Douglas Kramon
“I am not building a tech stack from us out to them. I am building a tech stack from the fan to us.”
Douglas Kramon is Head of Customer Care and Fan Support for ESPN and EDTC Offerings at The Walt Disney Company, and his approach to CX starts with listening before building. His background in cultural anthropology and ethnography shaped a habit of going directly to fans, observing how they experience products, and using that insight to shape support.
That way of thinking also explains how Kramon views the role of support specialists. He describes them as “fellow fans in the stands,” not simply agents resolving issues. He wants the people helping customers to understand why a failed stream, fantasy lineup problem, or account issue matters in that exact moment. For Kramon, good support depends as much on context and empathy as it does on speed.
He has brought the same thinking to data. Kramon uses real-time Voice of the Customer signals to understand what fans are struggling with as those issues emerge, and his work in this area earned him Domo’s Executive of the Year award in 2023 and its AI Visionary recognition in 2026.
His view of AI is especially distinctive because he is interested in the emotional quality of an interaction, not just what can be automated. Kramon has spoken about “catharsis scoring,” using AI to study how conversations move from frustration or anger toward relief and appreciation. Strong interactions can then become training material for other specialists. He says conversations shaped by those patterns have produced CSAT scores 20% to 40% higher in situations that are traditionally difficult to resolve.
Kramon finds that advanced AI is only useful if the information behind it can be trusted. Before pushing further into generative and agentic support, his organization overhauled more than 25,000 knowledge documents and created a more reliable source of truth. He sees a future of virtual agents, personalized copilots, real-time coaching, and automated QA, with technology serving as leverage to understand customers more clearly and help the people serving them respond with better judgment.
ESPN is a global sports media company spanning television, streaming, digital, audio, and social platforms. Launched in 1979, the company operates multiple U.S. television networks alongside ESPN+, ESPN.com, ESPN Audio, and its sports app, with programming and operations reaching audiences around the world. ESPN has approximately 5,900 employees globally and is majority owned by The Walt Disney Company.