October 8, 2024 • 31 mins
This is your October CX Pulse Check. Once a month, we check in to find out what's happening in the world of customer experience and discuss ideas and insights customer experience leaders can learn from.
In this episode, Jeannie Walters is joined by special co-host Rohit Bhargava, Founder & Chief Trend Curator at Non-Obvious Company.
We dissect the evolving retail landscape and examine why major players like Walmart are pushing holiday shopping earlier each year. We also delve into language tactics businesses employ, such as using terms like "inflation-free options" to entice shoppers.
Exploring beyond the aisles, we touch on how technology is redefining the art world and reshaping luxury preferences. We also have fun comparing everyday items like the cult-favorite Scrub Daddy to traditional brands, showing how consumer culture influences even the most mundane products. The conversation expands to the power of understanding people and media narratives, with discussions on trends like "FridgeScaping" and viral challenges.
About Rohit Bhargava:
Rohit Bhargava is on a mission to inspire more non-obvious thinking in the world. He is the 3-time Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of ten books and is widely considered one of the most entertaining and original speakers on trends, innovation and marketing in the world. Rohit has been invited to deliver “non-boring” keynotes and workshops in 32 countries around the world to change the way teams and leaders think at the World Bank, NASA, Intel, LinkedIn, MetLife, Under Armour, Univision, Disney and hundreds of other well-known organizations. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur and founding the Non-Obvious Company and Ideapress Publishing, he spent 15 years leading marketing strategy at Ogilvy and Leo Burnett where he advised global brands on human behavior, marketing and storytelling. Outside his speaking and consulting, Rohit has taught persuasive speaking and global marketing as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, is frequently quoted in the global media and writes a monthly column on non-obvious ideas for Inc magazine. Rohit lives in the Washington DC area with his wife and is a proud dad of two boys. He loves the Olympics (he’s been to five!) and actively hates cauliflower.
Follow Rohit on...
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohitbhargava
X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/rohitbhargava
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rohitmarketingauthor
Articles Mentioned:
Walmart kicks holiday season off early (Retail Customer Experience)
The Art Market Is Tanking. Sotheby’s Has Even Bigger Problems. (The Wall Street Journal)
The Scrub Daddy Sponge Has a Cult Following. But Is It Better Than This Wirecutter Favorite? (The New York Times: Wirecutter)
Fridgescaping is everywhere. But is it safe? (The Washington Post)
Resources Mentioned:
Experience Investigators Website -- experienceinvestigators.com
Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie on LinkedIn! www.linkedin.com/in/jeanniew
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jeannie Walters (00:09):
Hello and welcome to the Experience Action
Podcast.
I'm Jeannie Walters and it'sone of my favorite episodes
where it's our monthly CX PulseCheck.
This is where I invite aspecial co-host to help me look
at what's happening in the worldaround customer experience and
what that means for you asleaders in this space.
(00:30):
Now I'm so excited to bring onmy special co-host here.
This month, we are so fortunateto have with us Rohit Bhargava,
the author of the newest book,Non-Obvious Thinking.
So, Rohit, welcome to theExperience Action Podcast and
please let us know our listenersand viewers who you are and why
(00:53):
it's so great that you're here.
Rohit Bhargava (00:55):
Oh well, thank you so much.
It is great that I'm here, andI think it's because of you.
I love the concept of this andI'm really excited to jump into
it.
So, for those people whohaven't seen any of my work
before, I'm the founder of theNon-Obvious Company and I spent
many years working in marketingand advertising at Ogilvy and
Leo Burnett and I wrote aboutconsumer behavior and trends and
(01:19):
customer experience oftentimestoo, and now this latest book is
all about how to be anon-obvious thinker, so it gives
you like habits and tips andtricks to be able to bring more
non-obvious thinking to your day, so you can be more creative,
more innovative, find moresolutions and things like that,
and I'm super excited to chatwith you.
Jeannie Walters (01:37):
Excellent, well .
And the other thing is thatthis is kind of based on
something you've been doing fora long time.
You've been producing the Ithink it's called Non-Obvious
Trends Report, right?
and
Rohit Bhargava (01:47):
that's right.
For about 15 years, is thatright?
Yeah, it went for.
So I was been writing abouttrends for a long time, but the
there was a book series thatactually went for 10 years and
every year there was a newversion of that book and it was
all about trends.
And then the last version ofthat came out in 2020, and that
was called Non-ObviousMegatrends and it was all about,
(02:07):
like, the trends over the pastdecade.
Jeannie Walters (02:09):
Wow.
Well, one of the things I'vealways appreciated about your
perspective is that you knowpeople talk about trends and
kind of these big macro ways andthey kind of decide on what
they're studying based on justyou know what goes by them in a
day, and you really have aunique approach about really
(02:30):
kind of paying attention to whatare the conversations that are
happening in business andmarketing and everyday life and
how do those overlap, and itreally gives us perspective, I
think.
So if people are not followingyour work, I highly recommend
that they do, because it reallyis helpful, no matter what your
job is, no matter how you'retrying to lead.
And I think in customerexperience work, what I see a
(02:52):
lot is that you know we ascustomer experience leaders have
to constantly pay attention tohow the world is changing, not
just how our products arerolling out or things like that.
We have to really understandnot just our current customers
but the customers of the future,and so this type of kind of
trend, paying attention itreally does help in everything
(03:15):
that we do.
So thank you for that and I'mexcited to have you here,
because that's what this wholeepisode is about.
Once a month, we really look atwhat's happening in the world
and where customer experiencemight be being influenced or
influencing some of thedecisions that organizations are
making, that customers arefacing, all of those things.
So I picked out a few funtopics that I'm excited to get
(03:38):
into and we're sitting here.
This is the October episode, andthe first thing that I want to
share is a headline from RetailCustomer Experience, and the
headline is Walmart kicksholiday season off early.
But of course, Walmart isn'tthe only one doing this, they're
just the ones kind of beinghighlighted here.
(03:58):
But I'm curious, you know whatare you seeing around this trend
?
Because some of the stats fromthis article were pretty
interesting.
They talked about how 50%,close to 50%, really start their
holiday shopping in August.
They want to really have thingsdone, and more and more people
(04:19):
are reporting earlier shopping.
So what do you think about thistrend and what do you think
that business leaders shouldthink about this trend?
Rohit Bhargava (04:28):
You know, I think it's a little bit of a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
I mean, you have sales earlierso you get people shopping
earlier, so then the holidaycomes earlier and it's like this
chicken and egg sort ofsituation.
But I think it's funny becauseat the end of the day, somebody
having a sale in August, I meanyou could call it a holiday sale
, you could call it a back toschool sale, you could call it a
(04:49):
Memorial Day sale.
I mean, you know, it's alllingo, right, it's marketing
lingo.
And, at the end of the day, Ithink that the behavior is that
people are maybe looking fordeals a little earlier and maybe
choosing to save them, but Idon't know.
I mean, I grew up in an Indianhousehold, so like the idea of
like buying something on saleand saving it for multiple
months and then giving it tosomeone for their birthday or
(05:11):
whatever, like that's not aforeign concept, like we had
that for decades.
You know, like that's justgetting a deal, so is it new?
I don't know.
I mean, I think that there werealways people who did that.
Jeannie Walters (05:23):
That's right, that's right.
And I think that there'ssomething here that I am
thinking is both kind of ashort-term and a long-term shift
.
And the short-term is one ofthe things that I'm seeing is
that, instead of saying well,it's a sale, they're using terms
like well, it's aninflation-free option.
So what they're really doing isproviding a discount, but
(05:46):
they're they're showing someshort-term language that really
appeals to people.
But I think I agree with youthat.
I think that some families thisis very normal, right.
This is just how people handleit.
My mother-in-law is notoriousfor shopping well in advance and
then having things kind ofsquirreled away in her house,
and you know, we had to say,like, well, grandkids grow
(06:09):
pretty quickly, so you can't youcan't shop too fast for that or
too early for that.
But I think that part of thelonger term trend that I'm
looking at is I I personallyhave noticed how leaders,
business leaders right nowthere's a lot of anxiety about
the unknown right, like we donot know what to expect.
(06:32):
In so many ways, around thepolitics, around the economy,
there were certain patterns thatkind of all got blown up in the
last decade, and so I thinkpart of that is in order to gain
some control,we want to feel like okay, we
checked things off our listright, like we're ahead, and so
I think there is somethinglong-term here about people are
(06:53):
planning a little more ahead,looking for that kind of
reassurance as shoppers.
So I think that this is goingto be something that we continue
to see, and it won't just befor holiday, it will be for you
know.
I mean, we've already commentedhow people start decorating for
(07:14):
Halloween earlier and earlierand that type of thing is
getting earlier and earlier.
I think there's going to bemore of that as we move forward,
so I'll be watching this one.
So this next one is prettydifferent from Walmart.
We're going to talk aboutSotheby's, which is, of course,
one of the very high end artauction houses, and this is from
The Wall Street Journal.
It's a headline, the art marketis tanking, Sotheby's has even
bigger problems.
The article itself is reallyabout some of the issues with
kind of financing fine art nowand how they used to be able to
(07:34):
rely on certain patterns that,again, aren't really consistent
anymore.
They used to be able to rely on, kind of having a big show, and
(07:58):
that would float them for awhile, and now some of those big
shows just aren't getting theresponse that they used to.
And I see this in a couple ofdifferent ways, and I'm really
curious on your take on this,because one of the things that
and I think you've actuallywritten about this is you know,
generations change with ourexpectations about what we want
in our homes and how we live.
So like collectibles, the wholeidea of collectibles.
(08:21):
Our parents' generation, theyall had collectibles.
Now they're like look at allyour heirlooms and their kids,
our generation, are kind of likemeh, we really don't need that,
you know, whole cabinet full.
Rohit Bhargava (08:36):
Let's check eBay and see if there's a demand for
some of this stuff.
Jeannie Walters (08:40):
That's right.
There's just not thatsentimentality around it.
Rohit Bhargava (08:43):
Uh huh.
Jeannie Walters (08:44):
I'm connecting that with this a little bit,
like maybe there's this kind ofmovement towards do we need more
things that are necessary andutilitarian and beautiful, or do
we just have art for art's sake, and I don't know where that's
going.
So any thoughts on this one?
Rohit Bhargava (09:02):
Yeah, I do think I mean this does fit into a
couple of more macro trends.
Um, there is certainly the ideathat, um, as the older
generation gets older and startsto downsize and starts to think
about, like, what are we goingto do with all this stuff, these
collectibles?
Um, there's some things that arenot really seen as family
treasures in the way that maybethey once were, and so now
(09:26):
there's whole generations ofstuff that need to be kind of
offloaded.
I do think that the other thingthat's interesting about art is
that the nature of art itself,in terms of what we assign value
to or who a quote unquotefamous artist is, is also also
shifting, and so this idea thatused to be the case that,
(09:48):
whether you loved art or not, itwas a great investment in the
future, um, is also starting tothin out, because you just don't
know, like, is this one reallya great, uh, investment, or is
it going to be?
You know, this artist wasfamous, but then it was
uncovered that the artist didsomething bad in the past, and
(10:09):
now they're, they're canceled,and and now you're stuck with
this art that was supposedlyworth all this money and now
it's not.
And I think that that level ofskepticism and also just uh, uh,
more, uh, more artists likemore work out there is causing
this challenge of we don't knowexactly what's worth that much,
(10:32):
and so maybe it's not thegreatest investment anymore.
Jeannie Walters (10:37):
I really appreciate what you're saying
there, because when you thinkabout the definition of art, it
really is so subjective in somany ways, and yet it's
influenced by, like, thecommunity, by the society you
live in.
And now, like, is Sotheby'sgoing to have an auction for
maybe some really amazingsneakers that some graffiti
(11:01):
artist you know designed, or arethey going to do things that
are different?
You think about what Banksy hasdone with, like even just the
whole idea of flipping valuearound.
So there, there are so many bigquestions here.
And then the other thing thatstruck me from this article was,
you know, we talked to a lot oforganizations that simply don't
(11:24):
want to keep up, right, likethey, they simply think, well,
this has always worked, so we'rejust going to keep doing what's
always worked.
And one of the things that thisarticle talked about was, like
they have to start appealing tohigh tech buyers.
They don't want to go and havetheir little paddle, they don't
want to go through the kind oftraditional routes of getting
(11:45):
some of this.
And so how can we keep up withnot just kind of the products
that we're selling, but the veryexperience of how we're selling
them?
And that really struck me inthis too, because they're saying
that younger buyers areactually looking for more
private experiences.
They don't want to showcasethat they're there buying all
(12:06):
this.
They want to do things throughtheir mobile phone.
They want to.
You know, they know what theywant, they know their limit and
it's not about like theexcitement of the auction
anymore, it's about somethingdifferent for them.
So I just think it's a greatexample of like.
If you're not paying attentionto the behavior of your shoppers
(12:26):
and to what they're looking fornext, then it's so easy to fall
behind.
It's so easy to keep doing whathas worked and suddenly one day
it will not work, and it'sreally easy to fall into that
trap.
But the world changes so fastthese days.
You just have to pay attention.
Rohit Bhargava (12:45):
Well, I think it's also the idea that, um, you
know what was luxury for onegeneration, or at least
considered luxury isn't alwaysluxury.
Right! And I think that whenyou are in the position of a
group like Sotheby's that's usedto basically deciding what
luxury is, or at least followingclosely behind what the
(13:06):
trendsetters say luxury is, assoon as that starts to shift or
the people who are decidingstart to shift, it's easy to get
left behind.
Jeannie Walters (13:15):
It sure is.
It sure is, and I think thatsome of these brands it worked
for literally like a century,right.
So all of a sudden, things thateverybody banked on and to your
point, like that assigned value, like we assigned value to
certain things for decades or acentury, and now all of a sudden
(13:36):
we're shifting the very meaningof that.
That's a pretty seismic shiftfor some of these organizations
and when you're a legacyorganization like that, maybe
you think you shouldn't followtrends.
But it isn't about followingtrends, it's about paying
attention to what people arereally expecting.
Rohit Bhargava (13:54):
Right
Jeannie Walters (14:08):
Yeah.
That one is going to beinteresting too because I think
if Sotheby's is strugglingpeople will start to really sit
up and take notice of thesebigger conversations about what
does art mean?
How?
How are we assigning value?
What is the next wave of all ofthose things?
And um, Steve Martin actuallywrote a.
He's written a couple offiction books, and one of them
was about art and his whole
Rohit Bhargava (14:19):
The Picasso at Lapin Agile, is that one you're
talking about?
Jeannie Walters (14:24):
I think this one I'm trying to remember the
name of it and I'm blanking onit now, but it was basically it
was about a young woman who's anart dealer, and part of what is
so fascinating about hercharacter is that she, like,
takes a Picasso home just tohang in her bathroom for a day,
because she just loves the art.
And I think part of it was thatthere aren't many people like
(14:45):
that in that world and she justreally loved the art.
So that's, if you love it, youlove it and that has value and
you can't discount that either.
So well, speaking of art, we'regoing all over the place.
So when we talk about kind ofthe most basic utilitarian
(15:15):
objects in our homes, I don'tthink anything can be argued as
like more humble than thekitchen sponge right that we've
all had for a zillion decadesnow.
We buy the one in the littlesaran wrap, we use it for a
while, we throw it out.
It's a whole thing.
And it was probably a couple ofyears ago now that there became
a viral sponge and of course youknow I'm talking about sponge
(15:40):
daddy, and now there's spongebaby and they've got a whole
line.
But this is from Wirecutter andthe headline is the Scrub Daddy
Sponge has a cult following,but is it better than this
Wirecutter favorite?
And they really put it head tohead with the more traditional
Scotch-Brite, you know, thegreen on one side, the yellow on
(16:01):
the other, and they did ahonest to goodness review where
they had like a pan that theypurposely burned things on and
they tested both of them andthey basically came out pretty
pretty much the same in somecases, in most cases.
So it got me thinking like whydid this become so viral?
(16:22):
Why did this become a thing?
And I you know I have mytheories, but before I do, I
would love to hear yourperspective on this and why do
you think this worked?
This little sponge with a face.
Rohit Bhargava (16:35):
I think it worked for a few reasons.
I mean one is because it has apersonality.
It looks like a smiley face, soit brought some personality to
something that you know peopleconsider, like you said, a
utility like not really thatuseful.
I think it also broke, uh,gender norms a little bit,
because it was the scrub daddy,not the scrub mommy.
Jeannie Walters (16:53):
Nice.
Rohit Bhargava (16:53):
And so I think there was like a little bit of
element of that like.
And the guy who, I mean it,broke out because of Shark Tank,
I think that was like a mainthing.
And when the guy came andpresented it, you know, he kind
of came in and uh said you know,I'm the, I'm the dishwasher of
the family, like that's my role,right, like that's what I do.
And this was a time, culturally, when I think you were seeing a
(17:14):
lot of examples of shiftinggender norms, like Tide, I think
, or one of the detergent brands, was running a commercial and
featuring the NFL quarterbackDrew Brees and he called himself
the equipment manager of thehousehold because he did all the
laundry.
Um, so, like you know, here's aguy who is, like in the most
(17:35):
macho sport ever doing thelaundry at home.
Here's another guy doing thedishes at home, and it was like
this portrayal of men in thehousehold as not being the
useless guy on the couch, and Ithink that that was really
breaking some stereotypes and soit fit perfectly into that
cultural narrative too.
Jeannie Walters (17:53):
That's a great point and I think part of what I
have seen is that people feellike this is a very authentic
brand.
It's very like they relate toit.
They feel like they trust whennew products are being rolled
out.
They trust that they're goingto work and that they've been.
You know that they get excitedabout, like these new sponges,
(18:15):
which is kind of funny to evensay.
But you're absolutely right.
And I think the part about theWirecutter review which kind of
struck me was you know, werethey kind of hoping that it
wasn't functional?
Were they kind of hoping thatthis wasn't going to win and
they were going to?
They were going to be able tosay, you know, hey, this, this
(18:36):
tried and true version.
Rohit Bhargava (18:38):
Is it just marketing?
Jeannie Walters (18:38):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Rohit Bhargava (18:40):
You don't need that smiley face to like put the
spoon through to clean thespoon.
Like you could use it, youcould do that with a regular
sponge.
Jeannie Walters (18:45):
Yeah like, but the, the tone of it made me
think like.
I think the reviewer was likegenuinely surprised at the, at
the way they could use it andthe way that it like even met.
I think the the word ergonomicwas used right like this really
fits really nicely in my handand and so I think that there's
(19:07):
something here about, like toyour point, having that
personality and just being areally authentic brand and that
term has been thrown around and,you know, misused so many times
in marketing.
But I feel like people, all ofus in this world of, like, deep
fakes and AI and all this, likethere is this craving for just
(19:28):
humanity, authentic humanity,and in a weird way, a sponge
with a face connects with thatin us.
Rohit Bhargava (19:36):
Well, and because there's also an
identifiable founder right.
Like there's someone who's likeI am the Scrub Daddy.
Like I don't know if there's aMister Scotch or a Mister Brite,
right?
Probably at some point therewas but like there's no
identifiable person, right,who's sitting there like washing
dishes.
Jeannie Walters (19:52):
It's so true, it's so true.
And I think that when you thinkabout the brands of today, even
the big high-tech brands thatkind of go viral.
We know the founders, we knowthe people who were connected to
those brands and that's alwaysa big shift, like going from the
Steve Jobs to Tim Cook.
That was a big thing and TimCook, I think, has done a great
(20:13):
job of being out there andconnecting as well.
It's interesting to think aboutas leaders ourselves, are there
products in our product line,are there ways that we're
approaching experience, thatmaybe we're making it too
functional, too simplified, tooutilitarian and what it really
(20:35):
needs is like a happy face orjust a way to authentically
connect?
So I am going to be watchingthis brand as well, all right,
and this last one is just goofy.
I'm going to say that.
That's my opinion, but I thinkit's pretty goofy.
So this is about Fridgescaping.
(20:57):
Now, had you heard of this?
Rohit Bhargava (21:00):
I had seen it yeah.
Jeannie Walters (21:01):
Okay.
So I had kind of heard about itin the dark recesses of like
Instagram and things like thatand I honestly wasn't sure if it
was real, if people really didthis, but indeed they do.
Rohit Bhargava (21:16):
I always assume it's real, by the way.
Jeannie Walters (21:20):
So this is from the Washington Post and the
headline is Fridgescaping isEverywhere, but Is it Safe?
And the idea of Fridgescapingis literally what it sounds like
.
You basically decorate theinside of your refrigerator and
the people who claim that thisis a good thing, they say, well,
(21:40):
it puts all this wonderfulfresh produce in front and so
people eat it more, and thingslike that.
It makes me smile when I openmy fridge and people do seasonal
things and so they're cleaningout their fridge very well.
So there are some things otherpeople are kind of like hold on
timeout.
When you're transferring all ofyour fresh produce to beautiful
(22:03):
seasonal containers like thatmight not be great for how you
actually store the food.
It might not be the best youknow healthy way to store or
safe way to store the food.
When you're transferringeverything from the container
that has expiration dates tocontainers that don't, that's
another consideration.
So it's just kind of a goofylittle trend, and so I'm just
(22:26):
like this is one of those things.
When I think about all the workyou've done, Rohit and your,
your book like this isnon-obvious to me.
I do not get this.
So what like and how do we?
Kind of know, it's a trend, Ithink, in this world of social
media.
One or two people can postsomething and people go.
(22:47):
Oh my gosh, this is everywhere,Right, Like I've.
Rohit Bhargava (22:49):
Well, that I mean that I can tell you an
answer to right away.
It's not a trend, it's a fad.
Jeannie Walters (22:55):
OK.
Rohit Bhargava (22:55):
And people often confuse those two things, and I
think the difference is that afad is usually something that
happens in one category with onegroup of people, whereas a
trend happens with lots ofdifferent people in lots of
different industries and there'sa crossover.
So, for example, the fad hereis Fridgescape your fridge.
(23:17):
Make everything look reallynice so you can take an
Instagram photo.
The trend could be that, in aworld where we feel overwhelmed,
we're looking to to organizeour lives in more you know set
specific ways, and one exampleof that is the you know
fridgescaping, and anotherexample is the Marie Kondo-ing
of your closet.
Another example is you know theminimalism around, like your
(23:42):
schedule, like trying to getstuff off of your Zoom calendar,
or like you know fixing yourschedule so that you have
different increments, so thatyou can like schedule your free
time or whatever it is Likepeople are super specific about
their schedule, right.
So like when you take thescheduling thing together with
the fridgescaping thing,together with the Marie Kondo
thing, now you might actually beable to point to a trend that
has a human behavior behind it,but like scaping fridgescaping
(24:03):
not a trend that's just a fadthat is fun to report, and the
news article is exactly what youwould expect it to be.
Hey, check out all these peopledoing something that's fun and
viral, but uh-oh, there might besome danger to it that you're
not thinking about.
Let's bring that up, right.
And so I mean, this is a verytypical kind of media lens on
(24:24):
something that seems like itwould be a trend and everybody
kind of looks at it and thenthey forget about it like three
months later.
Jeannie Walters (24:31):
I love the way you describe that and I think
it's a really important point.
And the other thing that I havefound is that, you know, I will
be scrolling and I'll see aheadline about you know,
teenagers doing something dumb.
And I have two young men whoI'm raising and they kind of
(24:54):
laugh sometimes because I'll say, oh my gosh, do you know about
this?
Like don't eat laundrydetergent.
You guys, right, like don't doit.
And they, they laugh and theysay, like this is somebody did
one thing stupid and somebodyjumped on it and said we're all
doing this stupid thing, right.
And so I think that we also haveto, just to your point, like,
(25:17):
remember the media lens,remember that they're looking
for these stories cause, hey, Ipicked up this story cause I
thought what is fridgescaping?
This looks ridiculous.
Let's talk about it, right?
So so I think it's a reallygood point to really kind of
make some distinctions betweenwhat is the thing that we're
looking at and what does itreally mean in the greater
context of the world and of howpeople are interacting with the
(25:42):
world and one another.
So it's a great point.
(26:03):
Well, are you a fridgescaper?
I'm curious.
Rohit Bhargava (26:07):
Me?
No.
Although the one element ofFridgeScaping we did get to is
we threw out all our plasticcontainers and now we only use
glass containers.
Jeannie Walters (26:14):
We did the same .
Rohit Bhargava (26:15):
Which is a part of the Fridgescaping.
You know the picture you showedwhat kindof super theatrical I
guess, but if you look at someof these fridgescaping image
that people are sharing it'sliterally just like 25 glass
containers that are the sameshape, same size, with all
different food, so like it'sbasically your fridge, but with
all containers, the exact samesize.
So it's not as disorganized asmost of our fridges typically
are, with different stuff andyou know apples thrown in the
side and that you know jar ofjelly all the way in the back
that you know we forget about.
Like you know, it's like that.
Jeannie Walters (26:33):
Yep, yep For sure.
Well, it's funny what you sayabout like needing control too,
because we kind of touched onthat in the beginning with the
pre-planning, holiday shoppingand things like that.
There seems to be a wave ofthat.
And when my when my husband andI first got married which is a
long time ago now, but we had awhole discussion because I used
(26:55):
whatever pen was around for thechecks and he was like no, you
have to use black ink to recordand we had a whole discussion
about that.
But I realized that looking at acheck register with all black
ink was very important to himand you choose your battles in
(27:19):
these relationships, but Irealized that was just about
that moment of that felt good,that felt like he had control
over that, even when otherthings were happening.
That was important and sosometimes you just have to go
okay, that's what it is.
Rohit Bhargava (27:28):
We all have something like that right,
Probably.
Jeannie Walters (27:32):
We absolutely do.
We absolutely do.
I'm not going to share mine.
Rohit Bhargava (27:35):
but I don't know if this is one, but I don't
understand people who go to thebaggage claim and then don't
remember what their bag lookslike.
I don't have any respect forthose people.
How do you not know what yourbag looks like?
I don't get that.
I just don't get it.
Jeannie Walters (27:52):
I don't either.
I don't either.
Rohit Bhargava (27:54):
Maybe I travel too much and I'm cranky, but
that's just like don't travel.
I mean at that point likereally, or don't check your bag.
Jeannie Walters (28:02):
We're taking your license away to travel.
Rohit Bhargava (28:05):
Yeah, I'm sorry you picked up the wrong bag.
You're banned from travel forsix months.
Jeannie Walters (28:12):
We probably have lots of travel things.
I found that when you travel alot, you have your little
routines, and when people don'thonor those routines, they're
just in my way, right.
Rohit Bhargava (28:23):
Yeah, I mean I'm hopefully a little more
forgiving than that, because Ido think that there's something
to say about people who are onthe trip of their lives and they
really get to you know whatever.
But like tie a ribbon aroundyour bag or something you know,
like that's not that difficult,right.
Jeannie Walters (28:38):
Yeah, I'm with you.
I'm with you.
Well, this was so fun and I'mso appreciative of your time and
all of the work that you'vecontributed so far.
And I just want to know isthere any kind of final thought
here?
As we look to the future, as welook to 2025, what do you think
business leaders, customerexperience leaders should be
(29:00):
thinking about when it comes tothese non-obvious trends?
Rohit Bhargava (29:04):
Yeah, look, one of the things I say in my talks
all the time is that the peoplewho understand people always win
, and I think that's especiallytrue when it comes to customer
experience and customer um, youknow, anybody working as any
sort of customer role and what Ihope we were able to do my
co-author and I in the book wasgive people some real techniques
to be able to better understandpeople and pay attention to
(29:27):
details that are around, andsometimes it's not about having
any special training orabilities, it's about intention.
You just have to intend to payattention, put that phone down a
little bit and look around atwhat's going on and notice the
details, and I think sometimesthat leads to more creative
thinking, it leads to moreinnovation and just makes us
(29:48):
better and more empatheticpeople too.
So I know it's pretty ambitiousto expect that a book could
help anyone do all of thosethings, but that was our goal,
that was what we were trying todo.
Jeannie Walters (29:58):
I love it.
I love it and I did get achance to read the book and I do
highly recommend it and I'llshow this for the folks watching
on video and I'll do my best todescribe it.
But it has all these greatillustrations and even the way
you organize the content throughthis storyboard where you can
(30:19):
really kind of see the overallmacro thinking around this as
well, which is really powerful.
So it's not just like a book ofdo this tip, do this tip.
They all tie together in thisreally unique way.
that
Rohit Bhargava (30:33):
That storyboard was our replacement of the table
of contents, and it was basedon an actual white board with a
bunch of post-it notes.
That was the storyboard for thebook, so it was actually
inspired by what we did when wewere writing the book.
Jeannie Walters (30:48):
Yeah, there are so many great little tidbits in
here and I just really enjoyedit and I think I read it on a
flight, so it's a quick, fun,easy, easy read.
So I appreciate that too.
There's we get so much contentthese days, right, that
something actionable like thatis really powerful.
So thank you for that.
So, yeah, so good luck on thebook and everything else that
(31:12):
you're doing.
So appreciate your time and Ireally have just really
appreciated all of your workthroughout the year, so thank
you for that as well.
Rohit Bhargava (31:20):
Well, thank you.
Thanks for the invitation.
This was a lot of fun.
Jeannie Walters (31:23):
Great, great.
Well, thank you for being here.
And and thank YOU for beinghere.
We are always so grateful tohave you along with us on the
Experience Action Podcast.
Now, just a reminder you canalways leave me a voicemail at
askjeannievip and that way I cananswer your question all about
customer experience, or maybefridgescaping, we'll see.
(31:44):
So thanks for being here and wewill see you next time.
Hello and welcome to the Experience Action
Podcast.
I'm Jeannie Walters and it'sone of my favorite episodes
where it's our monthly CX PulseCheck.
This is where I invite aspecial co-host to help me look
at what's happening in the worldaround customer experience and
what that means for you asleaders in this space.
(00:30):
Now I'm so excited to bring onmy special co-host here.
This month, we are so fortunateto have with us Rohit Bhargava,
the author of the newest book,Non-Obvious Thinking.
So, Rohit, welcome to theExperience Action Podcast and
please let us know our listenersand viewers who you are and why
(00:53):
it's so great that you're here.
Rohit Bhargava (00:55):
Oh well, thank you so much.
It is great that I'm here, andI think it's because of you.
I love the concept of this andI'm really excited to jump into
it.
So, for those people whohaven't seen any of my work
before, I'm the founder of theNon-Obvious Company and I spent
many years working in marketingand advertising at Ogilvy and
Leo Burnett and I wrote aboutconsumer behavior and trends and
(01:19):
customer experience oftentimestoo, and now this latest book is
all about how to be anon-obvious thinker, so it gives
you like habits and tips andtricks to be able to bring more
non-obvious thinking to your day, so you can be more creative,
more innovative, find moresolutions and things like that,
and I'm super excited to chatwith you.
Jeannie Walters (01:37):
Excellent, well .
And the other thing is thatthis is kind of based on
something you've been doing fora long time.
You've been producing the Ithink it's called Non-Obvious
Trends Report, right?
and
Rohit Bhargava (01:47):
that's right.
For about 15 years, is thatright?
Yeah, it went for.
So I was been writing abouttrends for a long time, but the
there was a book series thatactually went for 10 years and
every year there was a newversion of that book and it was
all about trends.
And then the last version ofthat came out in 2020, and that
was called Non-ObviousMegatrends and it was all about,
(02:07):
like, the trends over the pastdecade.
Jeannie Walters (02:09):
Wow.
Well, one of the things I'vealways appreciated about your
perspective is that you knowpeople talk about trends and
kind of these big macro ways andthey kind of decide on what
they're studying based on justyou know what goes by them in a
day, and you really have aunique approach about really
(02:30):
kind of paying attention to whatare the conversations that are
happening in business andmarketing and everyday life and
how do those overlap, and itreally gives us perspective, I
think.
So if people are not followingyour work, I highly recommend
that they do, because it reallyis helpful, no matter what your
job is, no matter how you'retrying to lead.
And I think in customerexperience work, what I see a
(02:52):
lot is that you know we ascustomer experience leaders have
to constantly pay attention tohow the world is changing, not
just how our products arerolling out or things like that.
We have to really understandnot just our current customers
but the customers of the future,and so this type of kind of
trend, paying attention itreally does help in everything
(03:15):
that we do.
So thank you for that and I'mexcited to have you here,
because that's what this wholeepisode is about.
Once a month, we really look atwhat's happening in the world
and where customer experiencemight be being influenced or
influencing some of thedecisions that organizations are
making, that customers arefacing, all of those things.
So I picked out a few funtopics that I'm excited to get
(03:38):
into and we're sitting here.
This is the October episode, andthe first thing that I want to
share is a headline from RetailCustomer Experience, and the
headline is Walmart kicksholiday season off early.
But of course, Walmart isn'tthe only one doing this, they're
just the ones kind of beinghighlighted here.
(03:58):
But I'm curious, you know whatare you seeing around this trend
?
Because some of the stats fromthis article were pretty
interesting.
They talked about how 50%,close to 50%, really start their
holiday shopping in August.
They want to really have thingsdone, and more and more people
(04:19):
are reporting earlier shopping.
So what do you think about thistrend and what do you think
that business leaders shouldthink about this trend?
Rohit Bhargava (04:28):
You know, I think it's a little bit of a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
I mean, you have sales earlierso you get people shopping
earlier, so then the holidaycomes earlier and it's like this
chicken and egg sort ofsituation.
But I think it's funny becauseat the end of the day, somebody
having a sale in August, I meanyou could call it a holiday sale
, you could call it a back toschool sale, you could call it a
(04:49):
Memorial Day sale.
I mean, you know, it's alllingo, right, it's marketing
lingo.
And, at the end of the day, Ithink that the behavior is that
people are maybe looking fordeals a little earlier and maybe
choosing to save them, but Idon't know.
I mean, I grew up in an Indianhousehold, so like the idea of
like buying something on saleand saving it for multiple
months and then giving it tosomeone for their birthday or
(05:11):
whatever, like that's not aforeign concept, like we had
that for decades.
You know, like that's justgetting a deal, so is it new?
I don't know.
I mean, I think that there werealways people who did that.
Jeannie Walters (05:23):
That's right, that's right.
And I think that there'ssomething here that I am
thinking is both kind of ashort-term and a long-term shift
.
And the short-term is one ofthe things that I'm seeing is
that, instead of saying well,it's a sale, they're using terms
like well, it's aninflation-free option.
So what they're really doing isproviding a discount, but
(05:46):
they're they're showing someshort-term language that really
appeals to people.
But I think I agree with youthat.
I think that some families thisis very normal, right.
This is just how people handleit.
My mother-in-law is notoriousfor shopping well in advance and
then having things kind ofsquirreled away in her house,
and you know, we had to say,like, well, grandkids grow
(06:09):
pretty quickly, so you can't youcan't shop too fast for that or
too early for that.
But I think that part of thelonger term trend that I'm
looking at is I I personallyhave noticed how leaders,
business leaders right nowthere's a lot of anxiety about
the unknown right, like we donot know what to expect.
(06:32):
In so many ways, around thepolitics, around the economy,
there were certain patterns thatkind of all got blown up in the
last decade, and so I thinkpart of that is in order to gain
some control,we want to feel like okay, we
checked things off our listright, like we're ahead, and so
I think there is somethinglong-term here about people are
(06:53):
planning a little more ahead,looking for that kind of
reassurance as shoppers.
So I think that this is goingto be something that we continue
to see, and it won't just befor holiday, it will be for you
know.
I mean, we've already commentedhow people start decorating for
(07:14):
Halloween earlier and earlierand that type of thing is
getting earlier and earlier.
I think there's going to bemore of that as we move forward,
so I'll be watching this one.
So this next one is prettydifferent from Walmart.
We're going to talk aboutSotheby's, which is, of course,
one of the very high end artauction houses, and this is from
The Wall Street Journal.
It's a headline, the art marketis tanking, Sotheby's has even
bigger problems.
The article itself is reallyabout some of the issues with
kind of financing fine art nowand how they used to be able to
(07:34):
rely on certain patterns that,again, aren't really consistent
anymore.
They used to be able to rely on, kind of having a big show, and
(07:58):
that would float them for awhile, and now some of those big
shows just aren't getting theresponse that they used to.
And I see this in a couple ofdifferent ways, and I'm really
curious on your take on this,because one of the things that
and I think you've actuallywritten about this is you know,
generations change with ourexpectations about what we want
in our homes and how we live.
So like collectibles, the wholeidea of collectibles.
(08:21):
Our parents' generation, theyall had collectibles.
Now they're like look at allyour heirlooms and their kids,
our generation, are kind of likemeh, we really don't need that,
you know, whole cabinet full.
Rohit Bhargava (08:36):
Let's check eBay and see if there's a demand for
some of this stuff.
Jeannie Walters (08:40):
That's right.
There's just not thatsentimentality around it.
Rohit Bhargava (08:43):
Uh huh.
Jeannie Walters (08:44):
I'm connecting that with this a little bit,
like maybe there's this kind ofmovement towards do we need more
things that are necessary andutilitarian and beautiful, or do
we just have art for art's sake, and I don't know where that's
going.
So any thoughts on this one?
Rohit Bhargava (09:02):
Yeah, I do think I mean this does fit into a
couple of more macro trends.
Um, there is certainly the ideathat, um, as the older
generation gets older and startsto downsize and starts to think
about, like, what are we goingto do with all this stuff, these
collectibles?
Um, there's some things that arenot really seen as family
treasures in the way that maybethey once were, and so now
(09:26):
there's whole generations ofstuff that need to be kind of
offloaded.
I do think that the other thingthat's interesting about art is
that the nature of art itself,in terms of what we assign value
to or who a quote unquotefamous artist is, is also also
shifting, and so this idea thatused to be the case that,
(09:48):
whether you loved art or not, itwas a great investment in the
future, um, is also starting tothin out, because you just don't
know, like, is this one reallya great, uh, investment, or is
it going to be?
You know, this artist wasfamous, but then it was
uncovered that the artist didsomething bad in the past, and
(10:09):
now they're, they're canceled,and and now you're stuck with
this art that was supposedlyworth all this money and now
it's not.
And I think that that level ofskepticism and also just uh, uh,
more, uh, more artists likemore work out there is causing
this challenge of we don't knowexactly what's worth that much,
(10:32):
and so maybe it's not thegreatest investment anymore.
Jeannie Walters (10:37):
I really appreciate what you're saying
there, because when you thinkabout the definition of art, it
really is so subjective in somany ways, and yet it's
influenced by, like, thecommunity, by the society you
live in.
And now, like, is Sotheby'sgoing to have an auction for
maybe some really amazingsneakers that some graffiti
(11:01):
artist you know designed, or arethey going to do things that
are different?
You think about what Banksy hasdone with, like even just the
whole idea of flipping valuearound.
So there, there are so many bigquestions here.
And then the other thing thatstruck me from this article was,
you know, we talked to a lot oforganizations that simply don't
(11:24):
want to keep up, right, likethey, they simply think, well,
this has always worked, so we'rejust going to keep doing what's
always worked.
And one of the things that thisarticle talked about was, like
they have to start appealing tohigh tech buyers.
They don't want to go and havetheir little paddle, they don't
want to go through the kind oftraditional routes of getting
(11:45):
some of this.
And so how can we keep up withnot just kind of the products
that we're selling, but the veryexperience of how we're selling
them?
And that really struck me inthis too, because they're saying
that younger buyers areactually looking for more
private experiences.
They don't want to showcasethat they're there buying all
(12:06):
this.
They want to do things throughtheir mobile phone.
They want to.
You know, they know what theywant, they know their limit and
it's not about like theexcitement of the auction
anymore, it's about somethingdifferent for them.
So I just think it's a greatexample of like.
If you're not paying attentionto the behavior of your shoppers
(12:26):
and to what they're looking fornext, then it's so easy to fall
behind.
It's so easy to keep doing whathas worked and suddenly one day
it will not work, and it'sreally easy to fall into that
trap.
But the world changes so fastthese days.
You just have to pay attention.
Rohit Bhargava (12:45):
Well, I think it's also the idea that, um, you
know what was luxury for onegeneration, or at least
considered luxury isn't alwaysluxury.
Right! And I think that whenyou are in the position of a
group like Sotheby's that's usedto basically deciding what
luxury is, or at least followingclosely behind what the
(13:06):
trendsetters say luxury is, assoon as that starts to shift or
the people who are decidingstart to shift, it's easy to get
left behind.
Jeannie Walters (13:15):
It sure is.
It sure is, and I think thatsome of these brands it worked
for literally like a century,right.
So all of a sudden, things thateverybody banked on and to your
point, like that assigned value, like we assigned value to
certain things for decades or acentury, and now all of a sudden
(13:36):
we're shifting the very meaningof that.
That's a pretty seismic shiftfor some of these organizations
and when you're a legacyorganization like that, maybe
you think you shouldn't followtrends.
But it isn't about followingtrends, it's about paying
attention to what people arereally expecting.
Rohit Bhargava (13:54):
Right
Jeannie Walters (14:08):
Yeah.
That one is going to beinteresting too because I think
if Sotheby's is strugglingpeople will start to really sit
up and take notice of thesebigger conversations about what
does art mean?
How?
How are we assigning value?
What is the next wave of all ofthose things?
And um, Steve Martin actuallywrote a.
He's written a couple offiction books, and one of them
was about art and his whole
Rohit Bhargava (14:19):
The Picasso at Lapin Agile, is that one you're
talking about?
Jeannie Walters (14:24):
I think this one I'm trying to remember the
name of it and I'm blanking onit now, but it was basically it
was about a young woman who's anart dealer, and part of what is
so fascinating about hercharacter is that she, like,
takes a Picasso home just tohang in her bathroom for a day,
because she just loves the art.
And I think part of it was thatthere aren't many people like
(14:45):
that in that world and she justreally loved the art.
So that's, if you love it, youlove it and that has value and
you can't discount that either.
So well, speaking of art, we'regoing all over the place.
So when we talk about kind ofthe most basic utilitarian
(15:15):
objects in our homes, I don'tthink anything can be argued as
like more humble than thekitchen sponge right that we've
all had for a zillion decadesnow.
We buy the one in the littlesaran wrap, we use it for a
while, we throw it out.
It's a whole thing.
And it was probably a couple ofyears ago now that there became
a viral sponge and of course youknow I'm talking about sponge
(15:40):
daddy, and now there's spongebaby and they've got a whole
line.
But this is from Wirecutter andthe headline is the Scrub Daddy
Sponge has a cult following,but is it better than this
Wirecutter favorite?
And they really put it head tohead with the more traditional
Scotch-Brite, you know, thegreen on one side, the yellow on
(16:01):
the other, and they did ahonest to goodness review where
they had like a pan that theypurposely burned things on and
they tested both of them andthey basically came out pretty
pretty much the same in somecases, in most cases.
So it got me thinking like whydid this become so viral?
(16:22):
Why did this become a thing?
And I you know I have mytheories, but before I do, I
would love to hear yourperspective on this and why do
you think this worked?
This little sponge with a face.
Rohit Bhargava (16:35):
I think it worked for a few reasons.
I mean one is because it has apersonality.
It looks like a smiley face, soit brought some personality to
something that you know peopleconsider, like you said, a
utility like not really thatuseful.
I think it also broke, uh,gender norms a little bit,
because it was the scrub daddy,not the scrub mommy.
Jeannie Walters (16:53):
Nice.
Rohit Bhargava (16:53):
And so I think there was like a little bit of
element of that like.
And the guy who, I mean it,broke out because of Shark Tank,
I think that was like a mainthing.
And when the guy came andpresented it, you know, he kind
of came in and uh said you know,I'm the, I'm the dishwasher of
the family, like that's my role,right, like that's what I do.
And this was a time, culturally, when I think you were seeing a
(17:14):
lot of examples of shiftinggender norms, like Tide, I think
, or one of the detergent brands, was running a commercial and
featuring the NFL quarterbackDrew Brees and he called himself
the equipment manager of thehousehold because he did all the
laundry.
Um, so, like you know, here's aguy who is, like in the most
(17:35):
macho sport ever doing thelaundry at home.
Here's another guy doing thedishes at home, and it was like
this portrayal of men in thehousehold as not being the
useless guy on the couch, and Ithink that that was really
breaking some stereotypes and soit fit perfectly into that
cultural narrative too.
Jeannie Walters (17:53):
That's a great point and I think part of what I
have seen is that people feellike this is a very authentic
brand.
It's very like they relate toit.
They feel like they trust whennew products are being rolled
out.
They trust that they're goingto work and that they've been.
You know that they get excitedabout, like these new sponges,
(18:15):
which is kind of funny to evensay.
But you're absolutely right.
And I think the part about theWirecutter review which kind of
struck me was you know, werethey kind of hoping that it
wasn't functional?
Were they kind of hoping thatthis wasn't going to win and
they were going to?
They were going to be able tosay, you know, hey, this, this
(18:36):
tried and true version.
Rohit Bhargava (18:38):
Is it just marketing?
Jeannie Walters (18:38):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Rohit Bhargava (18:40):
You don't need that smiley face to like put the
spoon through to clean thespoon.
Like you could use it, youcould do that with a regular
sponge.
Jeannie Walters (18:45):
Yeah like, but the, the tone of it made me
think like.
I think the reviewer was likegenuinely surprised at the, at
the way they could use it andthe way that it like even met.
I think the the word ergonomicwas used right like this really
fits really nicely in my handand and so I think that there's
(19:07):
something here about, like toyour point, having that
personality and just being areally authentic brand and that
term has been thrown around and,you know, misused so many times
in marketing.
But I feel like people, all ofus in this world of, like, deep
fakes and AI and all this, likethere is this craving for just
(19:28):
humanity, authentic humanity,and in a weird way, a sponge
with a face connects with thatin us.
Rohit Bhargava (19:36):
Well, and because there's also an
identifiable founder right.
Like there's someone who's likeI am the Scrub Daddy.
Like I don't know if there's aMister Scotch or a Mister Brite,
right?
Probably at some point therewas but like there's no
identifiable person, right,who's sitting there like washing
dishes.
Jeannie Walters (19:52):
It's so true, it's so true.
And I think that when you thinkabout the brands of today, even
the big high-tech brands thatkind of go viral.
We know the founders, we knowthe people who were connected to
those brands and that's alwaysa big shift, like going from the
Steve Jobs to Tim Cook.
That was a big thing and TimCook, I think, has done a great
(20:13):
job of being out there andconnecting as well.
It's interesting to think aboutas leaders ourselves, are there
products in our product line,are there ways that we're
approaching experience, thatmaybe we're making it too
functional, too simplified, tooutilitarian and what it really
(20:35):
needs is like a happy face orjust a way to authentically
connect?
So I am going to be watchingthis brand as well, all right,
and this last one is just goofy.
I'm going to say that.
That's my opinion, but I thinkit's pretty goofy.
So this is about Fridgescaping.
(20:57):
Now, had you heard of this?
Rohit Bhargava (21:00):
I had seen it yeah.
Jeannie Walters (21:01):
Okay.
So I had kind of heard about itin the dark recesses of like
Instagram and things like thatand I honestly wasn't sure if it
was real, if people really didthis, but indeed they do.
Rohit Bhargava (21:16):
I always assume it's real, by the way.
Jeannie Walters (21:20):
So this is from the Washington Post and the
headline is Fridgescaping isEverywhere, but Is it Safe?
And the idea of Fridgescapingis literally what it sounds like
.
You basically decorate theinside of your refrigerator and
the people who claim that thisis a good thing, they say, well,
(21:40):
it puts all this wonderfulfresh produce in front and so
people eat it more, and thingslike that.
It makes me smile when I openmy fridge and people do seasonal
things and so they're cleaningout their fridge very well.
So there are some things otherpeople are kind of like hold on
timeout.
When you're transferring all ofyour fresh produce to beautiful
(22:03):
seasonal containers like thatmight not be great for how you
actually store the food.
It might not be the best youknow healthy way to store or
safe way to store the food.
When you're transferringeverything from the container
that has expiration dates tocontainers that don't, that's
another consideration.
So it's just kind of a goofylittle trend, and so I'm just
(22:26):
like this is one of those things.
When I think about all the workyou've done, Rohit and your,
your book like this isnon-obvious to me.
I do not get this.
So what like and how do we?
Kind of know, it's a trend, Ithink, in this world of social
media.
One or two people can postsomething and people go.
(22:47):
Oh my gosh, this is everywhere,Right, Like I've.
Rohit Bhargava (22:49):
Well, that I mean that I can tell you an
answer to right away.
It's not a trend, it's a fad.
Jeannie Walters (22:55):
OK.
Rohit Bhargava (22:55):
And people often confuse those two things, and I
think the difference is that afad is usually something that
happens in one category with onegroup of people, whereas a
trend happens with lots ofdifferent people in lots of
different industries and there'sa crossover.
So, for example, the fad hereis Fridgescape your fridge.
(23:17):
Make everything look reallynice so you can take an
Instagram photo.
The trend could be that, in aworld where we feel overwhelmed,
we're looking to to organizeour lives in more you know set
specific ways, and one exampleof that is the you know
fridgescaping, and anotherexample is the Marie Kondo-ing
of your closet.
Another example is you know theminimalism around, like your
(23:42):
schedule, like trying to getstuff off of your Zoom calendar,
or like you know fixing yourschedule so that you have
different increments, so thatyou can like schedule your free
time or whatever it is Likepeople are super specific about
their schedule, right.
So like when you take thescheduling thing together with
the fridgescaping thing,together with the Marie Kondo
thing, now you might actually beable to point to a trend that
has a human behavior behind it,but like scaping fridgescaping
(24:03):
not a trend that's just a fadthat is fun to report, and the
news article is exactly what youwould expect it to be.
Hey, check out all these peopledoing something that's fun and
viral, but uh-oh, there might besome danger to it that you're
not thinking about.
Let's bring that up, right.
And so I mean, this is a verytypical kind of media lens on
(24:24):
something that seems like itwould be a trend and everybody
kind of looks at it and thenthey forget about it like three
months later.
Jeannie Walters (24:31):
I love the way you describe that and I think
it's a really important point.
And the other thing that I havefound is that, you know, I will
be scrolling and I'll see aheadline about you know,
teenagers doing something dumb.
And I have two young men whoI'm raising and they kind of
(24:54):
laugh sometimes because I'll say, oh my gosh, do you know about
this?
Like don't eat laundrydetergent.
You guys, right, like don't doit.
And they, they laugh and theysay, like this is somebody did
one thing stupid and somebodyjumped on it and said we're all
doing this stupid thing, right.
And so I think that we also haveto, just to your point, like,
(25:17):
remember the media lens,remember that they're looking
for these stories cause, hey, Ipicked up this story cause I
thought what is fridgescaping?
This looks ridiculous.
Let's talk about it, right?
So so I think it's a reallygood point to really kind of
make some distinctions betweenwhat is the thing that we're
looking at and what does itreally mean in the greater
context of the world and of howpeople are interacting with the
(25:42):
world and one another.
So it's a great point.
(26:03):
Well, are you a fridgescaper?
I'm curious.
Rohit Bhargava (26:07):
Me?
No.
Although the one element ofFridgeScaping we did get to is
we threw out all our plasticcontainers and now we only use
glass containers.
Jeannie Walters (26:14):
We did the same .
Rohit Bhargava (26:15):
Which is a part of the Fridgescaping.
You know the picture you showedwhat kindof super theatrical I
guess, but if you look at someof these fridgescaping image
that people are sharing it'sliterally just like 25 glass
containers that are the sameshape, same size, with all
different food, so like it'sbasically your fridge, but with
all containers, the exact samesize.
So it's not as disorganized asmost of our fridges typically
are, with different stuff andyou know apples thrown in the
side and that you know jar ofjelly all the way in the back
that you know we forget about.
Like you know, it's like that.
Jeannie Walters (26:33):
Yep, yep For sure.
Well, it's funny what you sayabout like needing control too,
because we kind of touched onthat in the beginning with the
pre-planning, holiday shoppingand things like that.
There seems to be a wave ofthat.
And when my when my husband andI first got married which is a
long time ago now, but we had awhole discussion because I used
(26:55):
whatever pen was around for thechecks and he was like no, you
have to use black ink to recordand we had a whole discussion
about that.
But I realized that looking at acheck register with all black
ink was very important to himand you choose your battles in
(27:19):
these relationships, but Irealized that was just about
that moment of that felt good,that felt like he had control
over that, even when otherthings were happening.
That was important and sosometimes you just have to go
okay, that's what it is.
Rohit Bhargava (27:28):
We all have something like that right,
Probably.
Jeannie Walters (27:32):
We absolutely do.
We absolutely do.
I'm not going to share mine.
Rohit Bhargava (27:35):
but I don't know if this is one, but I don't
understand people who go to thebaggage claim and then don't
remember what their bag lookslike.
I don't have any respect forthose people.
How do you not know what yourbag looks like?
I don't get that.
I just don't get it.
Jeannie Walters (27:52):
I don't either.
I don't either.
Rohit Bhargava (27:54):
Maybe I travel too much and I'm cranky, but
that's just like don't travel.
I mean at that point likereally, or don't check your bag.
Jeannie Walters (28:02):
We're taking your license away to travel.
Rohit Bhargava (28:05):
Yeah, I'm sorry you picked up the wrong bag.
You're banned from travel forsix months.
Jeannie Walters (28:12):
We probably have lots of travel things.
I found that when you travel alot, you have your little
routines, and when people don'thonor those routines, they're
just in my way, right.
Rohit Bhargava (28:23):
Yeah, I mean I'm hopefully a little more
forgiving than that, because Ido think that there's something
to say about people who are onthe trip of their lives and they
really get to you know whatever.
But like tie a ribbon aroundyour bag or something you know,
like that's not that difficult,right.
Jeannie Walters (28:38):
Yeah, I'm with you.
I'm with you.
Well, this was so fun and I'mso appreciative of your time and
all of the work that you'vecontributed so far.
And I just want to know isthere any kind of final thought
here?
As we look to the future, as welook to 2025, what do you think
business leaders, customerexperience leaders should be
(29:00):
thinking about when it comes tothese non-obvious trends?
Rohit Bhargava (29:04):
Yeah, look, one of the things I say in my talks
all the time is that the peoplewho understand people always win
, and I think that's especiallytrue when it comes to customer
experience and customer um, youknow, anybody working as any
sort of customer role and what Ihope we were able to do my
co-author and I in the book wasgive people some real techniques
to be able to better understandpeople and pay attention to
(29:27):
details that are around, andsometimes it's not about having
any special training orabilities, it's about intention.
You just have to intend to payattention, put that phone down a
little bit and look around atwhat's going on and notice the
details, and I think sometimesthat leads to more creative
thinking, it leads to moreinnovation and just makes us
(29:48):
better and more empatheticpeople too.
So I know it's pretty ambitiousto expect that a book could
help anyone do all of thosethings, but that was our goal,
that was what we were trying todo.
Jeannie Walters (29:58):
I love it.
I love it and I did get achance to read the book and I do
highly recommend it and I'llshow this for the folks watching
on video and I'll do my best todescribe it.
But it has all these greatillustrations and even the way
you organize the content throughthis storyboard where you can
(30:19):
really kind of see the overallmacro thinking around this as
well, which is really powerful.
So it's not just like a book ofdo this tip, do this tip.
They all tie together in thisreally unique way.
that
Rohit Bhargava (30:33):
That storyboard was our replacement of the table
of contents, and it was basedon an actual white board with a
bunch of post-it notes.
That was the storyboard for thebook, so it was actually
inspired by what we did when wewere writing the book.
Jeannie Walters (30:48):
Yeah, there are so many great little tidbits in
here and I just really enjoyedit and I think I read it on a
flight, so it's a quick, fun,easy, easy read.
So I appreciate that too.
There's we get so much contentthese days, right, that
something actionable like thatis really powerful.
So thank you for that.
So, yeah, so good luck on thebook and everything else that
(31:12):
you're doing.
So appreciate your time and Ireally have just really
appreciated all of your workthroughout the year, so thank
you for that as well.
Rohit Bhargava (31:20):
Well, thank you.
Thanks for the invitation.
This was a lot of fun.
Jeannie Walters (31:23):
Great, great.
Well, thank you for being here.
And and thank YOU for beinghere.
We are always so grateful tohave you along with us on the
Experience Action Podcast.
Now, just a reminder you canalways leave me a voicemail at
askjeannievip and that way I cananswer your question all about
customer experience, or maybefridgescaping, we'll see.
(31:44):
So thanks for being here and wewill see you next time.
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