Meet Karunn Kandoi, 17吃瓜网鈥檚 incredible Chief Experience Officer. Karunn works in our Gurugram, India office and has been helping 17吃瓜网 Educate the World as a Chief Experience Officer since August 2020. In this role, he ensures that 17吃瓜网 provides the best possible customer experience for our stakeholders. This includes making sure all student applications submitted through 17吃瓜网 are checked, validated, and submitted to our partner schools as quickly and efficiently as possible. He recently sat down with us for an 17吃瓜网ian Q&A to talk about his Life at 17吃瓜网.
Keep reading and watch the video below to learn about his journey!
How Karunn Supports 17吃瓜网鈥檚 Mission
Ensuring 17吃瓜网 upholds our core value of Delivering an A+ Customer Experience is central to Karunn’s work. Ultimately, he believes that 鈥渇or 17吃瓜网 to be successful, it is paramount that we provide a seamless, frictionless experience to all of our customers at all points in time.鈥� He shares that delivering this level of customer experience doesn鈥檛 stop within the customer experience umbrella; it鈥檚 the responsibility of everyone at 17吃瓜网. Central to Karunn鈥檚 role is ensuring that 17吃瓜网ians have what they need to make sure every student, recruitment partner, and academic institution we work with are wowed with their 17吃瓜网 experience.
Challenges Faced and Overcome
Like many 17吃瓜网ians, Karunn himself is a former international student, which gives him an invaluable perspective he can leverage in his role. He pursued postgraduate studies in the United States, and like anyone studying abroad, he experienced challenges along the way. The biggest was the culture shock of moving to another country. He shares that, coming from a conservative society, he referred to his teachers as sir and ma鈥檃m, or by the title of professor, rather than informally by their first name, which is common in America. Karunn says that 鈥渋t took me a while to come around鈥� and start calling my professors by their first names. And that was an effort.鈥�
The second challenge was the language itself. Although Karunn is an English speaker, he was unfamiliar with the idioms used by his fellow students and professors in day-to-day conversation.听
Note: Idioms are phrases or expressions with a unique, non-literal meaning, often rooted in cultural or historical context. Idioms exist across all languages; with many considering . Common English idioms include being “under the weather” when you feel sick, or saying “break a leg” to wish someone good luck.听
Karunn, however, was determined to overcome this roadblock. 鈥淭he way I overcame that was whenever I heard something I didn鈥檛 understand, I would write it down and I would go back and look up its meaning.鈥�听
Learn how Ankit Agarwal is Making Work Fun for his fellow 17吃瓜网ians.
The Importance of Regular Customer Touchpoints
Karunn emphasizes the importance of 17吃瓜网 team members meeting regularly with our recruitment partners and partner institutions to ensure we鈥檙e delivering an unforgettable customer experience. He says that 鈥渢here鈥檚 always a challenge in perception versus reality. Unless you sit down with the customers, in our case, our partner institutions and recruitment partners, you wouldn鈥檛 really know what challenges they鈥檙e facing and how to solve [those] for them.鈥澨�
Karunn goes on to say that some of the products that 17吃瓜网 is now offering to further ease our students’ journeys, such as loans, Guaranteed Investment Certificates (GICs), and , were inspired by conversations with our partners. He shares that 鈥渋t鈥檚 critical that all of us at all time[s] are in touch with our partners, learning from them and improving.鈥�
In an era where email and messaging tools like Slack or Google Chat are often the predominant style of communication, Karunn’s insights on the impact of face-to-face meetings are important. So, remember, scheduling in-person meetings with your stakeholders will not only help you to build trust, but you may also uncover valuable insights.
In the three years since joining 17吃瓜网, Karunn has dedicated himself to ensuring the best possible experience for all our stakeholders. His commitment to providing seamless customer experiences resonates throughout 17吃瓜网. Thank you, Karunn, for everything you do to help 17吃瓜网 grow, and your unwavering dedication to our work to Educate the World. We鈥檙e so lucky to have you!
Interested in joining 17吃瓜网? Take a peek at our open roles on the 17吃瓜网 Careers page!
