Podcast ¦ CX Passport: The One With Theater, Hedge Funds, and Guest Journeys – Tori Signorelli E229

Key Takeaways

1. Successful businesses require continuous change; stagnation can hinder growth, especially in dynamic sectors like financial services.
2. Immersive, hands-on experiences are essential for understanding complex customer journeys and operational intricacies.
3. A ‘do no harm’ approach is fundamental during organisational change, ensuring disruption remains behind the scenes rather than impacting customer experience.
4. Continuous journey management and real-time signal monitoring are vital practices for maintaining service quality amid operational change.
5. Integration between customer insights and organisational processes is imperative to prevent service breakdowns during growth or transformation.
6. Cultivating strong relationships with business leaders and operational teams is key to embedding customer-centric improvements.
7. Visually mapping customer journeys and workflows fosters shared understanding and ownership across teams.
8. Creating a transparent environment for sharing customer feedback enhances collaboration and accelerates proactive problem resolution.
9. Bridging inward operational processes with outside-in customer perspectives ensures a more balanced and effective service design.
10. High-growth environments demand clarity in communication, connecting metrics and business decisions to customer impact.
11. Embedding your customer experience approach into organisational culture and leadership fosters a sustainable service mindset.
12. Transparency, visibility and celebrating team successes are critical for evolving an organisation’s customer-centric capabilities.

Key Statistics

• Tori has been in her current role at Alaska Airlines for approximately five months.
• Her experience includes theatre school in New York, life in Florence and hedge fund service design across Europe.
• She spent nearly seven years living in Italy, learning to communicate and understand non-verbal cues, significantly shaping her empathy.

Key Discussion Points

• Importance of change for business success, particularly in growth phases.
• The value of immersive, physical experiences within complex operational environments like airlines.
• Practical application of ‘do no harm’ during operational or organisational change, focusing on customer journey signals.
• The critical role of journey management, real-time data analysis and ongoing signal monitoring for service consistency.
• Strategies for blending internal process management with outside-in customer insights to prevent service failures.
• Building organisational trust and relationships with leadership and front-line teams for effective service delivery.
• Using visual tools such as blueprints and maps to foster shared understanding and collective ownership.
• The importance of making customer feedback more visible and collaborative within organisations.
• Connecting operational metrics to customer experience outcomes through storytelling and data linkage.
• Lessons learned from her experience in high-growth environments, including clarity, stakeholder engagement and visibility.
• The influence of theatre and hedge fund backgrounds on leadership style and empathy development.
• How living abroad enhances cultural awareness, empathy and understanding of universal human behaviours.

Podcast Description

This podcast explores innovative approaches and practical strategies for delivering exceptional customer experience within complex and rapidly evolving industries. Drawing on diverse backgrounds—including theatre, finance and global mobility—guests share insights into their journeys of embedding customer-centric practices, managing organisational change and fostering collaborative cultures. The discussions emphasise the importance of immersive experiences, real-time data integration, transparent communication and leadership in driving sustainable service improvements across sectors such as aviation and financial services. Designed for senior managers and decision-makers, the podcast provides actionable insights to help organisations navigate disruption and unlock growth through customer-focused innovation.