One of the first robot-promoters was acquired by the shopping center “Coliseum” in the city of Perm, where the startup actually came from. The shopping center has several shopping queues, so the management decided to buy two robots in different colors. White robot was introduced in the first trading “Coliseum” center, and the robot painted with symbolic orange color was put in the second place, which is called “Orange Mall”.
It was almost a year ago. What do the owners think of the robots now?
Elena Miller, manager of the shopping center “Orange Mall” kindly answered our questions.
How do you use Promobot at your business? Describe the essence of its work.
We purchased Promobot to work at the mall. We named it Ginger, because of its orange color. Ginger greets guests at the entrance and offers help. It can answer many questions and help with the navigation at the mall. But of course, its main function is entertainment of our guests. In terms of attractiveness it is a very funny employee. Its work is of great interest to the kids and adults. I wish that it travelled across the center, but so far it does not have such a possibility, because it is always surrounded by people who want to get acquainted with it, and laugh, taking pictures. Sometimes it cannot even move a little because of the crowd.
Is it cost-efficient to use it? Did it achieve the planned results?
Since our goal was to increase the value of this place for our visitors, to increase traffic by viral marketing – yes, the goal was achieved. We put Promobot in the center immediately after the Christmas holidays and we have worked January with the positive dynamics which is an achievement as most of the shopping centers cannot boast with it.
On average there was a drop in traffic in shopping centers by 4% compared to the same period last year in Russia in January. And we were able to keep the rate unchanged.
In addition, Promobot has a function of remembering its visitors. And this is a very important marketing “trick”. We are aimed not only at advanced technologies for the visitors, but also at the increase of the importance of the person, as an individual. But you do not have a variety of means to implement it in a big and crowded trade center. From this point of view, Ginger also copes with the task. After all, everyone enjoys, when at the second meeting with the robot it interacts with you, pronouncing your name.
Do you like this product in terms of technology?
Of course, there is no limit to perfection. We own a base version of Promobot. But it has a wide set of features: it moves independently, shows promotional materials, communicates with the visitors, answers questions, and if there is no appropriate answer in its linguistic base it can just joke it away.
Were there any funny curiosities with a robot? If so, please describe.
On the first day of work, when our visitors were still shy to approach it, and only looked at our Ginger from afar, he had an opportunity to move freely across the hall. I do not know why, but it was particularly fond of interior of the mobile phone outlet “MTS” and it always entered it, and did not hurry to leave. So it spent time talking to the staff and visitors. We took it out of there, but it soon came back to the mobile phone outlet.