The Effect of Robot-Human Interactions on Immersion and Store Visit Duration: An Abstract

The application of service robots is rapidly spreading across several store types, with robots performing more complex tasks and interacting with customers, welcoming and assisting them (Meyer et al. 2020; van Doorn et al. 2017). Although retailers are striving to identify the right balance between robot and human sales associates, there is still a need for further research assessing how the introduction of service robots can influence the customer experience and affect customer responses (Lu et al. 2020; Larivière et al. 2017). In this study, we examine the degree of customer immersion in human-human (HHI) vs. human-robot (HRI) in-store interactions across the stages of the selling process and we assess how immersion affects store visit duration. ​Specifically, we focus on four different stages of the selling process (welcome, store introduction, brand storytelling, and surprise) and apply a neuroscientific approach to measure immersion, which is defined as an experience of deep involvement with an aspect of the environment (Zak and Barraza 2018), in this case the sales associate. Based on a field experiment conducted in a retail store selling premium leather goods (n = 50 participants), we use a neuroscientific approach to collect customers’ biometrics through wearable sensors during the interactions that participants had with a service robot (Condition 1) or a human sales associate (Condition 2). Interactions were timed to obtain visit duration data and were analyzed using the Immersion Neuroscience™ platform, ANOVA and regression analysis through Hayes’ PROCESS model 1 with 5000 bootstrapping. Results show how the presence of a service robot has positive effects on customers during the service encounter. Customers enjoy interacting with service robots and this leads to higher levels of attention and engagement (Shamdasani et al. 2008; Iwamura et al. 2011)​. The interaction with a service robot increases the level of immersion in the welcome and surprise stages of the service encounter. By offering a small gift, the robot engaged in a social-relational task that was unexpected by customers and resulted in a higher degree of engagement. This study also confirms that immersion positively affects visit duration. This provides support from a neuroscientific perspective to past research proposing that the more consumers are engaged in a shopping experience, the more likely they are to spend more time in-store, with this effect being significantly stronger when customers interact with a human sales associate than a service robot. Service robots increase the efficiency of the shopping experience but reduce the level of immersion in the store introduction and the brand storytelling moments, leading customers to spend less time in the store. Thus, the role of human sales associates is critical for developing customer engagement and extending store visit duration.