A Customer's Attitude to a Robotic Salesperson Depends on Their Initial Interaction

• Published in: 2018 27th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) pp. 300 - 305
• Main Authors: Iwasaki, Masaya, Jian Zhou, Ikeda, Mizuki, Kawamura, Tatsuyuki, Nakanishi, Hideyuki
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.08.2018
• Subjects: Cameras; Customer services; Humanoid robots; Robot vision systems; Speech recognition
• ISSN: 1944-9437
• DOI: 10.1109/ROMAN.2018.8525772

In recent years, robotic salespersons have been rapidly deployed in various shops especially in Japan. However, it is still unclear what kind of action is effective for sales, and robotic salespersons are often ignored by customers. In this paper, we analyzed the multimodal conversations between a robotic salesperson and visitors by conducting a field experiment. We aim to investigate the actions of the robot that lead to interactive conversations. The results of the experiment showed that in order to conduct an interactive conversation, it is necessary to a give short speech that is easy to answer. The most important finding obtained from this research is that the impression of a robot is strongly influenced by the beginning of the interaction. When a robot gives a short speech that is easy to answer at the beginning of the interaction, an interactive conversation can start because the customers treat the robot similar to a salesperson which is capable of humanlike interaction.