TY - GEN
T1 - Shopping Mall Robots - Opportunities and Constraints from the Retailer and Manager Perspective
AU - Niemelä, Marketta
AU - Heikkilä, Päivi
AU - Lammi, Hanna
AU - Oksman, Virpi
N1 - SDA: MIP: Design for Life
Project code: 105923
PY - 2017/1/1
Y1 - 2017/1/1
N2 - Social service robots are gradually entering into
shopping malls to provide guidance and information
services to the consumer customers. Earlier literature
has reported that usually consumers response positively
to these robots. Less is known about how do retailers and
other business actors in the shopping mall perceive the
robots. We present results of an interview study carried
out with eight retailers and other service providers in a
shopping mall, and three shopping mall managers. The
results provide insight into their views about potential
application roles of social service robot in the mall:
what kind of services the robot could provide to
customers besides guiding and information providing, and
what kind of opportunities, requirements and constraints
a shopping mall sets as a business environment for robot
developers and service providers. The capability of the
robot to emotionally engage with the customers was seen
highly potential in shopping business but balancing
entertainment with utility functions is crucial. A Pepper
robot was used as a demonstrative platform in the study.
AB - Social service robots are gradually entering into
shopping malls to provide guidance and information
services to the consumer customers. Earlier literature
has reported that usually consumers response positively
to these robots. Less is known about how do retailers and
other business actors in the shopping mall perceive the
robots. We present results of an interview study carried
out with eight retailers and other service providers in a
shopping mall, and three shopping mall managers. The
results provide insight into their views about potential
application roles of social service robot in the mall:
what kind of services the robot could provide to
customers besides guiding and information providing, and
what kind of opportunities, requirements and constraints
a shopping mall sets as a business environment for robot
developers and service providers. The capability of the
robot to emotionally engage with the customers was seen
highly potential in shopping business but balancing
entertainment with utility functions is crucial. A Pepper
robot was used as a demonstrative platform in the study.
KW - shopping mall robots
KW - retailers
KW - shopping mall managers
KW - business perspective
KW - social robots
KW - Pepper
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85035815631&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-319-70022-9_48
DO - 10.1007/978-3-319-70022-9_48
M3 - Conference article in proceedings
SN - 78-3-319-70021-2
SN - 978-3-319-70022-9
VL - 10652
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science
SP - 485
EP - 494
BT - Social Robotics - 9th International Conference, ICSR 2017, Proceedings
A2 - Suzuki, Kenji
A2 - He, Hongsheng
A2 - Kheddar, Abderrahmane
A2 - Yoshida, Eiichi
A2 - Eyssel, Friederike
A2 - Ge, Shuzhi Sam
A2 - Cabibihan, John-John
PB - Springer
T2 - 9th International Conference on Social Robotics, ICSR 2017
Y2 - 22 November 2017 through 24 November 2017
ER -