How an 87-Year-Old Midwest Company Keeps Reinventing Itself | Jack Walker, Walker

They collect it and then do nothing about it, or never close the loop with their customers of, "Hey, thanks for doing this. This is what we did." And that's like such an easy thing, but that's so many companies miss. You helped us bring this to life. When you have a little skin in the game, like, "Oh, the business really listened to me and created what I told them to make." Definitely opened up my wallet. We've made a mistake, or not, that their satisfaction and made it right, and through that whole process, built trust from where it started before that issue happened. What's the most interesting way you see people collecting data today? From South Bend to Evansville, and everywhere in between, this is Get In. The show focused on the Hootier State and the incredible stories happening here today. I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Inana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. My guest today is Jack Walker, and he is the president of Walker, an Indianapolis-based experience management consulting firm, with more than 85 years of expertise. Helping organizations make change, make sense. Now, Walker helps organizations improve customer, employee, and patient experiences by aligning data and decisions to drive business impact. And I promise you, told me before this, we're going to make that, make sense to the common folk there. It's a really, really interesting business that I'm super excited to dive into. Now, Jack joined the company in 2014, and became its fourth generation leader. In October of 2024, continuing a legacy started by his great grandmother. I love that fourth generation. Come on. Under his leadership, Walker is a platinum consulting partner of Qualtrics, and was named there, 2026 North American partner of the year. We love to see that. His belief is simple. Most organizations don't have a data problem. They have a connection problem. And the opportunity is making sure feedback isn't just collected, but used when decisions are made. We all know how that goes. I'm really excited to dive into. We're going to learn about this fourth generation Indiana business, Jack. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Nate. Heck, yeah, man. Okay, so we'll put it out there to start. Most of our, let's say legacy listeners, we'll say legacy listeners are going to know Walker as Walker research. I believe that's what it started as. 87 years ago. That's right. Your great grandmother started this business. I got to hear this story. Tell me about it. 1939 Dorothy Tommy Walker started on as a part-time deal to try to provide a little extra money for the family. A research business. And her first clients were actually her husband's bank, which wanted to understand if the radio ads that they were putting out were resonating with people. So she'd go and interview housewives in the neighborhood and ask simple questions to measure. And essentially, if that radio ad was reaching them and if that hit its mark for what it was trying to do. So that's how she got her start. Your great-grandfather worked at a bank and said, we don't even know if Mark, I guess the age-old question is the marketing work. Are the marketing dollars being spent efficiently? And your grandma, or great-grandmother, would go around the neighborhood and kind of hold core and talk to all the different people in the neighborhood and learn about, hey, by the way, have you heard about whatever the bank was? That's right. Wow. So that was the first one. Another one was like a local grocery store that wanted to know, make decisions on how to stock the right products. And so she would, again, do in-home interviewing of home makers and understand their preferences and take that insight back to the grocery store owner to take action. See, when you say it that way, it makes a ton of sense. Like, did they know that she was interviewing them for a work thing? Or was it kind of like undercover? I don't know, for sure, but I imagine it was known the objective of what she was asking. Like, hey, Julie, I'm coming over. I'm learning, because if we get this information, our local grocery store will stock more of what we want. Yeah. And make our lives better as home makers, if we come together and get a little bit of collective bargaining there. That's right. Wow. So it expand from just her, how did it grow and maintain to become an 87-year-old company? Yeah. So my great grandfather, her husband, died of a heart attack suddenly in his 40s. And that was obviously a pivotal moment in their life. And she decided to go all in on the business for what was a part-time gig, quite the risk, but a necessary risk given she had two small boys, one of them being my grandfather at the time, and went all in. And she was a pioneer in the market research industry. Eventually led to opening the first consumer test kitchen in the nation, where they'd invite consumers into a simulated fake kitchen inside a building like this. And they would see and watch how the consumers would interact with certain consumer goods products in front of or behind a two-way mirror of the company that hired her to do that research. So when it went, so after your great-grandfather unexpectedly passed away, that's when it went from just like her interview and part-time side hustle to, I want to make this a bit-- I'm going to make this a true entrepreneur. Wow. So when you hear the story, were there any pivotal moments in your great-grandmother's life, like in that business journey that set them up to continue to survive and to make it? Big customers that came through? Well, it's probably like every customer, right? The first customer's the biggest one of taking a risk of, wait, you're going to hire me to go do this. And it being her husband's employer, even further of a risk for that company to trust her. Especially after his unfortunate passing. It's like, well, if he was a leader within the organization, you could have said that was keeping it together. And now they're like-- but obviously had to have done great work. And this is early on. I mean, this is the 1940s at this point. Like, I don't know what research and development looked like then, but I'm sure that the data they were bringing in was super, super helpful to today's modern consumer brands. Ultimately, yeah. I mean, that's part of the history and legacy of the company that I feel real sense of honor and duty to carry forward today, because we've always helped companies measure and improve the experience based on the insights of asking their customers or researching what their customers are doing. It just looks a lot of different ways by the different errors and technologies for how you can most effectively do that at scale. Yeah. So back in the day, right, you're talking about going out to people in the market are they here in the radio? Yeah, here in the-- So then I'm sure she needed to hire more staff to go out and she hired a lot of housewives that ultimately they would get a little extra money for their family. Yeah. So it was an interview. A big piece of it would be go out and do interviews. And then from there, it shifts into, is that when the test kitchen comes? Or are there other innovations throughout the time? No, I think that was the next kind of major for a beyond just like interview service to, OK, we're actually going to do ethnographic research, like watching people actually use products in a simulated environment from there-- Do you know what some of the customers would have been for the test kitchen? So I know PNG, Kimberly Clark, those were customers long ago. I don't know if they're exactly in that era, but I remember old pictures. And there's one in our office right now of seven different pancake mix laid out on a table with little cards. And so clearly they brought in some people off the street as sample to test out seven different pancake mixes for whatever consumer product brand hired us. And ultimately that feedback was taken to account for product development. And it was ultimately launched. That's so interesting. You think about watching through a tour in New York. Imagine just, where was the original office at? Where was your-- We've been all over town. The original office was in Broadrople, actually. Right down the street. So it was at the where the test kitchen was as well. I don't know where the test kitchen was. I'd have to go back and research. Imagine the test kitchen being right here in Broadrople. Where old pro stable is. You're walking down the street. I think it was there. You're walking down the street and someone's like, hey, do you have a minute to make some pancakes? And it pulls you into-- That would be so. Why? Honey, you'll never believe what happened to me at one today, the craziest thing. And so you go from your great-grandmother goes from test kitchen, obviously doing polls. How has the collection of survey responses in data changed throughout the years? Yeah. So like 60, 70s, that's when telephone surveys and data collection became prevalent. That's when my grandfather also joined the company and was the second generation leader. So we would have call centers all across America. And then we'd have partners across the world in order to fill global studies. And we would be sometimes the annoying people that would call during dinner to get feedback for the research we were collecting. And then the '90s happened. The internet comes. Everything shifts from phone to web in terms of mass data collection. But there's still plenty of good reasons to do in-person and in-depth interviews like we did in 1939. And then now I think we're at just another tipping point from a technology standpoint with what AI brings. And the risk that brings to our business and the way we help companies now, but also the opportunity side of what is there as well for what we can do our work more effectively and help our customers. Yeah. And I'm excited to get into that, because I think there's a ton of innovation happening right now. I do want to talk about-- so thinking through the telephone and that survey piece-- did Nielsen start out as a research company? And is that how they became the TV research company? Yeah. We'd be under the broad umbrella of market research. Yeah. And then just various niches form. and obviously they've been very successful and have a very big niche in terms of measuring viewership on things. - Yeah, which is why they became the, I probably have one of the most famous research companies. - Yeah, Gallup at the time too. - Oh yeah, especially for employee surveys. - Yeah, so it is interesting of the little niches like kind of within research, did your family, as they were coming up and growing their business find a sweet spot that they really honed in on? - Yeah, so we would have morphed probably like in the 90s, 2000s from like this broad market research and researcher type of firm to what then became known as customer experience. So not so much research for product development or whatnot, but actually like broader than the discipline of just collecting data or measuring an experience but or satisfaction or whatever, but actually like what do you do about it to take action to improve the future experience and kind of the cycle and loop that happens from that. So get got a lot into like culture and organizational understanding of how to actually consult and create the positive change from the insight collected through the feedback loop that we did. - Yeah, 'cause that's a big part of it. It's like a lot of people, you know, set up even the smallest businesses, you can set up a post purchase survey. And it's like when you get that data, it's like what are you doing and how are you putting that to work. So this be like, oh man, I think about today, if you're on the phone, the most annoying call, I'm on with like AT&T or like internet or cell phone and I'm like, something is broken by bills to high, whatever. And they're like, oh yeah, by the way, you stay on at the end for a quick three question survey or it's like those type of things. - Yeah, yeah, absolutely, but in today's age, I would argue that survey should never even happen because the technology exists now or you can just process the call recording and understand sentiment on if that was a positive or negative experience and easier, hard experience. So we're not even having to ask or solicit that information. - Yeah, like this call is being monitored for quality and training process or whatever. - Oftentimes for quality assurance, I've worked in the context center before, but yeah, I mean, it's applicable for a way to, you know, process and understand customer intelligence that provides a fuller picture than just always defaulting to a survey, which we do a lot of, but it's by no means like the only thing or application we use in order to help our customers understand their customers better. - Wow, so what started as in person, at the mall, wherever it might be, or pulling people in and offering surveys to phone, now obviously with the internet, there's just like, so where is most data collection for the research happening? - Web still. - Yeah. - Especially at scale. I mean, most of our customers are like, fortune 1000 companies, $500 million in more in terms of, you know, really at scale, how challenging it is in a complex organization to capture customer insights at scale and have those organized so that they can be processed and understood in action to cross a really big organization. That's where a lot of our work does, but there's still some of those same principles exist within smaller companies. It just becomes a little easier from a complexity standpoint. - Is there a massive, you know, fortune 1000, fortune 500 project that you can talk about where, hey, we went out for XYZ brand, we collected this many responses and it ended up creating this. - Yeah. So as a good consultant, I can't divulge client names, but I mean, that's a really awesome thing about working at Walker, just the brands and customers that we have the privilege to work with is so fun to drive around town and notice them all the ways they show up. So, you know, I'll give one example, like one really large software company. They do B2B software, so a company would hire or would purchase their software to manufacture their products. And we help them, through a variety of different listening for their customers. One of them being a traditional web-based survey, relationship study that they field with their customer set on a regular cadence and collect information about what's working, what's not working, what's good about the experience, what's not. And we can pair that with operational data that they have about their business in terms of like how often they're contacting support or calling into the call center. And kind of that's where it's really becoming really high potential now and exciting for, you know, where we can merge those two data sets and create insight from that. So like one of the interesting takeaways of this recent work was everybody's, most people are familiar with Net Promoter Score. You got promoters, passives, and detractors, a common way to ask a question in a survey and get at a sentiment of that customer. So for passives, people that are kind of in the middle, they don't love you, they don't hate you. We found that if a passive customer, if they have not contacted technical support within the last six months, there's a high risk that they will reduce their annual recurring revenue with this client in the future. And so four times more likely than some, the average customer. So to be able to get that insight and now create a system of action where when we see that profile across their broader customer set or be able to predict that, that can save a lot of money from potential churn in a proactive intervention. - That's kind of crazy, 'cause you think about, obviously you wouldn't want to do this, but it's like you see that, oh, if they've contacted support in the last six months, like they are likely to be a happy retained customer. - Yeah, there's actually a healthy amount of contacting customers support in a B2B software company. - So you're almost like, okay now, just turn on this quick little bug that they're gonna have to contact support about that to make sure that-- - Hopefully not. - You know, hopefully it's like trying to push the limits of the software, where they're really engaged with the product, and that's the reason they call support. - Yeah, and they're like, okay, start to push a new feature, give them opportunity. 'Cause it's like, if you ever been, I mean, I'm sure there's data behind like, people who get offered the beta testing for new features or new parts of it. And it's like, hey, you know, that's kind of like the support aspect where you're getting to interact with an actual human being, and it creates stickiness for your brand. I'm really excited to dive into this evolution of even, let's say, when you joined the company in 2014, you're collecting all these survey responses, all this data, I'm sure that someone, a human being, in some capacity had to be digesting all of this, and creating this probably 100-page PDF report of the entire study, and giving recommendations to the business. You know, like, I'm sure that was a lot of people's jobs. - Yeah, that still happens today. - Yeah, yeah. - But I'm sure-- - And you still value in that, but there's a lot of, roadblocks with that approach as well. - Yeah, well, I mean, talk about like the time. Like, I'm sure you had, you know, data analysts and data experts, data scientists, that were in there in the spreadsheets, totally looking and validating and trying to find trends. Like, was that like a piece of it? Like, someone's job was to look at this data, the entire set. But if you filters and like mess around with it, to find trends in the data. - Yeah, in SPSS or, you know, some analytical software a couple of decades ago, that still can be done today. Now it's baked into the technology Qualtrics, which were kind of a leading partner on and is the technology that we help our clients accelerate and use within their business to achieve this outcome. - What is Qualtrics? Can you explain? - Qualtrics is the enterprise software leader in enterprise feedback management. So collecting customer employee, patient sentiment at scale. And it's, you know, high security. So, you know, a lot of enterprise companies, they have Qualtrics as part of their enterprise data stack of all the technology that they have to capture that customer information and analyze and act on it. - No, so we help companies really get the most out of that software. - Are they in a specific niche? - Like are they? - It'd be enterprise feedback management experience management. - Okay. - So just big scale data. Okay. - Yeah. - So you would, okay, let me put this all together. So it makes sense. It, let's say, you know, the largest company in Indiana comes to you all. And then you would be using the Qualtrics software to model the data, keep all, like where did AI start to Reards Head in Qualtrics? - Yeah, so they are coming out with, and they have come out with their own AI functionality in terms of like a, you know, assistant within the actual platform that you can ask natural language questions to as opposed to trying to find it on some multi-page dashboard. That just being one example. So they'll continue to do that. But there's also potential beyond just kind of what I would categorize as like experience data, which is captured and held within Qualtrics. Experience data is what people think feel, say, really solicited captured information in terms like survey data, for example. But there's also in companies, other types of data, operational data, like how much a customer spends with you, where they're located, things like that, and then behavioral data, what they actually do. So so much is digital now. So we have, you know, companies are flooded with logs of data of like how much someone interacts with their website, or how many times they've called the context center. So really behavioral operational experience data. All of these are forms of customer intelligence that can help paint the picture for, if the experience is good or not and differentiated or not, and then where are the gaps and how do we create differentiation for our customers? - Wow. - Meeting their customer where they want to. So we're inundated with the emails as consumers of, oh, here fill out a survey kind of thing. So as much as possible where we don't actually have to solicit that, the better, and that's more and more possible by today's technology, but also even from a solicitation standpoint in a traditional survey sense to not just go through email but through text or WhatsApp or within the app that they actually have themselves. - Yeah. - To, at the right moment, solicit feedback that's not an annoyance for us. - I was gonna say, have you been seeing whether it's on Instagram or YouTube? I've started, like ads have been replaced with, hey, here's four brands. Which one of these have you seen an ad for recently? Or which one of these would you be most likely to buy? Sometimes I've never heard of any of them. And I'm like, oh, that's not, and it's like, that's just learning and out. - They're pretty effective to be able to watch your YouTube video a little faster. - Yeah, I was totally, and I like the fact that it replaces the skip ad. And it's like, hey, you know, you take five seconds, I can be in control of when I get to watch my video. I'm like, oh yeah, I'll answer this. It's super interesting. Some of the best creators that I know, like content creators, always give the feedback. You should be polling your audience. Like, yes, the algorithm sometimes tells you, you know, your best, you know, Instagram video, your best podcast episode, all the stuff there. But if you're asking your audience and getting that feedback, you can learn to create more of what they want to see. And it's like kind of crazy to think that sometimes we don't ask our customers what they, what is it like the Steve Jobs? Like everyone's got a little bit too much Steve Jobs in of telling people what they want. Versus the like, no, go out, collect information. Even if you're a small business, the data can be really, really powerful. Do you have any stories or examples? Let's say if there's a small business owner out there that maybe doesn't have a huge budget to go out and run a huge research project, ways that they could start collecting and implementing feedback within their business today. Yeah, well, nothing replaces talking directly to your customer. You know, I think a lot of where we just help, especially these larger customers is that's just not possible for the thousands and hundreds of thousands of customers they have. So for a smaller business where you're, you know, especially in a leadership position, you have, you're interacting with customers more. There's a tremendous sense of what lives in your head, right? That how do we get that out of your head and more broadly help culturally how that applies and gets actioned and lived across your employee base? Yeah. For ultimately, the experience that come from the interactions with your employees, especially if you're more of a service-based business where they're not interacting with a product or a digital screen, but the experience happens through an actual employee of your firm. Yeah. So I feel like there's a few examples. I can't think of any of the service side, but on the product side. I'm a huge fan. There's a local brand called Homefield. Connor Hitchcock started it. It's like vintage college apparel. Yeah, I have some t-shirts, yeah. Oh, they're so great, right? And he, like, you have to get licenses and build up like you had to build up hype. So he started with like IU, them got Purdue, then Notre Dame local licenses, all that stuff there. But there would be other universities and colleges down the road that we're gonna launch whatever it is. We're gonna launch Mississippi State. We're gonna launch Tulsa. And getting the feedback, I just think of how the machine works. Getting feedback of, hey, what colleges should we put out next? What products do you wanna see in the market? And like a lot of people ask, like, what do you wanna see? But like, maybe it's in the Instagram DMs or on comments and they're not like collecting that data. 'Cause then if you were collecting the data and the contact information, when you do finally bring that product out, you have a list of people like, hey, don't just buy this. Like how much, when you have a little skin in the game, like, oh, the business really listened to me and now they interacted and created what I told them to make. Yeah, I'm definitely open up my wallet. That is huge. One of the biggest mistakes companies make when they try to go about a formal collection of feedback from their customers and asking for their feedback is they collect it and then do nothing about it or never close the loop with their customers of, hey, thanks for doing this. This is what we did based on the time and investment you made to share your feedback with us. And that's like such an easy thing, but that's so many companies miss. And as you do that and do that over and over and over again, that builds a real trust with the customers that you're soliciting feedback from and it'll create a higher level of trust that I think just creates a flywheel for ultimately benefiting your business beyond just collecting feedback. Do you have any examples of businesses that listeners would know about that have just mastered the collection of their customer data and then acting on it and then closing the loop with their customers who gave them the data? Yeah. So one of the top 20 most valuable companies in the world, sorry, not as relevant for what we can all connect to, but I think there's a simplicity behind the work we've done with them. We've worked with them for 25 years. The high tech manufacturing firm, they don't do any web base service. It's all done in one-on-one in-depth interviews that we get on a Zoom call or even visit in person with an executive at these various software technology companies. And we go through in-depth in-person or on Zoom, a total back and forth conversation around their customer experience with this firm. And then ultimately, package those insights up, find what the themes are, report back, they make macro-level changes for how they go about their business for the next year for their entire customer set. But then also the individual account managers of these very high value customers follow up individually with each of those customers and go through, "Hey, we love that we are doing this right, and we're going to work on these things that you shared with us." And they've done that for 25 plus years. And just that consistency of following up and following through on the significant time investment from an executive to take 60 minutes to sit down and talk to us or on behalf of our customer, that builds incredible trust and the continuous loop of, I think, ultimately that they get back in spades in many different ways beyond just feedback. I think that when people think of surveys, they're like automatically, it has to be, I win a gift card or I win, you know, whatever. Some of it's like, I get the opportunity, the chance to win a gift card. It's not even like guaranteed, you know. When you think of the best survey respondents, who are they? And how can local business owners or leaders be tapping into the sweet spot of survey responders? That makes sense. Well, again, in our domain, it's your customers. So how do you get your customer to take the time to give you feedback when you solicit it? So, you know, one of the big no-noses just to send them something out of the blue without kind of saying, hey, this is coming. I'd really appreciate your time to spend to actually provide us this feedback with whatever medium that you're using to collect that. And the reason why you're asking for it and then what you're going to do about it. It's seems, it's some so simple, but just that mere act provides the context. They know it's not spam when it comes through. They know the exact reason why you're going to use it. And if you have a relationship built with them, that you're going to use that for ultimately their benefit later on. Well, and I feel like today, you know, with data and analytics, you should be able to like segment off your power users. Whoever is buying the most shirts from you or using your software the most, and it's like, if you lead that email or that message, or however you're contacting them with like, hey, we see that you absolutely love XYZ software. Like, we want to make it even better for you and we want you to help us do that. And you make them feel like they have an ownership stake in this product that they love. Oh my, that's way more valuable than 25 bucks to Amazon. Yeah, and again, like, what are all the scenarios? We don't even have to ask a survey. Like, I mean, yes, we do surveys, but we really, that's not our default way we interact with our clients. Like, you take, for example, again, the digital, there's products that track every digital move, or move you make on it on a digital website. So they have a thing called rage clicking. So there's software that can detect when you get frustrated and you just click the mouse over and over and over again. Like, hey, we don't have to ask if you had a bad experience. We can use that behavioral data of your rage clicking to say, hey, there's something wrong here. Let's fix it. The first time I ever saw someone demo hot jar to me, have you heard of hot jar? I was shocked. It was like, it just records sessions on the website. Like, it knows where you're clicking, your hotspots on your website, the buttons that are broken, the button, like where you should be clicking. It's, if you're a small bit, I think it's like, that type of thing is like relatively cheap to, if you have an e-commerce brand, like it was an e-commerce founder demo in this to me. And I was like, oh my goodness. And then you can act off that data, use it in your design, the whole nine yards. I just think today, so you think of things, tools like that, as well as all the different ways that you are collecting data. There's so much data. How are you not overwhelming leaders with this availability of data? And how do they not get overwhelmed and then actually make decisions using it? Yeah. So oftentimes the issue is not, we need more data. Now there's situations where you're gonna wanna go out and solicit and try to capture more data to solve some gap. But most organizations have lots of data. So yeah, the more of the challenge is just making sense of the chaos. and all this data lives in different systems, especially if you're a bigger organization where you might have customer intelligence live across, I don't know, a dozen or multi-dozen different technology tools in your tech stack. So how do you bring it all together? And I think one emerging thing we're seeing in trying to push our some of our clients to is our some of these platforms like Databricks or Snowflake that exist that are really built to unify data across the organization into a centralized intelligence later later. Like I know Snowflake, like I read it's Frank Sluetman, right? I think he was like the one of the big CEOs there. Yeah, I think yeah. No idea what they do. Like I know that they were valuable. I think I was like I was a Robin Hood like stockholder of Snowflake could not tell you what they do. Well, I can explain. Yeah. So data warehouse data lake. So essentially what that means is it worked for all the data that exists in your organization. That's the place where you would unify it in one central location. And you actually don't have to move the data. There's now that you can like stream it. So it's streaming even though it lives as a system of record in a different technology tool. You can form a connection where you stream the data so that it's live in Snowflaker Databricks along with other data. Your point from other various systems where then it's unified and then you can analyze it matter with all of the data in one place and then ultimately action on it. Because the piece that I feel like a lot of people need help with is the visualization. Like we can I guy I've even started doing that from like an AI perspective is like I can plug all the things in. I like I put it down to you know like when you have your 10 different HDMI chords in your TV or like when you and I don't know if anyone like played Xbox and the you know mid 2000s but when you have to plug the hardwires into each other before Xbox live is this land. Come on now. And it's like we can plug all that in. But a lot of times it's the visualization and then the action of it. How are you when you see people streaming data to something like snowflake. How are then they visually seeing the data. Yeah so I mean you can create dashboards but I think dashboards are dying and are going to be dead. I think there's always going to be a need for like your your go to metrics that like a single page like high level dashboard. But everything is going to move to a chat AI chat bot like experience. Natural language processing where you can type in hey I want to see this data cut by this way or help surface what's going wrong in my customer base. And you don't have to go find you know page three tab four of some multi-page dashboard to go surface this insight that needs to be pre configured. You're just going to natural language have a chat like you're doing with you know chat GPT or clot or whatever to ultimately surface that. So that's a lot of what we're trying to help move our customers towards. So yeah all the data they have in Qualtrics from an experience standpoint for what's solicited from their customers. But the rage clicking and digital behavioral data or the operational data. How do we help them unify that in a in a data bricks or a snowflake oftentimes a system they have. And then add this technology where you really truly get like a 360 degree view of the customer of all of the customer intelligence we have about them to be able to ask a question and return an answer. Wow that's pretty wild. That's where we're going. Has the last couple years just totally revolutionized like how you guys are thinking and how fast things are moving. Absolutely. With how you're serving this data to your customers. Yeah. Yeah. So it's I mean it's a huge risk for you know a lot of the the business we do now and help our customers. But it also at the same side is the flip side of the coin is an opportunity because we see where this is heading and how our discipline of experience management evolves into the future based on the latest and greatest technology just like we did it for the internet. Bones, test kitchen and the in person interviews. And it becomes less of a you know we're out there collecting the data and you know totally researching you're probably still doing a lot of that. Again AI is not at the point where it's out you know having surveys with people in real life. But it becomes more like we're helping you mold the data. We're helping you act on it. Yeah. Yeah. Wow because in the past few years you guys rebranded from Walker Research to Walker. Right when was that? We actually Walker information after Walker Research. Now we just typically go by Walker even though it's Walker Information Inc. is our legal name. Yes. But we had a we did a brand refresh last year. Yeah. Hired Y and L for that local company. They did a fantastic job and I think it really it fits more of what we are now today as I would consider us more like an IT services and change consultancy around customer centricity versus like market research base. So there is because I mean today a lot of it is you know there are the hot jars or the whatever softwares are the world that collect you know the rage clicks and whatever they might be feeding out all in there and then you are helping executives understand what they're looking at and then act on it. Yeah. Yeah. And there's just from a human component like again I chat like experience where you can prompt with a question and it returns an answer that's going to be incredibly valuable. But also like I know I don't want to be cringe but the agentic reality and for sure the future. So agents all these agents people keep talking about. Businesses are creating agents. Well we would argue there's a huge risk and also huge opportunity for the customer context we serve in organizations to really make sure that that is a really strong experience because I have a prediction that all these agents that are going to get stand stood up. They're going to be using enterprise data that's not going to consider the human element of how they actually perform and task autonomously. So if experienced data isn't in that unified customer intelligence layer like we talked about then it's going to optimize efficiency or cost savings and it's not going to be a human centered feel to how that agent actually performs the task that it's supposed to do. And so we're going to get tons of backlash. It's going to be good for us because companies are probably going to struggle with when they put an agent out there and then customers are like this stinks. Yeah. You know this is ultimately yeah it got it helped you not staff somebody in a call center but this is a terrible experience. I didn't solve my issue. So I think a huge opportunity to make sure that we have experienced help our clients make sure that experience data factors into the context that those agents work off of. You use the call center analogy Tony Shay the founder of Zappos and he talks about the experience after you make a mistake is where you can really win over a lifelong customer. And so you think about someone calls the service hotline they're they're hop and mad ticked off. Everyone knows when you have a great experience. You know like if you call into something and you have a even a mild the average experience it makes you even matter at the customer or at matter at the company. But if you call in and you just have the greatest experience someone is like over the top the human part of it is amazing. You're like oh that's why I love this place because they fix problems quickly. Yeah and you can almost be better than if someone just walked in bought the shoe or you know ordered online bought the shoes they got delivered versus they got delivered it was wrong size the next day the right size shoes show up I'm like that's why I love Zappos. Yes you know it's a moment of truth and I can even relate to even my own clients where we've we've made a mistake or not met their satisfaction and we've we've really jumped in and leaned in and made it right and and through that whole process I think built trust from where it started before that issue happened. So I mean any business can I think relate to that. And that's like the piece where some people are like they don't like to talk about the mistakes they've made and it's like you're crazy to think that not everyone is making mistakes and it's like the best kind of people are like hey I made a mistake but I'll look you in the eyes say I'm gonna make it right I messed up but I'll make it right yeah like that is just like and and people like love and respect that so much. I do want to talk about a little bit when it comes to the fourth generation this family business. What does that legacy mean to you and how is that maybe impacted just like the way that you visualize showing up for work every day. Yeah it's huge I mean it's an incredible privilege you know I understand a bit of nepotism that's involved for sure and why I've got the job but I don't think my dad would hand me the reins or be handing me the reins if I wasn't up for it but you know I think a huge sense of of of of duty and stewardship that to carry it forward and not just for you know my family's name and but but you think about all the employees that that you know rely on it for their families and even some you know our customers and our impact on their customers or on their families so it's huge and you know it's something I want to carry forward where I could take this thing 100 years plus for at 87 now and and grow it and if we're growing that means we're providing more value to our customers and so it drives a huge part of me. Yeah do you have advice for other listeners that might be in family? Even if they maybe they might be first generation that thinking about turning their business over to a second generation how that I mean obviously there is a level of nepotism you know like somewhere in there that people know that you are the you know your last name is on the door right but how can leaders be thinking about getting their children involved what are some stories from your involvement with the company that have just really set you up for success? Yeah well I think it's for the right reason I mean I think when I think about it so much of what drives me is to to to to be successful in leading this company that I can one day say it wasn't just because my last name's Walker that that I got this job and and so that's a huge drive for me and so I think you know things that my parents and grandparents did well to set up what now is, hopefully successfully transitioning to a fourth generation is just how we were raised. And there was a rule we had to go work somewhere else before working at the family business. - I like that. I think that going out-- - What's happening out incredible thing. - Yeah, getting some industry experience somewhere else. Like whether you like it or not, like if you walk in and people know that you are the owner's son, they're gonna treat you a little bit differently. At least if you go out somewhere else, they're gonna treat you like normal, you get that experience. And then you bring back whatever learnings are there are to the family business. - Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I started my career at Angie's List in 2010 to 2013. - What were you doing there? - I started in the call center as a service rep. - You know, Ed? - Yeah, oh yeah. - Ed's up serving, yeah? - Yeah, Ed's, he's with NeighborServe now. There are great guys. - That's a great guy. - They're awesome. And A alumni network is fantastic. - Yeah. - So I mean, I hit Angie's List at the right time. That was during their high growth period. So I'm going from private to public. Got because of their rapid growth. Got, and I did a good job. I got so much experience as a 20, what, two to 25 year old. I was managing half the call center by the time I left. I mean, just, it was the right place, right time. And obviously I delivered on some of that. But it was incredibly foundational for me in terms of, you know, hey, I do a good job. And I think for how I carry forward for today. - Yeah, that's, I mean, talk about between exact target and Angie's list, like being in the heyday, like the early to mid-delay 2000s. So that was a fun time. I know where we have Ed and then I know Mike Rutz and this is the whole crew there. Angie was actually, when the first iteration of the show, she had called in and did an episode with two of the previous toast too. - Okay. - One incredible story. Like Angie is just a rock star. And a proud to call alumni. - Yeah. - I love that when you're thinking about, you know, the fourth generation family owned business. A lot of times you think about, you know, the first generation like builds it. And then the second generation like keeps it alive and the third generation is where like usually things go downhill. - I use that as a motivational factor. Three percent of family businesses make it to where I'm at today. So. - How many percent? - It's my computer password for some sites just to remind myself of what I gotta go do. - Yeah. - And it fires me up and down. - What percent make it to 100 years? - I don't know. - I gotta know that number. And I do wanna say we were kind of talking about, you know, asking your customers. I wanna put one out here. This is, as we're getting close to the end of the show, we're about to talk all things Indiana. Wanna say you, if you are a listener, maybe an avid listener, you're, you know, one of our power users, email me, Nate at Nate's Bengal, answer the question, who is a guest you wanna see on the show, right? Is that how you do a question? You ask like something very specific. Is that a good research second? What question should I be asking? - I think you could have that open-ended. - Or you could maybe prompt with certain categories of guests that they might favor more than others. And then that might help, then you do further research of, okay, who fits this category? - Okay, two questions. Question number one, you have to pick A, B, or C. A, do you like athletes? Do you like business leaders? Or do you like artists slash non-profit slash interesting people? I'll say those three, right? So we have athletes. We have business leaders, and we have like the non-profit art sector. Pick A, B, or C there. And then your second question is, who's your guest-rest recommendation? There you go. There's our, we just did a survey. I'll let you know, and we can visualize the data at a later point. - Sounds good. - Come on, I love it. One of the pieces you are very active in Indianapolis Central Indiana community. You serve on the board, I believe, of big brothers and big sisters. How did you get plugged in with that organization and tell me about the impact they're making in Central Indiana? I was a big or a mentor to a little or a child under the age of 18 on a couple of occasions, first back at Purdue, as a way to honestly boost my resume, you know, on the community service line of the resume as I was going through undergrad, but found just such a connection through that experience that when I moved back to Indiana or Indianapolis after school, I actually just reached out to the CEO at the time and said, hey, actually, you know, I'm still interested in maybe being a mentor in the future, but I wanna apply my professional skills in a way outside of my current employer. - For people who don't know what big brothers, big sisters is, can you give us a flyover of what the organization is? - It's a mentorship organization, so a lot of it is one-on-one mentorship. So a volunteer, such as myself in the past, has volunteered to give their time and be paired with a specific little after an intense matching process and to form a connection and build over at least a year, a relationship with this individual where you're just another supporter in their life and helping them reach their full potential in life. So I've found through my experience that why I think it's been giving to the littles that I've mentored as a big, I've gotten just as much out of it myself from a growth standpoint. So it's an amazing way to make a really intense impact on a single person's life as opposed to other volunteer opportunities being, a group or maybe just see that individual just once in terms of that transaction. - And I think it's important to remember that a lot of the youth that are going through this program, like stable role model individuals might not be super prevalent in their lives. A lot of them might have single parents that are working and so you get to come in and take them on, you do outings, right? - Yeah, all these kids they have supporters in their life, but either themselves or one of their loved ones has raised their hand and say, hey, it would be awesome to have even one more to help reach this kid reach their full potential. - And if I think of it right now, I feel like there's always a huge weight list for children. - A thousand kids are waiting, who have raised their hand, who want a big. And it's the biggest need in our organization. It's somewhat of a good problem to have is feels a little poor to put say, but it shows the demand for I think the model that really big brothers big sisters works. And it's a high impact and obviously there's incredible demand for it. And we need more volunteers. - I think the time coming, it's like you go on an outing a month or something like that. - Yeah, yeah. - Couple hours a month. - Like a minimum. - Yeah. - But it's like obviously you want to take an active role and you're getting matched with a little, you go out, you go bowling or go get ice cream. - Grocery story, it's amazing. Like I thought it'd be super lame to bring my little along to just doing a grocery run, but just the time they cherish spending with me, which I just took for granted. And just I was just amazed by just even the simple things of what makes such a big difference for them. - Well, and if you think about taking that time too to like, when you're a kid, you don't know like grocery foods. You're like, oh yeah, let's get cheesets and cheese whizz and ice cream. And it's like, oh yeah, I tend to shop through this section to the store and you know, you can use it. It doesn't all have to be like a learning lesson, but like, you can make a huge impact. - Well, a good example is like my wife and I were a big couple for our most recent little. And when we did grocery shopping, like I always never want to do like the self checkout because I want to just like, go through fast. And she was patient and let our little like, do kind of the scan each item. And then ultimately pay through the screen. And I mean, I think that was ultimately a cool experience that maybe his parent or I wouldn't have done that I give big credit to my wife for doing so. - I love that. And I think that yeah, making an impact on, yeah, the youth of Central Indiana, supersure, per important. They brothers, big sisters, great organization, definitely go check that out. A thousand kids are waiting for a mentor. That's incredible. I mean, not incredible, but there's an incredible need there. - And I promise it'll change your life and impact your life just as much as the kid. - Yes, personal experience. The list goes on, I feel like I've had five different people that have said that is one of the most impactful things that they've done their time on. So incredible. We've come towards the end of the show where we get to talk all things Indiana. This question is brought to you by our friends at JC Hart. They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond. Check them out at homeisjcheart.com. My question for you, Jack, why do you call Indiana home? - It's what raised me. I've always lived in the state, even, you know, two college stops. I think it's a huge part beyond just the people who live in Indiana and who have affected my life of what I am today. And just an incredible pride in being born and raised in Indiana. So many high school friends, they just wanted to get out of here. And I never felt that way. I feel incredible pride about values, a great place to raise a family, the community, people first approach that exists here. And I want to do all I can to help make sure I give back and keep Indiana a great place to live for the next generation. - I love that, man, so true. And it's so cool for you to see something that your great-grandmother started still rocking and rolling today. 87 years later. - That's right. - 13 more. I'll give you a triple digit. - Much more than 13, yeah. - Oh, man. Okay, what was your first job with in Walker? - I was a quality assurance analyst, so I would have to, it was a boring job, but a necessary job. So I check reports to make sure that they were reporting the right data back to some technology system that showed up on the PowerPoint in the correct way. - Nice. I was hoping it was like, yeah, I got sent out to the mall and I had to like, I wasn't born early enough for that. - Oh, yeah, good share. What's been the most obscure data requests you guys have gotten? Like have you ever been asked like, hey, we need to collect. - Yeah. Well, I struggle to think of one in my tenure, but I know my first job, my grandfather talk about long ago, again, a consumer goods brand where it was a diaper study where the people who were participating in the research would send back dirty diapers to our company and we would have to analyze something about the diaper for part of the research study. So talk about disgusting and I'm glad we don't do that today. Yeah, right. It's like, but you think about the data from things like you have to do a study to learn about new diaper technology. Gotta make sure diapers are working. New anti-slip shower technology. You gotta like figure out people are crazy. Wow. What is the most mind blowing way that you feel like companies are collecting data on us today? Like is there one thing where you like realize that that is a data collection system and it just blew your mind? Well, I think it's super scary to know our phones are listening to us. They are. We get personalization out of it, but it's still crazy. Yeah. And like geo location targeting ads like, you know, serving you an ad because you're in this specific geo location, that's crazy, but you know, it's also a benefit to you. I like it. It's wild. I think it started as a joke like in a decade ago. Like, oh, yeah, our phones are listening to you and it's like, no, they are 100% listening. Yeah. And then like it makes your ad feed a little bit better recommended, but it's like when you say something like you say Zillow, like we're going to say Zillow 10 times and all of a sudden like an ad to buy a million dollar mansion is going to come up on Instagram and I'll be like, they got me. That's why I also saw one location, you know, about a geo, there's like you can set it to like highways. So it's a year like cruising down I 65 and you come across Lafayette, Lafayette, a restaurant could be marketing to your passenger who's like swiping on TikTok or swiping on Instagram saying like pull over and get Cain's chicken. Yeah. That's nuts to me. I'll give an example back to where I think our work's going. So, you know, so much of like a solicited survey experience is it starts with the boring question of overall, how would you rate your experience or, you know, how likely are you to recommend us? I think there's potential where we don't view surveys as a measurement tool, but actually a customer experience tool. So we don't serve the same customer or what we throw in front of a customer's face, the same question and the same boring question. We start with a specific customized question relevant based on the behavioral operational data we have on them. The exact right question for them at that exact right time that ultimately benefits them and the company collecting the feedback. Okay. So it doesn't even feel like a survey because it's just like because of this customer intelligence we're helping companies, you know, ultimately unify and then use to act and serve up that it just becomes so personalized. You don't even know it. Yeah. I think that's a great like how do you make it more interesting? More of them was gamified. Engaging. Like people on Instagram polls, people love like that this or that. Like there was an old school book when I was a member of Book Fair. Like it and element. It's called Coke or Pepsi. Uh-huh. And it was literally just like a hundred questions of this or that. Yeah. Like people love that. And it's like, you know, like, do you have a chicken place and like the question instead of saying, how was the service today? It's like, do you like Buffalo or barbecue more or do you like, you know, like it helps you formulate what kind of sauces you want to put out for canes chicken? There you go. Billion dollar idea. You're welcome. What's the most useful piece of advice you've gotten from your family in regards to the family business? So much for me is just watching, watching those before me lead by example, which is absolutely my father and my grandfather, but I think about the other bosses and people I've looked up to over the course of my career, Angie's list and whatnot. Like, uh, pulling bits and pieces of how each of them have carried themselves doing it the right way, ethical, carrying an empathetic to the customers or employees. Like, I think those are just the collection of various ways, things that I've observed. More so than just a single conversation that I think she is the leader I try to be today, pulling from all those, those people before me. Okay. This is the final question that we're going to talk about and then we have our final three questions that are all about Indiana. This question is going to be a long shot, but I'm going to see if I can put this thing all together. So as you think about your great grandmother, your grandfather and your dad, if you were to think about each of those people, what are a few traits that they each embodied that you see today and that you just respect to the absolute, um, to the maximum that you try to embody. Yeah. So I think being transparent and approachable. So I mean, we're a small company, we 120 employees, um, and generally it's been the case over the course of the history. So I think, um, uh, you know, it's a little bit harder today to, to, to, to interact since so much of us are working from home, but like any chance I can get to interact and make sure I'm approachable, uh, transparent about how the business is performing, what's going well, what's not going well. I was actually mostly from your grandpa or your dad or your great grandmother. Uh, COVID. Change that. Yeah. Okay. So, um, so that, you know, I think doing it the right way, um, you know, not cutting corners being ethical, no matter what, real sense of community. Like, um, we have really civic, uh, aspect to our culture, huge, um, pound for pound, united way supporters, uh, started with my grandma when it was called community chest and what carries through today, um, we have, you know, 95 plus participation from employees on our annual campaign and so many of our, um, associates, uh, uh, give up their time in the community too. So I think it's a huge aspect of our employer brand that, um, that we give back to that. I think there's just a, you know, you get what you put into and like the good intentions behind that, I think creates good, uh, juju for, you know, us as a business. So we do a lot of focus on that. I love that. And we're looking the other way now. In your great, grand son comes back or granddaughter, whoever it is comes back and listens to this episode. What do you hope they learn from you and those that came before you about the Walker business? Yeah. No matter how the world and technology changes, we've always just been helping companies understand their customers better and use that insight to create a better customer experience. And you can say that's been true for 87 years. It just looks a little different for how we do it. So I think there's just a real aspect of our culture, our core competency of, of being able to trailblaze and evolve that I think carry forward now and into the future and what's happened before me. We're going to have to sell like a digital time capsule so that your great grandchild can see that down the road one day and get resurfaced of like keep the customer at the center. Well, this is in the, this will be in the internet, um, world here soon and, and then AI can serve it up to them. Yeah, when they asked, like, I need advice, like help me find, like, oh, we found this clip from 2026. Like, let's look into it. Great. I love it. We've come to the final part of the show where we ask the same three questions to every guest that comes on. So you guys are working with, you know, Fortune 1000 companies all across the country, um, all across the world, you know, you're collecting data and information. If you could scream it from a rooftop, what's one thing the world needs to know about Indiana? But, you know, all the interactions I have outside the state of Indiana with customers or, or whatnot, you know, in the 500 is such a easy thing to come back to in terms of what a lot of people know us by, but I would go broader than that. Like, especially for like making the pitch for why somebody might want to come live in Indiana among the myriad of reasons, the month of May, like even beyond just the race. But like, you think about like planning for a trip, a vacation, like so much of the fun is like the lead up to it. So the way the city transforms on May 1st, where all the checkered flags go in everybody's yard, the wing and wheel goes on. Everybody's flagpole, the welcome race fans show up on people's fences, um, all the way through the Grand Prix. We have two weeks of practice that people show up in masses too. It's just, I think it's just awesome. It's the favorite, my favorite month of the year of the year in terms of how the city all rallies behind just this cultural event that you really feel a part of from the May 1st. One of the sneaky best days is bump day. Yeah. I mean, I think back in the day, it used to be like they were cutting a lot of drivers down to 33. The past few years, it's been like 34 or 35 cutting down to 33. Yeah. It is an incredible day because there was like rules and like you're, you have to decide if you want to go back out to post a better time. And if you do, then it erases your previous, it's like a crazy strategy that goes into it. And I love it. Yeah. Well, as a sports fan and any sports fan would love the Indy 500. But I think, you know, even the, it's really the cultural element of a key piece of what makes us culturally unique. Yeah. That I think if you're someone who's naturally interested in culture, that you'd find the way the city comes together in the month of May is, would be compelling and interesting and something maybe you'd like to be a part of. Amen. Okay. This is your opportunity to shed some light on part of the state that more people need to know about what is a hidden gem in Indiana. The IMS museum re re renovation is fantastic. That's not quite a hidden gem, but I'll just give a quick plug to that. I really enjoyed that. This is up towards the area I think you're from. So I don't know if you may know this, but I grew up going to Lake Wallace Sea in the summer. Yeah. And so there's a place called the Sleepy Al supper club, which is a restaurant in Syracuse, Indiana. And it's just like, I think the quintessential like Indiana restaurant, you get a pork tenderloin there, you can get a steak, fried chicken. But it's a fun gathering place that has just a cool down home vibe with good food. And you know, summers at a lake in Indiana is something I think that a lot of people could relate to happy times and memories for. Wow. The Sleepy Al supper club. Yeah. I love that. That's fire. Is that count as a hit? That is like the ultimate hidden gem. I love that. You know, maybe you'll get dinner at the Sleepy Al. and then I actually spent most of my time in Syracuse more at the frog. - The frog, yeah. - So like, you get it a little two-for-one combo there. - There you go. - Sleepy house upper club. That's a great one. And I love it when we get a new one that no one's ever set. Like no one's ever said that one. That is a true hidden gem. Finally, this is where we source new guest recommendations and learn about other amazing Hoosiers. Who's a Hoosier we need to keep on our radar? Is someone who's doing big things? - Yeah, so I'll go back to earlier part of our conversation around Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Central Indiana and the CEO is Darcy Palmer Schultz. I've had the privilege of knowing here for 20 plus years now. She is an absolute rock star. She has built quietly one of the most model agencies in the country from a Big Brothers, Big Sisters standpoint in what Central Indiana is. Tremendous financial position, a really mission-centered, strong culture. So if you're somebody who's interested in youth development and mentorship, she'd definitely be a person to know. Amazing. I love that. Jack-- - And she cares so much better, steady too. - Heck yeah. - Yeah. - I'm gonna have to get her on as a guest. That'd be a good one. - You have to. - Yeah. - Jack, thank you so much for coming on and sharing the 87 year journey thus far of Walker. It's incredible. I really am coming out of here thinking of how I should be surveying our audience better, our customers better, how we can be talking to not only the people that are watching our videos, but also acting on what they're saying. I think that is the key piece that as you guys continue to grow like what you really honed in on was, you can collect all this data, but you gotta be able to visualize it and see it, and then take action on it. Like whether you're a small business, whether you're a huge enterprise, I think that is the true magic of the work that you guys are doing. And it's always incredible. 13 more years to go to get to 100. And then you have the next 87 years and get to 187. Heck yeah. - Heck yeah, man. Thank you for coming on. If people want to connect with you, they want to learn more about Walker, how can they do that? - Yeah, walkerxm.com is our website. You can try to find Jack Walker on LinkedIn. There's a few of those, but if you type Jack Walker Indian app, let's some sure you'll find me and would love to connect. - Heck yeah, man. Thanks for coming on and we'll talk soon. - Thanks so much, Nate. This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at Sweetwater. If you want to behind the scenes, look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and TikTok @natesmangle. Thank you so much for listening and being a part of what makes the Hooster State great. We'll see you next time here on Get In.