Dominik Olejko, Head of Customer Insights and Engagement for the Eastern European branch of clothing retailer H&M, discusses the risks and benefits of ChatGPT, and what rapid adoption of AI platforms will mean for the retail industry. We also explore the topics of hyper-personalisation, customer alienation and the metaverse!
Episode Summary
Technology vs. Humanity
A major theme explored in the episode is the daunting speed at which new technologies are adopted without long-term consideration and regulation. Are we adopting these advancing capabilities before we know how to use them safely and properly?
Well, Dominik’s take is that technology has always been ahead of the curve, and a normal part of societal evolution. Although formal acceptance of services like LLMs (Large Language Models) often trails behind their widespread deployment, he believes their benefits usually outweigh the risks, and instead, they encourage and enable humanity to catch up to new levels.
Putting the ‘AI’ in Retail
OpenAI’s runaway hit, ChatGPT, achieved 100 million users and over 1 billion site visits in a record-breaking 2 months after launch. The super-chatbot operates using a vast database of text pulled from the Internet, combined with conversational capabilities, which allows users to conduct research and gain knowledge far faster – and more specifically – than traditional search engines.
But how can this tool be leveraged in the retail industry? The obvious answer is the next stage in the evolution of chatbots. Soon, customer-facing digital assistants will be able to meet customer needs with much greater accuracy, speed and effectiveness. Increased AI capabilities also mean data analysis will become more efficient, yet customer understanding will also increase, which places greater pressure on companies to satisfy both existing and potential customers.
To discover more and learn about the risks AI-based retail also brings, check out our full episode with Dominik – available on all your favourite channels. Now including YouTube!
This article summarises podcast episode 88 “ChatGPT and the Retail Revolution” recorded by CX Insider. For more information, listen to the episode, or contact Dominik on his LinkedIn profile.
Written by Marcell Debreceni
Full Episode Transcript
Adam: I had a conversation the other day about the Internet and things tracking you and then suggesting things. And one of my friends said, Oh, I hate that. And I said to him, Why?
Dominik: And he was like, okay… totally!
Marcell: Hey everyone, welcome back to the CX Insider Podcast Virtual Studio with me, your host Marcell. Today we speak to Dominik Olejko. After 15 years of experience in retail, he’s now the head of Customer Insights and Engagement for H&M in Eastern Europe. We’ll talk about the boom of ChatGPT, the risks and potential of using AI technology in retail and how this may impact omnichannel customer journeys soon. Enjoy the episode, and if you do, why not subscribe to our YouTube channel for CX Insider’s Best Content? Or check out our brand new website cxinsider.com to discover more. By the way, this podcast is brought to you by ACF Technologies. Now let’s jump in. Thank you for joining us today, Dominik. All the way from sunny or rainy Poland. Not sure what the weather’s like there.
Dominik: It’s quite sunny actually.
Marcell: Okay, good to hear. Let’s get started. Would you like to tell us a bit about yourself, Dominik, who you are, what you like to do?
Dominik: So my name is Dominik. I currently work for H&M where I’m head of Customer Insights and Engagement here in Eastern Europe. I came with the background from different industries like sport, home furnishing and now in fashion. I started in Decathlon, which is a sport company and I had the pleasure to work there, starting as a sales assistant. Then I moved across different positions, ending up as a store director, opening different stores. And there I learned a lot about how actually it looks when it comes to developing in new markets where the brand is unknown and you need to just build it from scratch in a different city where Decathlon was not present yet and from decathlon, I had a big pleasure to move to IKEA, I would say, and they’re here in Poland. I also moved to the store where I was someone responsible for customer relationship within the store and there I moved as a sales manager moving to the headquarter. The journey started in terms of the product development. I was someone called Sales Leader responsible for certain categories and I ended up in IKEA as a head of customer experience, as I always had customers in my heart. And there I think the journey also continued because almost one year ago it’s going to be actually in five days, it’s going to be one year since I work for H&M had I’m super happy to do it at the current position. We are a lens of the consumers on our regions trying to bring closer insights to everyday business and I’m super happy for that and always as a passion project for the last few years I’ve been also a mystery shopper visiting different brands. It was a lot of fun. Yes, I visited brands.
Adam: Were you a nice mystery shopper though? Yeah.
Dominik: So that’s my background and that’s what I come from. Privately, I’m the father of two kids. The one is pretty new because he has six months, so I would say I have a lot to do after work.
Marcell: That’s great. And you told us before that moving from Decathlon to IKEA was quite a big jump in terms of difficulty and your responsibilities and everything. What kind of experiences have you gained along your career journey since then? What would you say has been like your biggest things that you’ve learned?
Dominik: I think, like every move to different company is challenging at a certain point, and depending on where you are with your experience and their difficulty comes, it’s not about difficulty, but it’s more, I would say, even about recognition within the company, getting to know how the system works and understanding it. And I believe that moving from Decathlon to IKEA was like literally touching totally different segment of the customers because when it comes to the sport goods, it’s more fast moving consumer goods that you get. And of course there was a nice background doing a lot of sport as a passionate. I loved working there. But then when I moved I recognised that in terms of the home furnishing needs, there are more planned purchases. So I’ve learned that there are differences between the consumer behavior, how they treat their purchase. And it’s more serious at the different stages. For instance, if you buy a kitchen or something like that, then it’s more a planned shop. And you need to remember about how complex is the customer journey at that level. So how many touchpoints you need to secure different pain points. And I would say I loved how it develops and when you look and also how technology can support it, that was a big discovery. Like you go into the store, you see, okay, this works. I go there. Maybe it’s not so easy to move across the Ikea store, but the rest is simple. But it’s not. It’s a super complex ecosystem, starting from the supply chain, ending at the service at the very end, that it’s also the super challenging part. So I guess that was a big learning.
Marcell: And you worked on kind of trying to integrate self-service checkouts at IKEA, correct? So that was quite a big technological leap. You said that it was interesting to see how customers who are loyal and used to being served by actual people, you know, they were more reluctant to change. And it opens up this conversation of is technology moving faster than we can actually adapt to. And what are the actual impacts on society? What problems that arises? So do you think that always hunting this new thing can have negative impacts on a customer experience?
Dominik: Oh, that’s a super complex question, but I love it. I would say in terms of the self-checkout that you mentioned, it was somewhere in 2014, I guess, or 15, and this was the moment where in Poland it was implemented and I had the pleasure to work in the store where the self-service checkout was implemented for the first time. And I remember how big the change was for the customers who could use to come, although on the market it existed already. But when we implemented that at that point, it was a big surprise for the customers because they were even used to buying at the same cashier who worked a long time in the same place and they loved the experience. And now it was both difficult for us because it was a change also for the people that they were a little bit afraid that what’s going to happen with my work will I have a job in the future if this is self-service, which has not happened actually, and even developed at the different stage that I will say later. But this was the first touch that I see that the self-service technology, actually it’s right now the mainstream. So it’s nothing new, but observing it, how the percentage of usage developed across the time, like starting from 5% ending up at 40, 50% of the self-service operations showed me that the power of automatisation is huge.
Dominik: And if we use technology smartly also taking care of our people, they will be happy serving the customers in a different way because they will have more time for the interactions and everything that’s connected. We are for sure now experiencing one of the biggest change in retail industry in the history. I’ve never seen something like that. Probably you too. And I would say technology impacts customer life more than ever before. So it does us as a retailer because if they live in a different world, we should follow. And the customer journeys also has changed. So we start from the content creation through the online and store interaction, and we end up in the changes in after sales service and we are supplying chain. So everything is impacted at the same time and super fast. So I believe it’s not the question for the brand. Okay, shall we follow? But it’s about when and how big should be the way we enter that.
Marcell: As Dominik has shown us, even something as useful as self-service checkouts had a rocky adoption in the beginning, and rather than society being able to properly adapt to technological changes as they come, it’s often the case that tech moulds society around it. Instead, right now, ChatGPT and the widespread domination of rising platforms are breaking new ground in every space. So let’s dive deeper into OpenAI’s large language model.
Dominik: I tested it because I would say I’m super into the tech and I love how it develops. And when I started my first prompts, I realised the power. How good is that now? I would say what I love about it, that there are right now incorporated in different systems. So there are engines for other platforms that are developing. What I’ve seen recently, very nice example from collab of OpenAI and Shopify. Like for instance, I organise a dinner for my friends. So right, I’m organising the dinner for six people and I would like to do a sushi. What do I need? And it proposes literally everything, starting from the cutlery plates and ending up with ingredients for the sushi and even love it, even the cutlery and everything. And imagine the space that’s created for the marketers and everything. Like how much you can do in order to position yourself to be recommended by an AI. And this is like I would say, totally new field of the marketing, this personalised experience. And this is the moment where I love it. But we were trying to play with the friends to make a fool out of it, a little bit like trying to cheat Chatgpt and we succeeded at a certain point asking who was the second goalkeeper at the match in 2092 between different teams and why the second player did not show up and he didn’t know or she or it.
Marcell: That’s funny. Yeah, it does get a bit flukey at times. Like it will say just something that’s completely irrelevant or on a completely different topic than you’re talking about. But it is really great and the way you can make processes more efficient and everything I think is really going to change the game. Do you have any ideas or thoughts that you’ve had specifically in retail how everyday integration with Chatgpt could elevate the retail experience for both employees and customers?
Dominik: I think the first one is about what comes to my mind when you were talking. It’s about the service for online because the biggest pain point that we see on the online experience is lack of human touch. And this I wanted to mention that it will always be there and we as people are starving for the interactions. And I would say that for online is missing. And I would say I see it’s implemented in every website in the future as a even in the form of the person talking to me where I can ask the question, discuss, have some doubts and even challenge a little bit the product and. And I see that usage of it with the real time database would be amazing to understand. The product features, the allergens, everything that is connected with the fears that customers may have and the pain point that we need to solve. For instance, imagine that you lost your parcel. You’ve ordered and normally it’s night because you wanted to ask. Nobody’s answered the call. The chat is off and what do you do? And if you have this ChatGPT with real time and probably filled in and he has a knowledge how to solve your problem, he could propose you the solution even on the real time. And that was happening already in certain platforms that the returns take you know three minutes. No, there is not any more need to claim something. So the team needs to sit. As I remember, we used to have the customer claiming something. Then we look at it and then we decide, okay, yes or no? And now you can automatise it. And I would say it’s 60, 70% of the cases.
Marcell: Speaking of increasing process efficiency, have you heard about ACF Technologies? Because the global leader in customer experience solutions provides tailored software that can exceed the expectations of any business, from appointment booking to queue management and event scheduling creates the tools that you need to take your customer experience to the next level. You want to find out more? We’ll check out the link in the description or head over to acftechnologies.com.
Dominik: Talking about AI. For instance, in H&M we have right now, for instance, visual search that you can open an app and you can see like this skirt. Yes. And there it shows you what kind of products might fit you within H&M range. And you can check this out. And now so Google developed it so you can say, okay, find me something like this, but in green. So you can have visual search, but also personalised version which see that it’s following. So it could be something different. And this morning I’ve been playing with Canva. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that you can now use Canva.
Adam: Yes. I use Canva.
Marcell: Canva has AI now, right?
Dominik: Now it’s supported by AI. So what you can do by typing the comment, you can mark, for instance, give me the instead of this black T-shirt, please give me the red one and it can switch. I don’t need the Photoshop tools. And I played with that this morning. And of course.
Adam: He’s a busy man.
Marcell: I thought you had a board meeting this morning, Dominik.
Dominik: So you don’t know what I’m wearing. Now.
Marcell: Having discussed some of the epic applications that ChatGPT has and further AI technology will have in everyday life, it’s also important to explore the drawbacks that may come from using it, especially for organisations. What negatives can be found in not assessing the need for it properly and just hopping on a trend for trend’s sake? What impact might this have on the customer experience too?
Dominik: There are pros and cons like with everything and the possibilities are endless in terms of how smartly we can use AI in order to provide, first of all, the better personalisation. It’s also about the scalability. So we can also using the platforms, we can handle a large number of simultaneous interactions of the consumer and by doing this, provide the right experience. It’s also cost effective that we need to understand by using it the solutions that we have not had in the past. We save a lot in terms of the cost wise, it’s available 24 over seven, so you can use it. Even people who works in the company sleeps. And I think from my personal background, what I love about it is also data driven insights, because I think that will bring the biggest difference that this large amount of data sometimes you we will talk a little bit, as you said, about the correlation and causation, but bringing up the right insights at the right moment, I believe is the key. However, it’s crucial to consider the potential drawbacks and challenges this I see, as you mentioned. So these platforms, we don’t know yet what risks are coming together with the privacy. And this we should also consider, I believe, as a risk because rapid adoption of the technology could be a little bit surprising for the customers that from one day to another the company would see it so personalised and then you can get a little bit of feeling about being okay, They are spying on me.
Dominik: How many times we ask ourselves, okay, do they hear me? Because I just talked about the shoe and it’s popping up on my screen after a few minutes, right? Yeah. All yeah, all the time. And there we have also, I think this misunderstanding that we know that it’s not perfect. We still talk about the AI that is on the way in terms of developing. So sometimes we can too much trust in what AI provides us. And at a certain point it might not be that accurate for the customers that we are still investigating. And I see one more I would say is this job displacement. As I mentioned, it started when we talked about self-service checkout, but it develops even more and it’s written in the newspaper. Okay, Now it’s coming for white collar workers, Right? So what will happen and the diagnosis are AI will create an extra jobs, but some jobs are in the risks that they will not be needed anymore because it’s going to be automatised and think it’s natural process. And I remember, somebody posted on LinkedIn recently that there was a protest of maths teachers. Ror not implementing things to calculate stuff. Calculators. Yeah, I don’t know if you’ve seen that, but they were actually protesting for not implementing that and now nobody talks about it. I believe it’s similar, but the risks are much bigger because as I said, it’s changing.
Marcell: Everything now has such huge capabilities. But it’s true, isn’t it? I mean, through history, new technologies always take away jobs and create new ones. And that’s kind of how it goes. Let’s apply this advancing technology further to the field of customer journeys. Since there are now so many channels, it feels like omnichannel integration has become both a widespread goal and a pain. What does Dominik think about the notorious buzzword moving forward? Will Tech make it more or less realistic to achieve? And why should companies care?
Dominik: Let me tell you the story. So not so long time ago, we’ve been living in a world with multi-channel, so silos. I buy in the store, I buy in online. Everybody knows it because we’ve experienced that pretty well. And this channel where I would say independent from each other and now then we moved into omnichannel. That was a link between different channels and we created kind of an environment to create something more. And what we talk about and what an expert speaks now is about world of convergent commerce. Convergent commerce is where the physical and digital retailers connect into one environment where the line between the touchpoints and channels is blurred. So the more solutions that we talk today, we implement in the world, like even speaking about VR and adding on augmented reality with Try-on experience, the more we change, I would say the perspective of what’s actually happening in the customer’s head. So what we see, the convergent commerce customers and consumers even don’t think about the channels they buy in. They don’t even think about going for shopping. They think that I have a need and I need to buy something somewhere so I can use my phone to try on the shoe. I can go to the store and use my phone to do different stuff if we talk how it resulted. So we don’t talk about retailers as such. But if you look at this from the perspective of changing water, you see the subscription going on, you see a buy now, pay later services, and now it’s a retailer, it’s a brand, and these are services and external brands supporting the whole ecosystem. And if you are in this interconnected ecosystem, you see channels, touchpoint brands, retailers and all of it we need to understand to provide the right service and consistent experience across, which is the biggest challenge.
Adam: And I completely agree. And I’m sure Marcell’s the same. It’s fair to say that a consumer’s journey now is well and truly not linear. You know, we’re not playing Mario working left or right. We’re open world, touching, lots of different stuff we’re doing. We’re doing what we want. You’re talking there about its ecosystem and how people need to be involved with like Klarna and all these different things that involved in. But how do you deal with the challenge of making that customer experience consistent when they’re bouncing from here to here?
Dominik: This is exactly what is the biggest challenge currently, and you’ve mentioned it, that we discussed the correlation and the causation, right? And when you read and analyse data about the customers in our funnels coming from the loyalty customer experience, Google reviews, reviews of the products and even from external service provider about the quality of the service, then you can mix up easily what is the root cause and what correlates together and create actually this phenomenon that you see they buy or not. Did they leave our baskets? And just to give you an example, so imagine that the sun is shining and you are playing with the blue car and it’s happening. And you think as a kid that the sun is shining because you took out of your toys the blue car, and you can think that it’s happening, but we know that it’s not true. Right. And they are just friends when so when you are playing with your car and design is shining so there are just independent from each other. And this is correlation, right? And causation is when one thing really makes another thing happen. So for instance, when you push the car, it moves because of your push and your push is the cause and the car is moving is the result. And understanding this data spending a lot of the time on automatising the simple process and looking at the big picture on the dashboard, having for instance, single customer view, which all of the companies are killing for right now, how to build this single customer view. It’s actually an answer to what you’re saying now. It’s much more difficult when you have this rope effect, reverse rope, what happens when and what actually create the sales and which channel was impacted. So I would say looking for the answers in between is actually the future of our work, supported by AI, supported by an expert and super smart people. Also from my team. That’s what we do. We try to sit together trying to combine different realities and bringing the answer. And the technology is there to serve us.
Adam: I suppose when you’re looking at data as well, a big part of it is how you frame that data, isn’t it if you’ve got eyes at all? If you send that looking at something that’s actually not going to be relevant, then you might put out a journey that’s completely not going to make any difference. So good to have the experts. Obviously, people, we’re important. Yeah.
Dominik: Totally. Totally. And I would say good that you mentioned that, Adam, because what I wanted to say is like the difference that we mentioned. And here I can quote Jeff Bezos, who said long time ago that if I want to have 20 million customers, then I will need 20 million stores to serve them to answer the individual needs. And this is, I think, the change that happened and it happened in the past and now we need to follow it actually starting to look from the customer and consumer perspective, not on our internal that much so we can analyse the data, what happened in the past, but now it’s also about predicting what will happen. And technology is actually allowing us to build the prediction models that we can see potential behavior of the customers and their answer, their needs that might happen in the future. And also preparing the offer content and everything that’s customised to them.
Marcell: It seems that one way to unlock the next level of customer experience in our changing economy is by providing hyper personalised products and services, because on a fundamental level, humans like what they like and they yearn to involve themselves with those things. So how can businesses leverage higher levels of personalisation per customer to increase their satisfaction and loyalty whilst also cutting through the competition?
Dominik: I would say this will be a game changer. It is actually. If you ask the customers on the market, you see that more than 70% of them says that if I know the company, I expect the company to provide me personalised experience and it’s 70% if you ask them, okay, so what would be the reason for giving up shopping somewhere? It’s about they don’t adjust the experience to my personal preferences in 60% of them saying that depending on which research you take, it’s different. But it’s big. You said it’s scary, but this is the moment where we talk about balancing personalisation and intrusiveness. We as a company can also make sure that we are balancing right the communication. And it’s not that easy, of course, to have it because we used to work in the segments and we segment customers into different groups. For instance, demographic preferences, average spend the last time they didn’t buy or birthday, so you can segment them any time. But if we talk about hyper personalisation, it’s real data that what you can see the real data recommendations. For instance, there are companies where you actually you can not repeat the experience in terms of the homepage.
Dominik: Every customer sees different one in terms of the carousels of the product recommended to me based on my searches, based on my behavior and what you can see in Amazon, what you can see in Netflix, what you can see in Spotify, they are masters of it, like how to secure the recommendations. So you spend time, you spend money, and we seem to like it, but it requires a huge investment in technology, data analytics, integration in various system. And it’s not that easy to be hyper personalised. So the challenges are big, but in order to provide it, you need to do the first step. So starting from the small things low and grow in every interaction, looking at the customer journey where we can automatise and now you don’t even need to buy infrastructure. You can rent it from other providers, which makes them bigger and your business to grow. But actually working in the cloud, you can rent a space in the cloud and have this done.
Adam: Amazing. You said that we seem to like personalisation and we seem to like things being easy. I completely agree that. I had a conversation the other day about the internet and things tracking you and then suggesting things and one of my friends said, Oh, I hate that. And I said to him, Why? Why do you hate that you’re being suggested things that you like rather than seeing ads and products that make no relevance to you. I was like, bring it on. You know, if all of a sudden H&M want to suggest a t-shirt that matches a t-shirt I just bought that I really liked, then great.
Dominik: But there might be people who doesn’t like it and think like it’s totally okay and like, we shouldn’t be blind because the more we give, it might turn out in the wrong situation like we see in some countries that governments and everything. That could be a tricky part. Like the more you share and understand the fears connected to that and I’m totally supporting the legislation and we know it’s super slow at the certain point in terms of technology. So it should come first. Also knowing what’s coming. And I would say it’s inevitable now being conscious about it and just to make sure that you protect yourself. It’s nothing wrong. I’m sharing data only with the company I know and I trust, and this is also the rule of the brand. It’s so difficult. Now, if you can look from the retailer perspective, like how to secure the personalised experience and brand identity being a global brand. So personalising experience to everyone and then secure. So we are also balancing that, that certain things should be the same. Or customers because we want our company to be recognised. They need to also have this brand connection, not only the personalised experience. So it’s all the time about balancing, trying to find the right sweet spot.
Marcell: Now you can’t make a podcast talking to a CX leader in retail about the impacts of new technologies without jumping into the metaverse, not literally – as the accessibility of Web3 platforms is still trailing behind. But the metaverse may soon become a reality for everyday life, and many brands, including H&M, are already making their presence known there. What does Dominik think about it, especially compared to ChatGPT? Is the Metaverse another viable space for retail expansion?
Dominik: Recently I’ve seen the interesting graph on the graph. There was a visible the speed on the one angle and another the growth, the number of users, and there was metaverse and ChatGPT. So you could imagine like ChatGPT was skyrocketing super fast and metaverse not that fast. And does it mean that metaverse is doesn’t have a future? I don’t think so. You just need more prerequisites to grow even more. And the biggest difference between those two chatgpt it’s super easy to enter. So the entry point is super simple. You just log in, you give your number, you give your email, and there live for the listener just to think what you give to them. You give your number and you give your email which recognises you everywhere across the internet. But it’s so easy. You just log in, you give the code, and then you use it and it solving your problems. No matter who I am, it can solve my problem. For metaverse. It’s more for fun now, so it’s more or less entertainment. And we think it’s for kids. But what I’ve seen recently, we have entered Roblox as H&M, which is visited by 60 million users per day. And from being a global company, maybe even for H&M, it’s not that big. But if you look at the forecast by 2030, it’s going to be visited by 1 billion people daily.
Marcell: Roblox?
Dominik: Metaverse as such. Okay. Yeah. So just to clarify, we talk about metaverse.
Marcell: Okay, yeah. I don’t know about a billion Roblox users
Dominik: That would be big. They will be happy. Oh, I hope they hear us. If you are going to have the meetings there, you will need a clothing, you will need a car, maybe property. Maybe there is a space for advertisements. Of course, micropayments are already there. You could see that building this identity in metaverse. It’s something that I would say bring the benefits in the long run for the business. And if the younger consumers like Generation Alpha are there, then you can only imagine what it means for the next years, like if they are there now. So it’s going to be like us having an smartphones. We were not born with a smartphone in the hand, but our kids are. And I can tell you that my kid, although he doesn’t have a phone, he is trying to scroll the TV because he thinks it’s the touch screen and it’s natural, it’s native. So the same for Roblox and other platforms that we have in Metaverse that will be used by the younger generation and it’s going to be everyday for them. So the absorption will be much higher when it gets serious. For instance, now as H&M, we are organising the fashion show and in Roblox what we have, you can actually also do your own clothes. You can be a small Coco Chanel and maybe you don’t know, maybe she is now doing her own collection that one day she will become famous. And she’s ten years old now. And this is what’s happening, right? This is the reality we are living in. And what is the worst case? We don’t follow it. So next generations will be there and we will not as the older ones, we will live in two worlds.
Marcell: Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed the podcast. And if you did, why not subscribe to our YouTube channel for access to full-length videos and YouTube shorts? You can also like share and comment on the episode to keep the conversation going and be sure to check out cxinsider.com for more content. Now, if you wish to join our growing community of thought leaders, head over to LinkedIn and follow us at CX Insider Podcast to stay updated. Thanks again. I’ve been Marcell and I will see you in two weeks, but for now, enjoy our Rapid Fire questions. By the way, this podcast has been brought to you by ACF Technologies, Global Leaders in Customer Experience Management Solutions. For my first question, Dominik, could you tell us a story about a really awful customer experience that you’ve had, maybe like a really bad interaction with a brand? You don’t have to name them, but one that really just, you know, put you off of that product or service?
Dominik: Yes, I can. So it was in the store and I was a duty manager. So when there were complaints, customer always calls for the duty. Okay. So what can you offer me to compensate from my experience and maybe I can share that I actually managed to turn this wrong situation to the good one because I was really devastated this day because this was like there was something wrong with our services. So like literally every 15 minutes there was somebody coming. To me asking me what’s wrong? So it was already, I would say fifth hour or six, I don’t remember. And then there was this customer came and I said she was actually super unpleasant. And I understand it because she had a full right to be so. But she was literally screaming at me and I said, You know, this is a Monday, and I think it’s like a Blue Monday today. And she was like, okay. And then she got my joke. And then she started to smile. And I said, okay, so let’s think how to solve to save one more soul. And she was like, really following me. And I think that stems from approaching it from a different angle, like just to release the tension that was risky. But I believe I really felt that it might help in terms of this situation to change this. And I managed to help her. And it was super interesting because a few days after we solve her problem, the product was in the place. And then she wrote to me that she’s super thankful that she met me. Wow. Yeah. So I believe that treating people like people sometimes because we tend to enter into official form if we enter the store and meet a manager and there I manage to be a person, like trying to explain to her how I feel because it’s a difficult day etcetera. So then she saw a person in me.
Adam: Yeah. Empathy is something that obviously AI probably hasn’t got. Yeah.
Dominik: Human to human. Right. And there AI will not help you.
Marcell: Okay. Do you prefer French fries or potato wedges?
Dominik: I don’t eat them at all. I’m on keto diet for the last half, one year and a half.
Marcell: Oh, nice. How is that going?
Dominik: Yeah, very good. Now it’s spring, so I’m entering low carb. I’m super happy. It works super good for me.
Marcell: Is it fully no carb or just or low carb?
Dominik: Now I’m entering low because it’s not so good to be like super zero no carb. It’s super difficult if you want to live your life. Yeah, but I would say in terms of how I feel and I think I look even better a bit because then you don’t feel all the time tired. So instead of going to sleep, you can go for a walk or something. Yeah. After eating.
Marcell: Okay, great. It’s a fun one. What subject would you be okay with never learning about again?
Dominik: Learn about. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. There. I got what I don’t want to learn about again. Okay. I think it’s. How is it to have a dog? Because I didn’t realise when I had it that it’s so big responsibility when I had a dog. So I would never decide to have one when I was young. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. Brilliant. I know. Adam, you have two dogs.
Adam: No. I can’t agree more. Honestly, I wish I could unlearn, but having two dogs, one I thought was a nightmare. I bought a second to make the first one easier. Two is much worse.
Marcell: I’m not sure about the logic there, Adam.
Adam: No, I was worried about the first dog because he seemed sad when we went out, so I got him a friend to keep him company. And now it’s just carnage. So don’t get two dogs, Dominik. Ever. Yeah.
Marcell: What is your biggest fear, Dominik?
Dominik: The biggest fear. That I will leave my laptop at home and I will be in the office already. And we need to go through the journey again and come back to the office.
Marcell: How long is your journey?
Dominik: It’s not that long, but you know I hate doing things twice, so when I do things, I like to do them once. So when I’m all the time in the morning, I’m double checking if my laptop is there.
Marcell: Fair enough. You’re an effective man. It sounds like.
Dominik: I try to.
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