What Luxury Teams Are Taught to Add. What They Should Learn to Remove.

What Luxury Teams Are Taught to Add. What They Should Learn to Remove.

From 15 Minutes Customer Obsession by Peggy Amelung

May 18, 2026 · 15 min · Season 2 · Episode 165

About this episode

The episode discusses the importance of removing elements from customer experience to enhance human connection, contrasting the approaches of Klarna and Trade Republic.

👉 NEW EPISODES COMING UP IN SEPTEMBER. Klarna replaced 700 customer service agents with AI. Claimed it was a revolution. One year later — their CEO said publicly: "We went too far. We focused too much on efficiency and cost. The result was lower quality." They are now rehiring humans. At the same time — Trade Republic invested a double-digit million amount in 1,000 real human agents. 24/7. Eight languages. And a Customer Council where real customers meet management. Same industry. Same moment. Opposite decisions. The difference between them is Human Experience Design. Three Companies. One Lesson. 🚩 Klarna — The Warning 🚩 Burger King "Patty" — The Mistake ✅ Trade Republic — The Answer What We Cover in This Episode Why the most memorable experiences are created by removing — not adding Three things to remove from your customer experience starting today The neuroscience behind it: you cannot design human experience from a depleted human Automation for efficiency vs. automation designed to free humans for connection "Luxury is not what you add. It is what you remove — to make space for a genuine human encounter." Human or Hype? — This Week AI-first customer service. Klarna…

People in this episode

Host: Peggy Amelung

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Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Klarna, Trade Republic, Burger King, McDonald's, Taco Bell, Starbucks

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