The Signal - Issue No. 04
A note from Dane
Welcome to issue four of The Signal, thanks for opening this up!
Happy almost October everyone! We're on the final stretch of the year and as Autumn approaches we’re reaching for our cardis here in London while the Auckland team breaks out the shorts and t-shirts.
The family and I were fortunate enough to take a trip to Italy over the summer break. EasyJet was the airline of choice (for economic reasons), which meant a very early flight in exchange for more spending money on carbs.
Our whole customer experience on the way out was surprisingly brilliant. Fast, efficient, great crew - I was so impressed. The way home was a completely different story: slow, manual operation, huge queue and a grumpy crew.
Same airline, same route, two very different experiences within the space of a fortnight. I love a great customer experience. I love it when you feel valued no matter what tier of airline or service it is.
At the risk of this sounding like a crap LinkedIn post from a recruitment company - it was a good reminder of just how important consistency is across every touchpoint of a service. One great interaction can surprise and delight, but it’s quickly diminished by a negative one. It’s all about consistency.
That idea of consistency runs through this issue, personalisation to build better leads, to the small, everyday frictions we explore in this month's articles. Enjoy the read and have a great rest of your week.
Dane Tatana
CEO
01 - Consistency Is the New Loyalty Currency
Business and brands spend heavily on standout moments, the beautiful onboarding screen, the clever campaign, the flagship store, but loyalty is rarely won in the highlight reel. It's won, or lost, in the ordinary, repeated moments: the third time someone contacts support, the return visit to an app, the second flight with the same airline. A single excellent experience creates a memory; a consistently reliable one creates a habit. For teams under pressure to innovate, the less glamorous work of auditing every channel and touchpoint against a single standard, so that customers get the same quality whether they're on the app, in-store or on the phone, is often the highest-leverage CX investment available.
02 - From the Deck
Welcome, Michael and Shehari
We’re growing! A warm welcome to two new faces on the team. Some fun facts on our newbies - Micheal’s dream fictional world would be The Lord of the Rings and Shehari’s comfort TV show is F.R.I.E.N.D.S. We’re so thrilled to have them as part of the team. Who doesn’t love Frodo and Phoebe?
Micheal Catania (left) - Has joined our London office as AI Solution and Implementation Lead
Shehari Gunatilaka (right) - Has joined our Auckland office as Assistant Accountant.
03 — EXPLAIN IT TO A KID EPISODE 2 - COMING SOON
Next week Costis Los will break down agentic AI. He’ll unpack what it actually means when software starts making decisions on its own, explained simply enough that an eight and an eleven-year-old can follow along.
04 - Worth Reading This Month
We know you're time poor so here's two shorter reads from the team on the digital trends shaping customer experience right now.
AI Isn't the CX Differentiator Anymore. How You Use It Is.
Most companies have an AI-powered chatbot or an AI feature bolted onto their product by now. Fewer have customers who actually notice the difference. Zendesk's 2026 CX Trends report puts a number on that gap, and it's a bigger problem for B2B than most teams realise.
The Value of Designing Faster
Design is getting faster. Most of the conversation about that speed focuses on output: more screens, more pages. That's the wrong measure. Speed is valuable not because it lets us design more, but because it lets us learn more - about customers, about what they want, and about where investment will genuinely pay off. It’s less about efficiency, more about insight.
05 - Currently Loving
Dish Podcast
If you like food, celebs and good banter this is a great one to check out. One of our faves is Tom Holland who features 3 times he’s that good!
06 - Until Next Month
Thanks for reading, it genuinely means a lot that you keep coming back.
Until next month.
Dane
Dane Tatana
CEO
Dane is the CEO and co-owner of Journey, with global responsibility across the Auckland and London studios. With over twenty years as a customer experience strategist, he has led transformation and CX programmes for enterprise clients across Europe, the Middle East, North America and Australasia, in sectors ranging from aviation and financial services to healthcare and life sciences. He remains directly involved in the strategy and delivery of Journey's most complex engagements.