Often Imitated: CX Stories from History

When it comes to thrilling CX, few can compete with what was once the ultimate viewing experience: the battle between gladiators in the Roman Colosseum. Between the towering walls, packed stadiums, exotic animals, and fearsome warriors, it wouldn’t be the worst way to spend a day (unless you happened to be in the show).

With that level of entertainment still striking awe nearly 2,000 years later, we had to dive deep into what it takes to create a lasting CX impression. Luckily, Chris Hsu, Co-founder, and CEO of Zibo, knows what it takes to make your customers obsessed with your product. Let’s figure out how to make your CX the champion of your company (hopefully with a little less drama than the Romans).

Experience: Building for the needs that your customers don’t even know they have

Inspiration: The Roman Colosseum

Modern Day Execution: Chris Hsu, Co-founder, and CEO of Zibo

Three Takeaways

• Allocate money for deep customer research.
• Figure out your customer’s Top 10 pain points, and start working towards resolving their concerns.
• When you focus on innovating your product, you can find solutions to problems your customers haven’t even noticed before.

Key Quotes

• “Everything starts with deep customer insight.”
• “If we just did our customers' Top 10 needs, we would find ourselves with a platform where we've optimized for everything that everyone has asked for, but we haven't innovated and created opportunities they don't know exist.”
• “Trust is the number one most important thing”

__

Thanks to our friends

This podcast is presented by Oracle CX.

Hear more executive perspectives on CX transformation at Oracle.com/cx/perspectives

Telethons are an iconic part of the TV experience. Seeing the donation total rise while a whole variety show plays out for hours on end is a unique form of entertainment. But putting the gimmicks aside, telethons do a great job of depicting the delicate balance of chaos and order when it comes to managing multiple calls at the same time. And that’s a balance CX leaders work to navigate every day in their contact centers.

Today, we’re doing a deep dive into contact centers. We’re going to find out what the biggest pain points are in managing one, and how to successfully run yours. Tim McDougal, Managing Director of Deloitte Consulting, and Contact Center Offering Leader at Deloitte Digital, shares how they’re leading the way in creating the best contact centers in the industry. And luckily for us, he shares all his insights in today’s episode.

--------

"Contact centers are the face of your organization." - Tim McDougal

--------

Time Stamps

(0:00) Stage lights and turkey legs

(6:54) Deloitte’s view of contact centers

(10:26) The Global Contact Center Survey

(13:42) Personalizing your contact center CX

(17:59) How to have the best customer experience at your contact center

--------

Sponsor

This podcast is presented by Oracle CX.

Hear more executive perspectives on CX transformation at Oracle.com/cx/perspectives

--------

Links

Connect with Tim on LinkedIn

Check out Deloitte

By flying above the clouds, Jacqueline Cochran also broke through the glass ceiling. During WWII, she brought women’s aviation to the forefront of the war effort. She taught women to be as good if not better at flying than the men — redefining aviation education at the time.

In aviation, understanding your product can make the difference between life and death. Though the stakes aren’t as high for a lot of us, customer education is a crucial part of CX. Ben Kovalis, Co-founder and CMO of Art AI has become a pro and fierce advocate for customer education.

Experience: Educating your customers

Inspiration: Jacqueline Cochran and the WASP

Modern Day Execution: Ben Kovalis, Co-founder and CMO, Art AI

Three Takeaways

• Educate your customers and they’ll be your best advocates.
• When your product is ahead of its time, educating your customers is critical to your success.
• The more you educate your customers, the less fearful they’ll be.

Key Quotes

• “When you have something that is unique, it gives you this opportunity to introduce something new to other people's lives.”
• “The product that we're offering is not just beautiful, it is intellectual.”
• “When you are in tune with the new developments in technology and AI, you have a strong understanding of how the future is going to look like. And then you're not afraid of it.”

__

Thanks to our friends

This podcast is presented by Oracle CX.

Hear more executive perspectives on CX transformation at Oracle.com/cx/perspectives

When you think of the comedy greats, who comes to mind? Dave Chappelle? Tina Fey? The producers of Often Imitated? Well, there’s someone else you should be adding to that list, someone who paved the way for women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community: Moms Mabley.

Moms started doing stand-up comedy in the late 1910s and her career lasted nearly 60 years. She had a specific style of dressing and speaking that kept people enamored with her. In her unassuming day dresses and sun hats, people were shocked when she shared her edgy jokes about love, race, and politics. She knew how to communicate and keep her audience engaged. Which is all that most of us want when it comes to good CX. So we set out to find an expert who could help us learn how to communicate well with our customers. And that’s Grad Conn, Chief Experience Officer at Sprinklr. He knows what it takes to have successful communication as a brand, and a comedian. Let’s find out how he does it.

--------

"Shift from thinking your product is the center of the universe to thinking about your customers as the center of the universe." - Grad Conn

--------

Time Stamps

(0:00) Your mom: the queen of comedy

(8:40) What is Sprinklr?

(10:16) Who’s a better communicator, your marketing exec or a stand-up comedian?

(14:25) Is being an online troll worth it?

(17:25) Prioritize your customers over your product

--------

Sponsor

This podcast is presented by Oracle CX.

Hear more executive perspectives on CX transformation at Oracle.com/cx/perspectives

--------

Links

Connect with Grad on LinkedIn

Check out Sprinklr

Fake news and disinformation: these are new terms for age-old ideas. Even back around the turn of the 20th century, marketers were telling half-truths, bending and twisting narratives to influence perception. And believe it or not, it all started with tuna.

The fishing industry had been canning salmon for decades and wanted to build a market for other fish. So, turning to tuna and its mild “chicken of the sea” flavor, a cannery executive came up with a single line that pit tuna against salmon. Though it was a true statement, in just a few words, the executive was able to make canned salmon seem like an inferior product. Though the story is likely apocryphal, it’s an example of the power of disinformation. But you’ll have to listen in to find out what that one line of advertising was.

Now, in our developing media landscape where people have free rein to say whatever they want about your brand, it’s important to have some insurance against disinformation. That’s where Wasim Khaled, CEO of Blackbird.ai, comes in. We’re learning from him about sifting through potential risks to determine which ones are important, building reputational resiliency, and getting ahead of the game to prevent threats in the first place.

--------

"Executives come to us confused about the conversations they are being dragged into online. They don't understand why they're being targeted. Often, a large organization or a CEO is the perfect medium to spread a message further and faster by a threat actor. And that threat actor could be a nation-state, it could be a competitor, it could be a fringe group or some other entity that's trying to take down that organization.”

“These types of methodologies and hit jobs are mutating daily. When they hit, they really spread like a virus and they can drastically shift the public's perception about an organization, leader, politician, or even policy. And it's really something we think about as a cyber attack on human perception. Leadership today is simply not prepared.”

“The only difference between today's misinformation around anti-vax or any of the misinformation that used to spread around the world in the past is that today the power of social media to move messaging at immense speed and scale has made this instant and global. If there was one thing I could say about disinformation, it's not just about what is true or what is false, it's about narrative manipulation. And it's about manipulating people's beliefs based on their fears.”

--------

Time Stamps

*[0:03] How canned tuna took over the market

*[2:38] The catch

*[2:59] Intro

*[3:55] The growing sea of disinformation

*[5:49] Enter Wasim Khaled, CEO of Blackbird.ai

*[8:04] A CX leader’s worst nightmare

*[10:48] Getting ahead of the threat

*[14:58] What’s in it for the threat actors?

*[17:05] How misinformation can destroy a reputation

*[19:41] To respond or not to respond?

*[24:17] How Blackbird.ai does CX

*[28:41] Teaming up against disinformation

*[30:37] Outro

--------

Sponsor

This podcast is presented by Oracle CX.

Hear more executive perspectives on CX transformation at Oracle.com/cx/perspectives

--------

Links

Connect with Wasim on LinkedIn

Check out Blackbird.ai