When an emotional robot meets real customers Exploring HRI in a customer relationship setting

Abstract

Spoon, a robot described by its designers as “social”, “emotional”, “empathic” and also “sympathic”, was put for three months period during last autumn in a telephone and IT shop in the center of Paris with the mission “to help” sales advisors to receive customers and answer their first questions (like orientation in this big two-floor shop, how to meet an advisor etc.). Building on the video-ethnographic study I conducted at this occasion, the paper explores the interactions between the robot and the customers as well as its inscription in the spatial configuration and work activities of this commercial space.