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Together or alone: Should service robots and frontline employees collaborate in retail-customer interactions at the POS?

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  • De Gauquier, Laurens
  • Willems, Kim
  • Cao, Hoang-Long
  • Vanderborght, Bram
  • Brengman, Malaika

Abstract

This study investigates shopper behavior when interacting with an employee-robot team (vs. both actors in isolation), along the metrics of the POS conversion funnel. An unobtrusive field study was conducted using video observations, evenly spread over four conditions: (1) a control condition (i.e., no stimulus), (2) a frontline employee, (3) a humanoid service robot, and (4) an employee-robot team. The results indicate that the service robot was the better option to generate attention and stop passers-by, but in this condition the least amount of passers-by were lured into the store. While the frontline employee initiated the lowest amount of interactions, he could convert the highest number of passersby into actual buyers. The robot-employee team managed to encourage the highest number of passers-by to look at the store, but did not convert more of them into actual buyers than the robot on its own.

Suggested Citation

  • De Gauquier, Laurens & Willems, Kim & Cao, Hoang-Long & Vanderborght, Bram & Brengman, Malaika, 2023. "Together or alone: Should service robots and frontline employees collaborate in retail-customer interactions at the POS?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:70:y:2023:i:c:s0969698922002697
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2022.103176
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Brengman, Malaika & De Gauquier, Laurens & Willems, Kim & Vanderborght, Bram, 2021. "From stopping to shopping: An observational study comparing a humanoid service robot with a tablet service kiosk to attract and convert shoppers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 263-274.
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    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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