The Robot and I: The Rise of Hybrid Service Teams

ABSTRACT

[...]an airport could install a hologram-based humanoid service robot every 50 meters to assist passengers and deal with common questions like arrival information and directions to check-in counters in all common languages. According to our expe- rience, however, often less than 12 months are required for payback of projects in successful implementations. * Mitigate potential risks of robot deployment x Organizations need to mitigate potential anxieties related to customer-facing service robots such as algorithm aversion, perceived loss of the human touch and consumer privacy. Specific decisions that managers need to make include whether, for instance, biometrics or data from social media accounts will be collected, whether variables will be used to build indices or financial scores to support decision-making, such as for approving loans and setting interest rates and when the information will be deleted from the company's database, e.g., on a bounced payment. Waist-high and dressed with coattails, they can fulfill guests' diverse needs by delivering an extra towel, a snack, a toothbrush and more. * At airports, robots are used to scan boarding passes and help passengers find the right departure gate.