Service Robots for Fashion Retail Stores: Lessons Learned from a Case Study

Service robots provide retailers with new opportunities to innovate their in-store service offerings. Despite advances made in the fields of human-robot interaction, information systems, and marketing, there is relatively little known about how to apply a service robot in retailing. In this paper we aim to shed light on this issue by exploring the added value, roles, and prototyping of a service robot in fashion retailing. Using two Dutch fashion stores as real-life settings, we apply different
interaction techniques (observation, interview, survey, structured role play, prototyping) to generate first insights and obtain lessons learned. The results of our study suggest that fashion retailers would benefit most from using service robots for communication of promotions and provision of product information. When applying service robots to these use cases, customers seem to prefer briefly and clearly expressed information that is communicated in a style that matches (in-)
store communications. Still, the lack of personal attention and social support associated with a service robot makes retailers and store personnel rather reluctant to use them for their service excellence-oriented stores.