From Attraction to Engagement: A Robot-Clerk Collaboration Strategy for Retail Success

Service robots have demonstrated significant potential in retail environments, with research efforts increasingly focused on designing effective robot-customer interactions. However, the collaboration between service robots and human clerks is crucial for optimizing customer engagement in real-world retail settings. While robots excel at attracting passersby, human clerks bring essential emotional intelligence and deep acting skills necessary for building trust and delivering personalized service. In this paper, we propose a novel robot-clerk collaboration model that leverages the complementary strengths of robots and clerks. Specifically, robots are tasked with attracting passersby and persuading them to interact with the products. Once a customer engages with a product, the robot subtly notifies a human clerk to take over, ensuring a seamless transition into the store for more in-depth product exploration and engagement. To develop this approach, we carried out a pilot study to identify the most effective and practical interaction configurations, followed by a 12-day experiment to evaluate the proposed strategy. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the robot-clerk collaboration approach. Based on these findings, we present detailed design implications and discuss key challenges to guide future research in this area.