Customer-Facing Social Robots in the Grocery Store: Experiences from a Field Trial

Niklas Eriksson, Kristoffer Kuvaja Adolfsson, Christa Tigerstedt, Minna Stenius

2025

Abstract

Customer-facing technology provided by retailers is becoming increasingly common in retail stores. In this study the focus is on customer-facing social robots (i.e. embodied robots that interact with humans) in a grocery store. Based on workshops, learning via making and a customer survey (n=39) during a field trial, this study explores potential roles for robots in a grocery store, how well the robots can perform the roles assigned to them, and customers’ perception of the robots. Seven main roles that social robots could take on in a grocery store were identified: store guide, sales promoter, shopping assistant, entertainer, store chef, product supervisor, and experience evaluator. The two robots that were field trialled performed their tasks reasonably well. The results from the customer survey confirm previous research that customers perceive social robots primarily positively. This study, however, also indicates that a notable share of the customers may find social robots unpleasant in a store setting. Limitations and further research are also discussed.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Eriksson N., Adolfsson K., Tigerstedt C. and Stenius M. (2025). Customer-Facing Social Robots in the Grocery Store: Experiences from a Field Trial. In Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Volume 2: ICEIS; ISBN 978-989-758-749-8, SciTePress, pages 509-516. DOI: 10.5220/0013164300003929

in Bibtex Style

@conference{iceis25,
author={Niklas Eriksson and Kristoffer Adolfsson and Christa Tigerstedt and Minna Stenius},
title={Customer-Facing Social Robots in the Grocery Store: Experiences from a Field Trial},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Volume 2: ICEIS},
year={2025},
pages={509-516},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013164300003929},
isbn={978-989-758-749-8},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Volume 2: ICEIS
TI - Customer-Facing Social Robots in the Grocery Store: Experiences from a Field Trial
SN - 978-989-758-749-8
AU - Eriksson N.
AU - Adolfsson K.
AU - Tigerstedt C.
AU - Stenius M.
PY - 2025
SP - 509
EP - 516
DO - 10.5220/0013164300003929
PB - SciTePress