The Customer Experience Show

Embracing Risk and Seeking Out Your Most Difficult Feedback with Tom Karinshak, Chief CXO at Comcast Cable

Episode Summary

Tom Karinshak, Chief CXO of Comcast Cable, joins the show to discuss why you need to be willing to take risks, how hearing your worst feedback leads to the best experiences, the importance of employee experience, and much more.

Episode Notes

In his 10+ years at Comcast Cable, Tom Karinshak has helped craft great customer experiences in both the digital and in-person worlds. On this episode, he tell us his secrets to crafting a great CX, and how he thinks about innovation and the future of customer experience.

3 Takeaways:

• Employee experience is a key to unlocking and improving customer experience. Your employees are the face of your company, and the key to customers having a great interaction.
• CX leaders need to embrace customer feedback - and have thick skin. In order to prived the best experience, you need to be willing to hear the worst feedback.
• It's not enough to play it safe. Customer experience leaders need to be willing to lead out front, even when it's risky, because consumer expectations are always increasing.

Key Quotes:

• “We operate in an incredibly dynamic and competitive marketplace. There are a lot of choices that are out there for our customers...and we recognize that and that's why we work so hard.”
• “Guess what? If the employees have the best tools possible, they can focus on the customer experience when they need to and how they're creating that when they're providing customer service. Because of that, I don't have them having to worry about, some of those other things that decrease work productivity."
• "As a CX leader, you have to immerse yourself in those experiences. You have to get others to immerse yourselves in those experiences."

Thank you to our friends

This episode is brought to you by IBM. If you are responsible for Customer Experience, they've created a White Paper just for you. In the CX North Star Report, you can learn more about how to activate your CX vision. Download it here.

Bio:

Tom Karinshak serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Experience Officer for Comcast Cable. In this role, he oversees all of customer experience including customer care strategy and operations, phone, chat, and social media agents, and field operations strategies and teams, working together to ensure we deliver a simple, consistent, and excellent customer service experience each and every time. Tom and his team also oversee employee tools and innovation, and the implementation of new and innovative digital technologies to meet and exceed our customers’ needs and expectations.

Tom joined Comcast in 2010 and has more than 25 years of leadership experience with multi-service providers and leading consumer brands. Before joining Comcast, Tom served as Managing Director and Customer Experience Director for Barclay’s Bank of Delaware, where he designed and built a top talent customer experience, marketing, and operations organization. Prior to Barclays, Tom was at AOL, where he held a variety of senior leadership roles across the marketing and operations departments.

He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army for over six years as a Combat Engineer Captain. Tom holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point and an M.S. in Engineering Management from the Missouri University of Science and Technology.