Create a CX legacy that will last 2,000 years.
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
Key Quotes
__
Thanks to our friends
This podcast is presented by Oracle CX.
Hear more executive perspectives on CX transformation at Oracle.com/cx/perspectives
Narrator: In 64 AD, a fire swept through Rome, destroying much of the city. This was during the reign of the emperor Nero, who famously played his lyre as the fire raged.
One particularly beautiful part of the city, between three major hills, was completely destroyed. Nero, who was known for his incompetence and egocentrism, decided to seize this area and convert it into a royal palace. Some even speculated that he started the fire just so he could build this new palace.
At the center of this new palace complex, as the crown jewel of his new development, Nero decided to build a gigantic statue of, who else, himself. It came to be known as the Colossus of Nero.
Eventually the nobles of Rome had enough of this type of behavior. A revolt took place, and Nero fled the city and eventually committed suicide.
His successor, a man named Vespasian, was a much different kind of emperor. He was a general from a middle-class Plebeian family. He was known for being level-headed, good humored, and practical.
Vespasian became emperor just as he won a major battle in the Eastern Mediterranean, and so, as one of his first official acts as emperor, he had an enormous stadium built at his own expense. An inscription found on the site reads "the emperor Vespasian ordered this new amphitheatre to be erected from his general's share of the booty."
This “new amphitheatre,” initially called the Flavian amphitheatre, was placed right next to Nero’s colossus, and so eventually took on the nickname that we all know today, the colosseum.
Whereas Nero’s colossus was a vain tribute to himself, Vespasian’s colosseum reflected his humble origins, and was built with the people of Rome in mind. It could accommodate more than 50,000 attendees, so that people from every station of life could attend and witness the games held there.
As the citizens of Rome poured in, day after day, their focus would have been on the center of entertainment, the 287-foot long oval arena. As they entered and exited the colosseum, their attention would have been drawn to the ornately carved 150 foot exterior walls, replete with decorative statues and reliefs.
But what they might not have noticed were the many small innovations that helped make their experience more enjoyable. It’s jarring to read about these little things, because they are so similar to today’s large entertainment venues. See if any of this sounds familiar to you:
The Colosseum had 80 entrances, 76 of which were for normal spectators, and 4 of which were VIP entrances. Each entrance was marked to help the spectators find their way to the right section. The rows were also marked, an attendee would know which row to sit in by looking at their ticket, which in this case was a shard of pottery marked with a section and row number.
But what about the gladiators, animals, and other performers? Not wanting them to be thronged by adoring fans, tunnels were built beneath the colosseum - from the arena floor to what were essentially locker rooms a few hundred feet away.
Archaeologists have even found the remains of ancient concession stands and souvenir shops on the site of the colosseum.
Everything that creates the experience of a modern stadium was present nearly 2,000 years ago when the colosseum was first built.
But those small things that create a great experience are easy to take for granted. In fact, one of those small things that helped create such a great experience was eventually taken away, and it nearly destroyed the coliseum. What was it? Stick around to find out.
We hope you’ll learn some new things and also, well…
*insert “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?” from Gladiator”
So buckle on some sandals and cinch up your toga, because today we’re talking about the Roman Coliseum and the overlooked infrastructure that helps create a great CX.
Welcome to Often Imitated, a podcast about remarkable experiences from the past, and how they inspire people to create great customer experiences today.
This episode is all about building for the needs that your customers don’t even know they have. How the Romans managed to do this with their famous colosseum, and how you can apply it today. On this episode we also talk with Chris Hsu, co-founder and CEO of Zibo, about how they work tirelessly behind the scenes to make the lives of independent landlords better. But first, a word from our sponsors.
Often Imitated is brought to you by the generous support of our friends at Oracle. Make every interaction matter with Oracle Advertising and CX. Connect all your data and empower your entire business to deliver exceptional customer experiences from acquisition…to retention…and everything in between. Learn more at oracle.com/cx.
If you asked the average Roman what made any given visit to the colosseum particularly enjoyable, they would probably mention famous gladiators, exotic animals, and dramatic battles. They probably wouldn’t mention bronze clamps.
You see when the Colosseum was constructed, the stones were placed without mortar, instead, bronze and iron clamps were used to hold the stones together and make the structure strong. As time went on, people forgot the purpose of these clamps. All they saw was valuable iron and bronze sitting unused in the colosseum walls.
And so the people of Rome began digging out these clamps, melting them down, and using them in other projects.
This wasn’t that big of a deal until an earthquake struck Rome, and the enfeebled walls of the colosseum collapsed.
If you visit or look at pictures of the colosseum today, you’ll see thousands of tiny holes in the exterior walls where these clamps have been removed.
You don’t typically think of infrastructure as CX, but once it’s removed… well I don’t think the experience of the colosseum was quite as good with a collapsed wall.
We were reminded of this story when we talked to Chris Hsu (Shoe) co-founder and CEO of Zibo, a financial services provider for independent landlords. Chris told us a little bit about his platform and what it does.
Chris Hsu: Zebo is the one-stop shop financial services platform for the independent landlord. That landlord that has anywhere from one to 200 units and they self-manage, or. Um, make most of the financial decisions about those properties themselves. They might have a local property manager, but they're not using professional property management or professional property management software.
And then all of the tenants who live in their properties and all of the. You know, general contractors, plumbers , uh, lawn folks that actually service their properties. So it's really that kind of network around that independent landlord and just trying to make all their transactions and access to competitive financial services. Fundamentally better.
Narrator: When Chris was starting Zibo, he needed to know what customers in the space valued. So he did something that every CX leader should be familiar with: he built out a great customer insights program.
Chris Hsu: everything starts with deep customer insight. And you know, when I started my career getting out of the army , uh, in brand management at general mills, you know, one of the most fundamental, basic. Uh, tactics. And that , uh, that I learned there was just disciplined, structured customer insights.
And how do you take those disciplines? Structured customer insights and translate them into a product, a value proposition and a service that customers really highly value. And so, you know, when I first started Zibo, the very first thing that we spent real money on was. Deep structured customer research, really interviewing video interviews with 40 customers who are in our target segment and really understanding what their pain points were.
We didn't have a product at the time, so it wasn't like we were asking them about the product we were asking them to describe for us why they became a landlord and what the deepest, most frustrating pain points were. What kept them up at night? What did they wish? Um, what would happen?
Narrator: But Zibo didn’t rely on insights only. They continued to ideate and pivot once their product got into the market and they could see how the product was actually being used, what people liked, and what they disliked.
Chris Hsu: When you get real customer insights is when you have a product because you put it out there and believe me in, in, you know, this, you put your first product out there and guess what customers will tell you what they don't like about it.
And it hurts. It hurts. It hurts at times because you're like, this is going to be the greatest thing since the invention of the round wheel. And the customers like this wheel stinks, but I tell people all the time, our greatest competitive advantage today is it the technology and the cloud infrastructure and the security.
It's the customer intimacy that we've established. In our customer success team, who's talking to hundreds of customers, both landlords and tenants every week. And they're telling us the problems they're having. They're telling us what they wished that we'd had. And they're telling us the limitations of our product, and we have a top 10 list.
And because you only have a fixed amount of resources and we prioritize what goes in that top 10 list based on that customer feedback. And if something. Rises to the top of that top 10 list, something falls off the bottom and we just keep that. And we just crank away on that from a product and engineering perspective, and that's really helped to find our, our, our innovation roadmap
Narrator: Keeping a Top 10 list is a great start to building a strong CX foundation. It will keep you and your team focused on delivering an excellent CX for the things that customers know they want. But… what about those things that the customer doesn’t necessarily know they want?
Customers want a number of things that they never think about. When ancient Romans attended the colosseum, “walls that don’t fall down” wasn’t on their conscious top 10 list, but it’d definitely something they wanted. Similarly, if you attend a hockey game, no fan is going to ask if the ice at the arena is cold, but they’ll probably be upset if the game shifts from ice hockey to field hockey.
For this reason, Chris recommends going above and beyond the top 10 list and trying to keep in mind what really matters most.
Chris Hsu: And you have to be really careful if we just did those top 10 things, we would find ourselves in a year or two with a platform where everybody , um, that we've optimized for everything that everyone has asked for, but we haven't innovated and created opportunities. They don't know exist. And so I always try and you know, the team and I are always debating.
What's the innovation that customers don't even necessarily know that they need because we're solving it in a different way. The example I always give is the first time I was in New York and I couldn't get a yellow cab and I didn't have cash. And I had heard about Uber and I'm like, let me try this Uber thing set up, Uber on my app, loaded my credit card right there on the sidewalk, hit the button and this car.
Pops up with this, person's face their ranking and it shows me how long it's going to be before they get there. And then they show up right where they said they were going to show up. Right. When they said they were going to show up and they don't ask me for any form of payment, I get out of the car and it just goes bang and stuff.
And I thought, I didn't know, I needed that. That was awesome. But I had no idea that that was even possible. And so balancing like that top 10 list, which I would say is probably a third of what we do with the two thirds of things that we know are solving a pain point. We know are going to help us achieve this vision, but not losing sight of that, but chopping away at that top 10 less and continue to release it, you know, over time is, is, is a super important balance.
Narrator: Zibo has used that research and subsequent ideation to build a number of cool features and technologies that allow landlords and tenants to do never before seen things. For example, one new integration allows tenants on Zibo to build credit with their rent payments.
These innovations matter. Hitting the customer top 10 list matters. But according to Chris, none of these things are what is most important. What’s most important are the things that customers don’t even know they need. And for Zibo, that’s trust.
Trust is a little bit like those little bronze clamps in the colosseum, holding everything together.
Chris Hsu: ...
And so trust is the number one most important thing. We have to be a trusted, secure platform that attendant , um, Ken can rely on to number one, protect their information because we're, they're giving us our most important , um, financial and security information. So what we've done is create a system where.
They control everything. We don't have access to it. The landlord doesn't have access to it. Um, and it's extremely secure and that's super important. Is that trust. Um, number two is that the experience has to be a super app based, you know, it has to be mobile. And an easy way for them to sign up link there, all their information, whatever it may be and hit a button and, and, and pay.
It's gotta be something that reminds them rent is due or, Hey, you're a day late pay now. So you avoid a late fee. So we've designed that tenant experience because what's interesting, even today, Is that more than three times as many tenants are Zebo customers than landlords because landlords have multiple tenants and we're building our platform to scale where landlords can have up to 200 tenants on the Zebo platform.
And today we have landlords that have hundreds of , uh, of , uh, of tenants on Zibo platform. So it's extremely important that that tenant trust Zebo. And that they feel secure.
Narrator: So in your next team meeting put together that top 10 list. Figure out what your customers are asking for, and see what you can do.
But don’t forget about the other stuff, like cold ice, stable walls, and customer trust. As you work behind the scenes to build out those unknown needs, customers will notice. They might not have realize it was a CX need of theirs, but they can tell when it’s there.
And if you play your cards right, then they’ll probably even give you a thumbs up… or if you’re in the Colosseum, a thumbs down. Trust us, if you’re in the Colosseum, you want a thumbs down.
This is your host, Ben Wilson, Head of Content of Caspian Studios. thank you for listening to another episode of Often Imitated. If you like what you’re hearing, tell a friend or leave us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. This podcast was narrated by me, Ben Wilson and produced by Mackey Wilson and Ezra Bakker Trupiano. You can learn more about our team at CaspianStudios.com
This podcast is brought to you by the generous support of our friends at Oracle. Make every interaction matter with Oracle Advertising and CX. Connect all your data and empower your entire business to deliver exceptional customer experiences from acquisition…to retention…and everything in between. Learn more at oracle.com/cx.