Empathy in Action: Douglas Kramon on Leading ESPN's Fan Support

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Convergence Podcast. I'm your host, Ashok Sivanand.

[00:00:04] My job is to make sure that we hear you. Our churn is extraordinarily lower than everyone else in the industry. Why? Because we treat them like they are. Fans in the stands and suits in the suites.

[00:00:19] On this show, we'll deconstruct the best practices, principles, and the underlying philosophies behind the most engaged product teams who ship the most successful products.

[00:00:36] This is what teams are made of. Welcome back, folks. Today we're diving into an intersection of sports, technology, and crafting delightful experiences.

[00:00:46] We're speaking with Doug Kramon, a leader at ESPN who spent nearly two decades there transforming how fans engage with the brand,

[00:00:55] especially through the lens of customer care for ESPN, ESPN+, ESPN Bet, and some of the related Disney streaming products.

[00:01:05] In part one of this two-part conversation, Doug shares his journey from studying Native American archaeology and ethnology to leading fan support at ESPN.

[00:01:14] We discuss how his academic background shaped his leadership style and introduce the idea of being what he calls a bedside ethnologist,

[00:01:22] which involves listening deeply, learning through stories, and connecting authentically.

[00:01:28] Doug unpacks his human-centered approach to customer service and the way he empowers his team to create moments of delight for fans,

[00:01:35] even when challenges arise in a critical area of live sports where the urgency factor for resolution is super high.

[00:01:43] We also get to touch on the principles that he brings to the table from Disney, ESPN's parent company,

[00:01:49] including their commitment to storytelling, empathy, and treating every fan interaction as an opportunity to strengthen connections and build loyalty and delight.

[00:02:00] Now, we know that achieving this sustainably likely requires an intentional use of technology,

[00:02:06] and Doug shares how the systems at ESPN are designed for the humans rather than the other way around,

[00:02:13] and we get to hear about some of the frameworks that they use to maintain discipline there.

[00:02:17] Next week on part two of the conversation, we'll get to hear from Doug on how ESPN leverages generative AI to enhance their human agents rather than replace them.

[00:02:28] I was particularly intrigued about how they measure empathy using their catharsis score,

[00:02:35] and how AI plays a part in providing real-time coaching to their agents to make the best interactions with their customers.

[00:02:43] We'll also get to hear how they build technology alongside their product teams,

[00:02:47] what feedback loops they apply to iterate to create stickiness in ESPN's products,

[00:02:52] and establish their customer care team as a profit center rather than a cost center.

[00:02:58] So make sure to hit subscribe so you're notified when part two launches.

[00:03:02] In the meantime, here's Doug.

[00:03:03] Doug.

[00:03:04] Doug.

[00:03:07] Thank you so much for making time with us today.

[00:03:10] And for someone like myself, I started out as an engineer and I had to work my way into going into product.

[00:03:16] One of the pieces of advice that comes across for us pretty often is that don't be an expert, be a scientist.

[00:03:22] And that means don't come in with your pre-biases or your judgments and try and be curious instead.

[00:03:28] And I feel like for yourself, you know, you're working in customer care, but in an industry of sports and also very surrounded by technology.

[00:03:36] And I think we're going to hear a little bit more about how you play a part in using technology.

[00:03:40] You don't have a technology background, don't have a sports background.

[00:03:43] How did your research background help you with being a leader in the space?

[00:03:48] So this is where I think my experience with the study of ethnicity, you know, ethnology, Native American archaeology, being an ethnologist is power meant.

[00:04:03] So, you know, my background is rooted in my studies back in college, Native American archaeology, cultural anthropology.

[00:04:09] You know, I will say this.

[00:04:12] Native American cultures had no written text.

[00:04:14] So much of the work that I had to do to identify stories of individuals in their cultures was based on what they left behind.

[00:04:22] Artifacts, physical evidence, oral traditions and research of archaeologists that came before me.

[00:04:29] So what I loved the most about this was the study of oral oral history, which is the act of listening to individuals and their stories.

[00:04:39] So I was like what I call a bedside ethnologist.

[00:04:43] And I got to, you know, meet with individuals in the Navajo or Hopi community and learn about their culture by living with them, eating with them, sleeping in their community.

[00:04:54] Right.

[00:04:55] And getting to really know them where they were comfortable with me to share their story and their histories.

[00:05:01] You know what?

[00:05:02] That's what I do in my role today.

[00:05:04] I oversee ESPN fan support.

[00:05:07] Our number one job is to listen to our fans and what's on their minds when they take the effort to reach out to us, the brand.

[00:05:15] My job is to make them feel comfortable to tell us their truth.

[00:05:20] And because if you think about it, if you were reaching out to us, right, Ashok, and you wanted help, it takes effort.

[00:05:29] If you're calling, you're chatting, sending an SMS, a WhatsApp, a social post, there's effort involved in it.

[00:05:36] I need to be on the other end, hearing you, listening, hearing you, and then making sure that I treat you fan to fan and give you exactly what you need to leave and say, wow, I'm an even bigger fan of ESPN than I was before.

[00:05:54] Because you have a story to tell, and it's likely not a very good one because it's customer service.

[00:06:01] You never reach out to customer care to say, you guys are great.

[00:06:05] Reach out to customer care because there's an issue, a problem.

[00:06:08] And if it's real, if it's real involving live sport, it's in the moment.

[00:06:13] So we have to make sure that we're there to help you and be your triage agent.

[00:06:18] And every step of the way, we have to listen.

[00:06:21] So that's kind of what I'm all about.

[00:06:25] And the team that you're leading is the customer care team at a company, ESPN and a parent organization, Disney, both known for really high customer care scores, customer satisfaction, and really being hospitality businesses of white glove with various media and other fan experiences.

[00:06:47] Right. And so your team is really at the crux of kind of that magic and probably has to deal with understandably a lot of challenging issues that show up as they often do and kind of make the seize that opportunities of of where, you know, a challenge could be made into a moment of delight.

[00:07:06] And I have a hunch that, you know, maybe based on that JW Marriott quote of if you take care of your people, your people will take care of your customers and the business takes care of itself.

[00:07:16] And I feel like you're in that role of taking care of the people who take care of the customers.

[00:07:20] And I'm curious, like, what are some of the guiding principles that you brought along?

[00:07:26] You alluded to some from your background or at Disney and ESPN that are around taking care of that team so they can take care of the customers.

[00:07:34] So just imagine me, the bedside ethnologist doing exactly that in my current role.

[00:07:43] What does that mean? We have a motto for that.

[00:07:47] And this is a very Disney way.

[00:07:49] We are with the fans in the stands and we are with the suits in the suites.

[00:07:54] What does that mean? I'm with my audience all the time.

[00:07:59] So just like a bedside ethnologist, I'm getting to know my fans.

[00:08:03] I'm hanging with them.

[00:08:04] I'm experiencing issues with them.

[00:08:07] So, yes, we're at sporting events all the time.

[00:08:11] We are doing surveys at these events.

[00:08:14] We are also supporting them not just in live sport at the events, but via the phone, via chat, via SMS, social, et cetera, and traditional customer service.

[00:08:26] So when we say we're with the fans in the stands and the suits and the suites, it means we know how to service our fans, just like Disney knows how to service their guests, just like Disney streaming knows how to service their viewers.

[00:08:41] So they have guest services, viewer services or viewer support.

[00:08:46] I'm fan support.

[00:08:47] So I specialize in making sure that you are able to experience the love of sport, because what's so great about ESPN is we don't, we are not the sport.

[00:09:00] We tell the story of whether we're telling the story around the story.

[00:09:06] The story is the live sport, the live game evolving, right?

[00:09:09] In the moment, the live sporting event.

[00:09:11] We happen to be doing the commentary, dialogue, discussion, and debate, and there's value in that.

[00:09:18] It's storytelling after all.

[00:09:19] And since the dawn of time, humans love to do one thing more than anything else.

[00:09:23] You can see it in play, if anything's, tell stories.

[00:09:27] And so we're all about good stories at Disney.

[00:09:31] Well told.

[00:09:31] That's inclusive of sports.

[00:09:33] My job is to make sure that we hear you.

[00:09:37] I'm, again, the bedside ethnologist of customer service, and we listen to our fans, and we make sure we're there to help them.

[00:09:44] For our agents, our churn is extraordinarily lower than everyone else in the industry of fantasy, gaming, and streaming.

[00:09:54] Why?

[00:09:55] Because we treat them like they are, fans in the stands and suits in the suites.

[00:10:00] We treat them as we wish to be treated.

[00:10:02] They go to live events.

[00:10:04] So our care agents are in Edmonton.

[00:10:07] They go to UFC fights in Edmonton this past weekend.

[00:10:09] They're near Detroit.

[00:10:11] They go to all the events that we can offer to, you know, the Detroit Tigers, et cetera.

[00:10:17] The opportunities sports-wise are showing that we stand by what we say.

[00:10:24] We are the fans in the stands, and we are the suits in the suites, just as much as we are with others that are doing that as well.

[00:10:31] Is it fair for me to assume that the folks who work at the customer care team likely have a higher employee NPS score or higher retention rates than the broader organization, just given that department is really in the service of taking care of people, whether it's internal people or your external customers?

[00:10:48] You know, customer service is still, as many people say, be brief, be bright, be gone.

[00:10:54] There's so many contacts coming in all the time.

[00:10:56] The work gets a little bit rote.

[00:10:58] That's understandable.

[00:10:59] But as we'll talk about, I'm sure, later, what are we constantly doing to make sure that we're giving all the tool sets to our agents to make their job enjoyable and where they can strive to be the best, ensuring the best NPS score, the best CSAT, and their best internal satisfaction.

[00:11:21] So, yeah, we are, our internal NPS is very high compared to other teams that Disney has for customer service.

[00:11:30] We're blessed in that regard.

[00:11:31] Also, our care agents obviously have to pass a sports test.

[00:11:34] They have to have an affinity to sport.

[00:11:36] We teach them how to play fantasy games.

[00:11:38] They're certified in that.

[00:11:40] And thus, you must support fantasy gaming by playing fantasy games.

[00:11:44] So, that's not a bad deal.

[00:11:46] So, we do what we can to make sure there's the love of sport and joy of sport and participation in fantasy and esport, so to speak, with regards to our care agents.

[00:11:57] Where else can you get?

[00:11:59] They are an extension of us.

[00:12:01] So, because of that, we're also there with them all the time and making sure that we are hearing and listening to them and constantly studying them to make sure they're happy.

[00:12:14] So, if you think about it, they're my community, so to speak.

[00:12:20] And I have to make sure that their pulse is always positive.

[00:12:24] And it's hard.

[00:12:25] They're humans.

[00:12:26] So, we do everything we can to make sure everything in their life is a little bit easier for them.

[00:12:31] I'll give a good example.

[00:12:33] Over the time, you know, gas prices, for example, they go up, they go down.

[00:12:37] And with inflation, gas prices go up.

[00:12:39] And it's hard to get to a contact center from time to time depending on how far they live.

[00:12:44] So, while I can give, you know, what we call karma points based on how you do and fare on your CSAT reviews and your internal quality assurance reviews, you get points.

[00:12:55] You can use those points for autographed jerseys, helmets, lots of sports-y sports stuff.

[00:13:02] But a lot of individuals said, you know what would make my life easier?

[00:13:06] You know, offering me the opportunity to have a gas card, something that helped me pay for my commute.

[00:13:12] We listen and we do that.

[00:13:15] Opportunities to help them on things that remove obstacles or conditions in their lives is paramount to us.

[00:13:21] It doesn't cost much.

[00:13:22] And we're able to make sure that they stay with us because we're on their side.

[00:13:27] So, we're big on that as well.

[00:13:29] I love that very human-centered approach to thinking through the systems that are ultimately designed for the humans.

[00:13:36] And I see it time and time again where we forget who the systems are really serving.

[00:13:40] It's not the humans serving the systems, but the systems ultimately are being built for the humans, whether it's the operators, the customers, and so forth.

[00:13:49] So, we have a policy that I think is worthwhile to bring up for all our systems too.

[00:13:54] The rule of thumb we follow for everything we do is the three S's.

[00:13:59] It has to be simple enough to remember, specific enough to execute, and sequence for infants.

[00:14:07] So, basically, if I'm going to offer something as a new process, a new policy, a new system for our customer care agents,

[00:14:19] we need to make sure that whatever we deliver to them, they can absorb and what we call, you know, make it logical and repeatable.

[00:14:29] Is it simple enough for me to remember what I must do?

[00:14:32] Is it specific enough that I can execute it effectively and efficiently?

[00:14:37] And is it sequence where I can have an impact of high results of CSAT for me, high satisfaction for my customers?

[00:14:47] So, everything we do is built on those three things.

[00:14:50] Simple enough to remember, specific enough to execute, sequence for them.

[00:14:59] Fostering an engaged product organization and aligning them with the principles around lean, human-centered design, and agile

[00:15:07] will more than likely lead to successful business outcomes for your organization.

[00:15:12] But getting started or getting unblocked can be hard.

[00:15:15] This podcast is brought to you by the player coaches over at Integral.

[00:15:19] They help ambitious companies like you build amazing product teams and ship products in artificial intelligence, cloud, web, and mobile.

[00:15:29] Listeners to the podcast can head on over to integral.io slash convergence and get a free product success lab.

[00:15:39] During this session, the Integral team will facilitate a problem-solving exercise

[00:15:43] that gives you clarity and confidence to solve a product design or engineering problem.

[00:15:50] That's integral.io slash convergence.

[00:15:54] Now, back to the show.

[00:16:00] I've got a personal question for you as someone who grew up as a technologist and, you know,

[00:16:05] worked my way into product and more customer-facing roles and making decisions, empathizing with the customer.

[00:16:12] Storytelling is a tool, even maybe not a technology tool, that I've had to learn.

[00:16:17] I didn't learn that for free in college like you might have.

[00:16:21] And now you're training folks and enabling them with various things, including storytelling.

[00:16:27] So I'm curious, what kind of advice do you give folks who maybe are looking to get better at storytelling

[00:16:32] to do better at their jobs and serve their teams and serve their customers?

[00:16:36] Good stories well told.

[00:16:38] That's all Disney does.

[00:16:39] So with that, you know, that's a huge part of what we do.

[00:16:45] So I'm going to use the word empathy.

[00:16:48] And I know empathy is jargony.

[00:16:51] Yeah.

[00:16:53] But that said, we don't look at it that way, right?

[00:16:58] Empathy is, in my opinion, all that matters.

[00:17:01] And I base that on what Maya Angelou said in her great saying about empathy.

[00:17:09] And it is this.

[00:17:10] She stated, no one will remember what you said.

[00:17:14] No one will ever remember what you did.

[00:17:16] They will only remember how you made them feel.

[00:17:19] And empathy is all about the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person.

[00:17:25] So because of that, we're very focused on making sure that we leave every conversation with one where there are words that are used that express feeling.

[00:17:38] And preferably, the feeling that is happiness, appreciation, thankfulness, positive sentiment.

[00:17:47] Everything we do.

[00:17:49] We'll talk about systems later and how we do that.

[00:17:51] But empathy is paramount.

[00:17:53] So we make sure that that is infused to the process that we have for every interaction and what we do with our feelings.

[00:18:02] And you mentioned jargony.

[00:18:04] Maybe you saw the reaction on my face when you said the word because it's certainly something that's thrown around a lot, weaponized even.

[00:18:12] And I think there's maybe some clarification that can go into play.

[00:18:16] So that's amazing how you brought up the Maya Angelou quote.

[00:18:20] When it comes to running a gigantic team like yours and training the team and sort of level setting code of conduct or goals around empathy,

[00:18:30] measurement can be hard.

[00:18:32] And the same with building technology that goes with that.

[00:18:36] So I'm curious, what kind of tools do you have?

[00:18:38] How do you measure empathy or how well one of your agents is able to empathize with their teammates or with your customers?

[00:18:45] Of course.

[00:18:46] Goring empathy is the only way we can really do this.

[00:18:50] So it's what we do is and what we have a traditional in customer service, it's CCAS, customer care as a service, a tech stack, right?

[00:18:59] So, you know, an omni-channel tech stack.

[00:19:01] And all that is is a conversational communication-based tooling that allows you and I to communicate via the channel of phone, chat, SMS, social, WhatsApp, email, whatever.

[00:19:15] But through that is still the human conversation.

[00:19:19] Whether I type it and you type it or we're talking on the phone, one or the other, it's the same thing.

[00:19:25] So we have to make sure that we're scoring empathy.

[00:19:29] So we use AI, we have to, to do a real-time examination of conversational transcripts between our care specialists and our fans.

[00:19:40] So we deep dive into the context of every interaction, every single one, assessing how and why certain words are used.

[00:19:47] And this helps us differentiate between the various emotional states and gauge the severity of each customer's feelings.

[00:19:55] And the result, it's really a more natural and nuanced style between our care specialists and each fan because we are the best conversations between care agents and fans.

[00:20:07] And, you know, based on CSAT score, the fan had an incredible score.

[00:20:13] And we see the words they use in the conversation to create cathartic moments.

[00:20:19] Aha moments where the fan says, wow, thank you.

[00:20:23] I appreciate you or I appreciate that.

[00:20:27] Those are statements that relate to empathy, caring, and us showing that they value us because what we did values them.

[00:20:40] And after all, they took time to reach out to customer service.

[00:20:43] The one thing they want are showing that we value them.

[00:20:47] Can we do it through fixing their problem?

[00:20:49] But also having a nuanced dialogue that shows appreciation.

[00:20:54] It's very hard to do, but if we get the secret sauce of seeing what's worked well for this issue with these conversations, we'll be created for others.

[00:21:04] And then other agents can do the same with the best outcomes.

[00:21:08] So I really love that.

[00:21:09] And I want to just make sure I'm understanding what this looks like for your agents now, right?

[00:21:14] So I imagine they've got a real-time transcription and analysis tool that's analyzing whether it's a voice conversation or text or the various mediums that you talked about.

[00:21:25] And then comparing it to maybe a pre-trained set of keywords or phrases that you're looking for that suggests whether this conversation is going closer to what your ideal goals are or maybe further away and giving them some real-time coaching.

[00:21:41] And this was all developed based on looking at the best conversations and maybe the not-so-great conversations that you had in the first place and then applying feedback to it.

[00:21:51] Is that kind of how things worked or how did you come about with the system?

[00:21:54] We work with something like a closed-loop feedback model.

[00:21:58] And that closed-loop feedback model is ensuring that all individuals that are part of a conversation, that would be the care agent and the customer, there is feedback that is issued by ETH where then we act on to make sure that any issues that stand out are ultimately resolved to the satisfaction of the customer.

[00:22:23] And the agent.

[00:22:25] So closed-loop feedback would include, for example, every single conversation between the care agent and the customers analyzed for quality assurance based on specific guidelines that we have set.

[00:22:37] Every single conversation then has a seat that a customer satisfaction survey sent out where every single customer that interacted with us can share their feedback.

[00:22:49] And if there's anything that they're upset about, what do we do?

[00:22:53] We call them back.

[00:22:55] We chat with them.

[00:22:56] We follow up to make sure we close that loop.

[00:22:59] We resolve any remaining issue and we thank them.

[00:23:04] Maybe we even give them a plus one that gets them excited about continuing to do business with ESPN, a free article that would normally sit behind a paywall, or complimentary access to a pay-per-view fight for issues that they had if they still didn't feel it was resolved.

[00:23:20] And we finally resolved it.

[00:23:22] We need to show all the effort that they expended to get things resolved, that we are expending effort to help them be better fans of ours.

[00:23:32] So we do a lot of that, and that's closed-loop.

[00:23:36] Basically listening to both sides of the conversation, supporting the agent, making them better, hearing them out, and doing the same with the customer.

[00:23:47] So we do a lot of that as much as possible with AI.

[00:23:50] We're actually able to do it for each and every conversation.

[00:23:59] Hope you enjoyed that listen, folks.

[00:24:00] As someone who grew up as a technologist and didn't study much writing in my formal education, I have tended to feel a little behind in the poet side of the poet versus quant adage.

[00:24:14] So I hope you found Doug's stories on empathy and storytelling just as useful as I did.

[00:24:20] We will see you next week when Doug returns to talk about how they're using generative AI to improve customer care and how his team collaborates with their technology product team and the feedback loops that they apply to gain clarity on how to improve their tooling as they establish themselves as a profit center rather than a cost center.

[00:24:40] Hit subscribe so you're notified when that launches.

[00:24:43] In the meantime, I hope you have a wonderful week.

[00:24:52] Thank you for joining me on the Convergence podcast today.

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