Investigating Frontline Service Employees to Identify Behavioral Goals of Restaurant Service Robot: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

This paper introduces the investigation of the frontline service employees in order to identify and suggest the behavioral goals of the restaurant service robots. We conducted the survey-based study to examine the optimal service action selection evaluated by the restaurant service employees. In addition, there was a video-based exploratory behavior analysis to find out the different behavioral factors between expert and novice employees in the real restaurant. It was found out that the employees have the preferred service actions to perform in each service episode in restaurant setting and the service behaviors of the frontline service robot in restaurant needed to be designed to be proactive for effective service delivery.