Download our eBook and discover how to understand the causes of digital CX friction & website errors Learn how to eliminate eCommerce friction & website errors causing lost sales in our eBook

Why B2B eCommerce teams need to rethink visibility of CX Meeting B2B buyers B2C expectations In B2B eCommerce, the traditional focus has been on availability and functionality. If the site is up and orders are coming in, it's considered a success. But in today’s competitive landscape, that's no longer enough. 90% of global B2B buyers  expect a digital experience that reflects B2C. Journey speed, consistency, and ease of use have a direct and measurable impact on customer satisfaction, Net Promoter Score (NPS), and long-term retention. The complexity of B2B customer journeys Unlike B2C, B2B customer journeys are rarely straightforward. They often involve account-specific pricing, tailored product ranges and complex trading terms. Add to this large order volumes and high frequency orders, and you have a digital environment that's far more vulnerable to - and less tolerant of - CX and performance issues. Standard monitoring tools that track uptime or server health don’t measure what the customer actually experiences. A page may technically load, but if it takes too long or fails to display a price or product details, it can prevent checkout. How Brakes approach CX measurement Brakes the UK’s leading food and drink wholesaler , recognised these challenges early. With 90% of their orders coming through digital channels, and over £1 billion flowing through their website annually, they knew that any CX disruption could impact both customer satisfaction and revenue. Brakes implemented real-world user journey CX monitoring to measure the performance of key customer routes—across real desktop and mobile browsers. This gave them visibility into what customers actually experience when performing tasks on the site, not just what their infrastructure says. It also leads to early detection of CX and performance issues so Brakes can act promptly to invoke the correct fix, minimising disruption and keeping customers happy. Key Lessons for B2B Teams Speed and consistency drive NPS and retention Brakes established a clear link: a 10% increase in journey speed led to a 4.4% improvement in NPS . And a better NPS is closely tied to stronger customer retention and reduced churn. Proactive detection matters Real-time alerts and journey monitoring let Brakes spot and fix issues before they escalated—often before customers noticed. Not all errors are equal Some issues, like missing prices or add-to-basket failures, directly impact revenue. Others, like a missing image, affect brand perception. Monitoring needs to reflect that and help teams prioritise accordingly. CX visibility from the end user perspective is essential Internal dashboards often miss issues rooted in front-end performance, third-party scripts, or customer-specific logic. Real-world user journey monitoring fills that gap by showing exactly what the user experiences. What should B2B eCommerce leaders do next? Measure real customer journeys not internal metrics or uptime. Review what your current monitoring actually measures. Does it deliver a true view of customer experience? Monitor with real browsers. Identify your most critical end-to-end digital journeys and monitor them continuously on the same browsers your end users are utilising. Unite team with unified metrics. Consolidate insights from IT, marketing, and customer service to build a shared view of digital experience. This helps align priorities and accelerates resolution. Quantify the business impact of CX. Start tying journey-level metrics to business KPIs like NPS, conversion, and churn and prioritise CX and performance accordingly. Final Thought Brakes' approach shows what’s possible when B2B organisations prioritise CX with the right tools and mindset. In a space where relationships, repeat business, and long-term trust are everything, digital performance isn’t just a tech issue—it’s a growth strategy. Brakes uses thinkTRIBE’s Digital CX Intelligence Monitoring to gain real-world visibility into performance, improve journey speed, and protect revenue through stronger customer experience. More Resources If you'd like to learn how leading food wholesaler Brakes utilised thinkTRIBE's CX monitoring to enhance CX and boos NPS, read our case study.

In most SaaS organisations, developer time is one of the most valuable and constrained resources.— yet engineering teams are still pulled into solving customer experience issues that could have been caught earlier. Often, it’s because real monitoring of end-to-end customer journeys isn’t happening. Most teams use traditional monitoring tools, track uptime, server performance, or errors — but that doesn’t reflect what users actually experience, and it doesn’t catch the kinds of issues that lead to complaints, frustration, or churn. In other cases, teams are using self-serve monitoring tools, but these still require developer time and lack full journey coverage. This post explores how SaaS teams can close the CX visibility gap without draining developer resources. The growing complexity of customer experience SaaS platforms operate in dynamic environments: constant releases, varied user behaviours, and increasingly complex integrations. The result? CX issues can surface at any time — often under specific user conditions that aren’t easy to reproduce in a dev or test environment. Many teams try to bridge this gap with traditional monitoring tools and custom scripts. But these often require developer input to create, maintain, and troubleshoot, especially when something breaks or when journeys change. Where the real time goes What starts as a few scripts quickly becomes a drain on resources: Maintaining journeys as the product evolves Triaging customer complaints with limited data Jumping between logs, front-end traces, and server metrics to identify root cause This type of work pulls developers away from roadmap delivery, technical innovation, and fixing CX issues. The gap between platform health and user experience Most teams have some form of monitoring in place: backend performance, service availability, maybe some synthetic checks or analytics dashboards. But those don’t reveal what a customer experiences when: A journey breaks halfway through A bug only appears on certain browsers A page slows down under specific conditions A release disrupts a critical conversion journey When that happens, the first sign is often a support ticket — or worse, silence followed by churn. When your developers get pulled in to investigate, the cost is twofold: customer trust has already taken a hit, and engineering time is now tied up in troubleshooting instead of delivering value. Rethinking who manages CX visibility So how can SaaS teams ensure a true view of CX without consuming engineering time? One answer is to treat CX and performance monitoring as a service — something that’s maintained externally or by dedicated specialists. This way, user journeys are tested continuously, across real-world conditions, and developers are only involved when something truly needs fixing — with the evidence and context to do it quickly. This shift: Reduces time spent on monitoring maintenance Speeds up issue resolution Frees developers to focus on product development Improves collaboration between support, ops and engineering Why it matters now In a competitive SaaS market, delivering a reliable, friction-free experience is closely tied to retention, NPS, and revenue. But keeping experience smooth shouldn’t come at the cost of slowing down your developers. As platforms grow more complex and teams scale, separating routine monitoring tasks from core development work becomes a smart operational decision. More Resources Ready to learn more about enhancing your SaaS CX whilst freeing developer time? Discover exactly how thinkTRIBE's managed CX solutions support growth for SaaS businesses . If you’re serious about delivering the best possible experience for your users while freeing developer resources, read about thinkTRIBE’s DCX Intelligence Service . If you'd like to learn how leading SaaS provider the Access Group utilised thinkTRIBE's CX monitoring to drive maximise CX and drive retention, read our case study.

If you manage a SaaS platform, you already know that customer retention is key to long-term success. But keeping customers happy isn’t just about having a great product—it’s about delivering a seamless, reliable experience every time they log in. The challenge? Continuously spotting issues before they impact users, resolving them quickly, and ensuring your tech teams aren’t drowning in troubleshooting. Optimising SaaS customer experience & holistic platform availability Maintaining continually high SaaS customer experience demands real-time visibility into true user experience and a holistic, customer-centric approach to platform performance. And let’s be honest—that’s a big ask. But it’s also crucial for growth, especially when CX directly impacts NPS and GRR. An early warning system for errors A smooth, reliable platform is the foundation of great customer experience. No one wants to deal with a slow or glitchy service—least of all your customers. Real-world CX monitoring, acts as an early warning system, helping businesses detect, diagnose and fix issues before users even notice, keeping experiences smooth and frustration-free. Less firefighting for dev teams For your development team, early detection of errors and streamlined error resolution with features like Video Replay of errors, means less firefighting and more focus on innovation. Faster issue detection, diagnosis, and resolution prevent wasted time and strained resources, making tech teams more efficient and customers happier. And a managed monitoring service takes away the burden of day-to-day monitoring tasks. Strengthening customer loyalty & retention It goes without saying that customer loyalty is built on trust and consistency. SaaS users expect a seamless experience, and even the smallest disruptions lead to frustration—and churn. Minimising service disruptions and maintaining top-level CX ensures customers aren’t tempted to jump ship to a competitor. The relationship between CX, GRR & NPS Customer experience and website performance don’t just influence user satisfaction—they impact key business metrics like NPS and GRR - perhaps more directly than you think. That’s a lot of acronyms! - but the formula is simple: improved CX leads to happier customers, stronger retention (GRR), and more advocates (NPS). A strong CX strategy protects GRR by reducing churn and driving upsells, while a great user experience boosts NPS, turning customers into advocates. With the help of true CX monitoring 24/7 many businesses are able to calculate a measurable correlation between KPIs—like journey delivery times or availability—and NPS. This serves as an early indicator into the impact of CX and website performance on the business, enabling changes before it's too late. The better the customer experience, the higher your NPS, GRR and bottom line. It’s a win-win—happy customers drive business success. Plus, improving CX benefits shareholder value too. The way forward To safeguard GRR and strengthen customer relationships, investing in true CX visibility 24/7, delivered as a fully managed service, is a smart move. Real-time CX monitoring and proactive issue resolution ensure a seamless user experience, reducing churn and strengthening key business metrics, all whilst freeing up developer resources to work on what really matters. What our clients have to say Don’t just take our word for it. Here’s what Ovidiu Julean, Director of Products & Engineering at The Access Group’s Care Division, had to say: “A major thinkTRIBE benefit is faster issue resolution. The quicker we resolve issues, the happier our customers are. My goal is to minimise the time engineering teams spend diagnosing problems so they can focus on resolving them as quickly as possible.” More Resources Ready to learn more about elevating your SaaS CX and protecting GRR? Discover exactly how thinkTRIBE's managed CX solutions support growth for SaaS businesses . If you’re serious about delivering the best possible experience for your users while safeguarding GRR, thinkTRIBE’s DCX Intelligence Service is here to help. If you'd like to learn how leading SaaS provider the Access Group utilised thinkTRIBE's CX monitoring to drive maximise CX and drive retention, read our case study.

What happens when high-end eCommerce meets high traffic—and hidden API flaws? A luxury goods retailer came to thinkTRIBE after replatforming to a composable storefront. With high-value products and even higher customer expectations, any glitches in the customer experience can have a major impact—not just on revenue, but on brand reputation. Their goal? Understand how the new platform would hold up under real-world pressure and peak traffic. Their initial concerns were around page speed and performance—fears that proved unfounded. But what we uncovered wasn’t a classic site crash. It was more subtle. And just as damaging. Failing promo codes—Early, and often Early on during our real-world Load Testing process — well before peak load—promo codes began to fail. 28% of promo code attempts failed outright , returning a misleading “promo code not valid” message. We’re not talking about page errors or a dramatic crash. Pages loaded. Journeys flowed. Everything looked fine on the surface. To customers, it would have looked like they’d entered the wrong code. They hadn’t. But behind the scenes, something was breaking. The API wasn’t validating promo codes correctly. As traffic climbed to peak levels, the failure rate rose with it—reaching a significant 70% failure rate . That’s seven out of ten customers being prevented from redeeming offers during a key conversion moment—not because the codes were wrong, but because the APIs couldn’t cope. “Add to Bag” – Or not As traffic reached peak, another revenue-critical failure appeared: the "Add to Bag" action stopped working properly. Again, no crash. No obvious red flag. But 30% of attempted adds to bag failed to complete the action. That’s a 30% loss in potential orders, a significant amount of lost revenue in a luxury retail environment. When real users meet real frustration The root cause? Struggling APIs Unlike a more common peak traffic server failure, where it’s clear there’s a problem, this was more subtle. The storefront appeared to be functioning, but core eCommerce functionality quietly crumbled under pressure—taking revenue with it. If left undiscovered, the result? No alarms. No clear signs. Just confused customers and shrinking conversion rates. The registered user redirect loop There was also a known issue the retailer needed help quantifying. Registered users who returned to a previously abandoned basket and logged in during checkout were redirected back to the basket rather than moving to checkout—after entering their delivery details. It would be confusing. Frustrating. And likely a drop-off point for high-value returning customers. We were able to simulate, quantify, and pinpoint the issue during testing, giving the retailer clear evidence and actionable data. The CX Takeaway: The risks of overlooking real-world Load Testing This wasn’t a story of clear failure—the site didn’t crash in a blaze of HTTP 500 errors. It was a case of quiet, compounding losses: a site that looked like it was working, while silently hindering conversions for a significant proportion of customers. These kinds of subtle, inconsistent failures are typical of struggling APIs— missed by traditional performance or load testing tools. Without real-world Load Testing of actual user journeys they would remain hidden beneath the surface. This is especially important when it comes to composable architectures, which are heavily reliant on APIs. When your products are high-value, and your customers expect seamless journeys, even small issues can mean big losses. This test bench tale is a reminder that not all CX issues are visible. Some are hidden—until you test like a real user. Further Resources Read our top tips for overcoming platform migration risks and maintaining seamless digital CX and performance throughout your replatforming project. Discover how our managed CX and performance services can help you to ensure successful platform migration .

Launching a new kit isn’t just about the shirt — it’s about the experience and the digital journey has become crucial to kit launch success. But too often, clubs make mistakes when preparing their online stores that lead to frustration, lost sales, and missed brand moments. Here are the top 6 mistakes we see when helping leading football clubs prepare for online kit launch and other high demand events: 1. Leaving Performance Testing too late Too many clubs leave it too late to begin testing, assuming one test will be enough. But by then, it’s often too late and more costly to fix underlying performance issues. High-pressure events like kit launches demand precision — and preparation. Performance Testing needs to start early in the planning phase, giving clubs time to involve multiple departments in the planning process, identify weak points, implement changes and re-test after fixes, ensuring improvements actually work. Treat Performance Testing as an integral part of launch planning — not a final checkbox 2. Not Load Testing real user behaviour under real-world conditions Kit drops and ticket sales drive serious website traffic with Football Clubs experiencing substantial peaks way beyond usual baseline traffic. Demand spikes within minutes of going live. And with a global fanbase it's further complicated, with supporters accessing the site from multiple regions and time zones. If user journeys haven't been load tested under realistic traffic scenarios , it’s vulnerable to slowdowns, errors, and checkout failures — all of which lead to fan frustration and lost revenue. Clubs need to simulate end-to end journeys replicating real-user behaviour as well as Load Testing against realistic traffic profiles well in advance. 3. Assuming autoscaling will cope with peak demand Autoscaling sounds like a safety net — but it isn’t a silver bullet. Scaling up infrastructure rarely works effectively straight out of the box; it requires careful preparation, including steps like cache warming. Clubs often assume the tech will “just work”, but without fine-tuning and real-world Load Testing, the system can still falter under fan pressure — right when it matters most. Learn more about kit launch autoscaling issues in our Premier League case study. 4. Overlooking 3rd party integrations From payment providers to personalisation tools, a football club’s online store relies on multiple third-party integrations. If any of these underperform or fail under pressure, it impacts the entire fan experience. Yet many clubs don’t monitor the end-to-end journey from the fan’s point of view, meaning issues are only discovered after supporters start complaining. You may want to consider disabling any non-essential third-party add-ons for the duration of peak demand. 5. Neglecting mobile experience A huge portion of fans engage via mobile — and mobile networks are less forgiving. If an eCommerce site hasn’t been optimised for mobile traffic during peak, fans will abandon fast. Clubs need to prepare for the mobile kit drop as much as desktop and monitor journeys for both after going live, using the same ioS and Android browsers as site visitors use. 6. Not proactively monitoring real-world fan journeys Once the site is live, it’s too late to discover something’s broken. Without real-time, intelligent monitoring of fan journeys — from landing page to checkout — clubs can’t spot or fix issues quickly. Monitoring solutions that track what fans are actually experiencing act as an early warning system and are essential to detect errors and customer experience issues before they escalate into bigger problems. Further Resources Want to make sure your club avoids these website mistakes prior to kit launch? Download our kit launch preparation eBook. Di scover how to optimise customer experience & protect online revenue for kit launch  and other high profile events. Read our Premier League case study Learn how we helped a Premier League Club uncover an autoscaling issue preventing kit launch chaos with real-world Load Testing.

A Premier League football club’s kit launch is more than just an online sale—it’s a global event. Fans from around the world rush to grab the latest jersey, creating a surge of traffic that can overwhelm even the most robust eCommerce platforms. When the Club asked thinkTRIBE to carry out Load Testing for its latest launch, it uncovered a critical flaw that could have severely impacted online kit sales and the Club’s brand reputation. The Hidden Challenge: When Autoscaling Falls Short Like many online retailers, the Club relied on cloud autoscaling provided by a third party to adjust to traffic demand. The assumption? That the system would seamlessly expand capacity as demand increased. The reality? Instead of a smooth transition, the scaling process triggered widespread storefront errors for all users. High demand events for football clubs, such as kit launches or online ticket sales, cause extreme spikes in traffic compared to baseline levels, making successful scaling essential . A failure of this type would have led to frustrated fans, abandoned carts, and lost revenue. The key takeaway? Don't let cloud autoscaling lead you into a false sense of security. Autoscaling is not a substitute for Load Testing. Without testing as part of peak preparation, the Club wouldn’t have known that its system wouldn’t scale fast enough to keep up with demand. The Solution: Real-world Load Testing combined with 24/7 CX Monitoring 1. Load Testing under real-world conditions to uncover risks With online sales growing significantly year on year, the Club turned to thinkTRIBE to ensure its platform could handle demand. We conducted Load Testing , including Spike Tests , based on real-world traffic profiles using a mixture of user journeys and drop-off ratios. The results were concerning: instead of handling demand smoothly, the autoscaling feature caused major errors to users across the storefront. What we uncovered: Instead of the slowdown in user journeys that we would normally expect to see for some users, as the system adjust to demand, user journeys suffered critical errors. Large numbers of users encountered errors across the storefront and throughout their journeys preventing checkout, including "504 Gateway Timeout" messages. Autoscaling was not adjusting capacity sufficiently to manage changes in demand and prevent widescale disruption. Pre-warming caches reduces 99% of errors Armed with this insight, the Club was able to use smart "cache warming" eliminating 99% of errors and preventing failures prior to kit launch. When traffic increases, auto-scaling  adds extra 'nodes' to keep things running smoothly but if nodes aren’t ready, users see errors. To prevent this, pre-warming the cache on new nodes with popular requests before they go live, ensures most user requests are answered instantly from the cache. This reduces strain on databases and backend systems - keeping customer experience seamless. 2. 24/7 CX Monitoring to Keep Sales Flowing Following the Load Testing and successful infrastructure changes, thinkTRIBE’s ongoing CX Monitoring ensured supporters continued to enjoy a seamless shopping experience. We help Football Clubs optimise ongoing customer experience by simulating real customer journeys on desktop and mobile, using real browsers on real operating systems, we detected and helped resolve potential issues before they could impact sales. Common problems uncovered included: Broken ‘Add to Bag’ buttons Out-of-stock items appearing available until checkout Checkout failures leading to abandoned carts Site slowdowns reducing engagement Payment processing errors particularly with international providers The Results: A successful kit launch without a hitch Thanks to thinkTRIBE’s proactive testing and monitoring, the Club avoided major kit launch disruption, ensuring: Flawless peak performance  – No unexpected crashes or slowdowns, even under record-breaking traffic. Revenue protection – Prevented costly disruption, abandoned purchases, and brand damage. Seamless fan experience  – A smooth, stress-free buying process from browsing to checkout to maximise online revenue and safeguard the Club's brand. Faster issue resolution  – Video replay of errors and real-time insights helped the Club fix problems quickly, minimising disruptions. Reduced workload for tech teams  – thinkTRIBE managed testing and monitoring, freeing internal and third-party teams to focus on other priorities. The Takeaway: Autoscaling is not a substitute for Load Testing For any business handling extreme traffic surges, Load Testing and CX Monitoring aren’t optional—they’re essential . The belief that cloud autoscaling out of the box can prevent issues is a dangerous misconception . Without proactive testing, retailers risk major failures at the worst possible time. By preparing in advance and catching performance risks before they impact users, thinkTRIBE helps brands protect their revenue, reputation, and customer experience. This Premier League Club is now better prepared, ensuring its eCommerce platform remains resilient and ready for peak demand . Read the full Premier League Kit Launch case study here Ready to learn more about optimising your Football Club's eCommerce? To learn how to prepare your website for a successful kit launch read our eBook  or there's a summary in our blog here . Read our blog for more information about how to optimise ongoing digital customer experience for your Football Club

How customer-centric managed services maximise business outcomes When it comes to investing in a fully managed digital CX and performance monitoring solution a common question we get asked is: "How do we measure ROI?" While it's challenging to provide a one-size-fits-all answer due to varying use cases, what sets a fully managed service based on true customer experience apart, is its ability to drive meaningful, long-term business outcomes, address critical pain points, streamline operations, and deliver measurable value at every step of your customer journeys. Here are a few ways a solution like thinkTRIBE’s helps deliver ROI. Budget confidently with transparent Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) TCO for software solutions often includes hidden expenses such as scripting and unexpected upgrades. Our solution helps with budgeting , eliminating surprises with clear, upfront pricing that includes: No scripting costs and no tech team required. Seamless integration with no downtime. Ongoing script maintenance throughout release cycles. Comprehensive support and training. This ensures predictable financial commitment, helping you budget confidently while avoiding costly surprises. 2. Reduce the lag between investment & impact with Rapid Time to Value (TTV) ROI is heavily influenced by how quickly a solution begins delivering value. With our service, you can start seeing returns almost immediately: Quick & easy deployment: Get up and running in just two weeks. Our team facilitate this including journey advice and journey scripting. Plus no platform or stack changes required. Guaranteed results: Achieve measurable improvements within eight weeks—or your money back. 3. Business risk mitigation Our solution minimises risks associated with implementing new technology: Protecting CX: Identifying and addressing issues from customer perspective before they escalate and impact customers and revenue. Safeguarding online revenue: Increased platform availability, stability and speed means greater conversions, Average Order Value (AOV) and renewals. Protecting your reputation: Safeguarding your online operation to maintain trust and loyalty. Avoided disruptions are a key component of the ROI our solution delivers. Performance issues, downtime, and customer dissatisfaction can have significant financial and reputational costs. 4. Significant efficiency gains and time savings. Teams can focus on driving business outcomes Time and resources saved are critical metrics for evaluating ROI, a managed service allows your team to focus on fixing incidents and developing your platform by handling: Scripting, script maintenance and journey surveillance: Fully managed by our experts. Early identification of incidents: Early identification of incidents means issues are resolved before they escalate. Streamlined error resolution: Faster root-cause analysis to minimise downtime. 5. Tangible business outcomes. Increased revenue and customer retention Ultimately, the ROI of any solution is measured by the business outcomes and revenue it enables. With our fully managed service, you can expect: Higher conversions and Average Order Value (AOV): Improved performance, faster journeys and more stable platforms lead to smoother customer journeys and increased revenue. Reduced bounce rates: Faster page load times and issue resolution. Increased availability and shorter journey load times: Reliable journeys mean fewer missed opportunities. Improved customer satisfaction, NPS & renewals: Faster journeys, improved availability, fewer incidents and faster resolution times, enhance experience and drives NPS & renewals. Conclusion: Why thinkTRIBE offers exceptional ROI of CX SaaS With predictable costs, rapid deployment and measurable outcomes, our fully managed digital CX and performance monitoring solution is built to maximise ROI. It not only simplifies implementation and reduces risks but enhances true customer experience and drives revenue. Ready to see how our solution can transform your ROI? Let’s start the conversation today.

ThinkTribe Ltd, the UKs leading provider of managed digital CX 24/7 management services announced the formation of its Strategic Advisory Board today. This group will guide the Company's expansion, product roadmap, and engagement with key partners, driving value creation, innovation, and growth.   ThinkTribe appoints Simon Wakeman , an existing board member, and Alex Jeffery to its newly formed Strategic Advisory Board. Alex is a dynamic and innovative Senior Director and CxO, with a proven track record of driving revenue growth globally, and implementing R&D, product and service strategies. Having recently departed Access Group after 4.5 years of rapid group where Alex carried many roles, most recently as Director - Cloud Engineering & Director - Access Managed Services.   Before joining the Access Group, Alex had spent 8 years at Capita with various director roles and Chief Operating roles. Alex states “I’m thrilled to join ThinkTribe's Advisory Board at this pivotal time, having experienced first-hand the precision and impact of ThinkTribe’s approach in helping growing software and SaaS companies speed up their rate of charge. The ability to maximise 24/7 customer experience and reduce time to bug detection, while boosting NPS scores and minimising staff resource needs is a game changer. I look forward to contributing to the Company's strategic direction and unlocking new opportunities in the expanding software / SaaS space that I know so well.”   Simon Wakeman, having joined the main board in 2023, forms part of the Strategic Advisory Board, alongside CEO Deri Jones and MD Karina Alves. Simon is an experienced portfolio COO with a focus on technology-centric service businesses and has held a number of non-executive roles in rapid growth scale-ups. ThinkTribe's newly appointed Board are ready to unlock new opportunities and continue shaping the future of digital CX management.

What to look out for in a Load Testing solution Load testing remains crucial for gathering valuable data to inform key decisions, protect your digital customer experience, and avoid lost revenue during critical times. However, with the complexity of modern websites and eCommerce platforms, traditional methods just don’t cut it anymore. Here's a look at the essential features your Load Testing solution needs to meet today’s demands. 1)  Dynamic testing capability to handle complexity Websites today come packed with complex business logic, third-party integrations, and dynamic features. Traditional Load Testing approaches, DIY methods and basic record-and-playback tools aren't equipped to handle this level of complexity. They often lead to oversimplified tests that fail to uncover genuine issues. To get meaningful results, your Load Testing solution needs to be dynamic — replicating real user behaviour, dynamically interacting with page content and test profiles need to be realistic. This approach ensures that no stone is left unturned, catching problems that traditional methods might miss. 2)  Accurate insights based on realistic user simulations Your customers don't follow a single, predictable path, so why should your Load Testing? Testing needs to reflect real-world user behaviour, covering multi-step journeys, customer interactions from page content, a realistic mix of journeys and drop-off rates. This way, you get a traffic profile that mirrors the real customer experience. Traditional Load Testing often focuses on simplified metrics, which can be misleading and mask serious performance issues. In contrast, realistic testing gives you a clear picture of how your site will perform and what experience your customers will encounter, under real-world conditions, offering a single point of truth to guide your decisions on hardware investments, managing third parties and allocating budgets . This data helps you uncover potential bottlenecks and take action to fix them. For example, calculating concurrent users is a common metric, but without considering what users are actually doing on the site, it can produce wildly inaccurate data. Your testing should go beyond surface-level metrics to ensure accuracy. 3) E xperts to save time and free up your team Bringing in a third-party expert for managed load testing can save your in-house tech team time and effort. A reliable, fully managed service takes care of everything—from defining a realistic test model and scripting journeys to scheduling and monitoring the tests. Outsourcing this service allows your team to focus on other critical tasks while still gaining deep insights into your customer experience and website’s performance. Plus, a trusted partner can offer quicker turnaround times and greater testing capacity, especially when you're under tight deadlines. 4) High-level collaboration and live adjustments One essential feature to look for in a Managed Load Testing solution is high-level collaboration and live interaction throughout the testing process. This allows redirection of tests and the ability to make configuration changes in real-time, ensuring the most accurate results. The ability to adjust on the fly maximises both value, as you can respond immediately to unexpected outcomes and refine your testing strategy in real time. Accurate, actionable metrics without burdening your tech team Tribe’s fully managed load testing service  takes your analytics and creates the most realistic test models. We script dynamic journeys that incorporate the realism needed to test the most complex of websites including multi-step journeys across a site looking into page content to make dynamic choices. If you’d like tangible, actionable performance testing data, whilst at the same freeing up internal resources contact us to find out more. Read more about our load testing service here or find out about managing a realistic load test programme in our eBook. #websiteperformancetesting #LoadTesting #traditionalloadtesting #performancetesting #webperformance