Robots for Businesses are Here—And quite simply incredible

The idea of a robot greeting a customer, bringing someone a cup of coffee or delivering the mail for tenants at a business centre seems incredibly far-fetched.  Most of us think that a genuinely useful office robot requires technology (and indeed wizardry) simply beyond our current abilities.  For a robot to behave like a human it would need to think like a human—a seemingly impossible task. Plus who wants to work with a bunch of robots!  We enjoy the sense of humour, emotional understanding and humanoid depth of our real-life colleagues. 

But businesses in Japan are about to start using robots that can not only guide guests to the right meeting room and bring them coffee, but read your emotions and respond with their own.

This past June, SoftBank Robotics Corp., stunned even the biggest sceptics when it sold 1,000 robots in one minute.  The company has created an enterprise-level version of its personal robot (Pepper) available in Japan this October.

Dubbed Pepper for Biz, the business-focused robot comes with applications that allow it to handle office reception tasks and even approach potential customers. It also has what the company is calling a Pepper for Biz Platform that allows users to customise applications and visualise data. One rather unbelievable application is said to help the robot act as a salesperson.  This will be put to the test when Pepper for Biz begins work as a sales clerk next year at Yamada Denki (a major electronics retailer).

But can the businesses that would really benefit from a robot—serviced offices, business centres and companies who need help at reception, afford a robot like Pepper for Biz?  Most likely yes.  This robot is far less expensive than you might think, available for monthly rental at 55,000 yen or about £320.  But you have to commit to getting to know your robot—the rental plan is a binding contract for three years!

For us at VTSL, and most of our business centre clients, we like speaking to humans, and interacting with them through the sales and customer service process.  It helps us build relationships that lead to new business.  Networking after all is based on human connection, a shared sense of experience and getting to know each other.  Is a robot like Pepper for Biz going to be able to do that?  Maybe not, but maybe yes.  These robots can not only read human emotions but generate their own emotions also.  It is said that Pepper can read people's facial cues, be happy to be with people it is familiar with and afraid when the lights go out.  She also might sigh when sad or bored and display different colours on her screen depending on her mood.

While that isn’t quite the same as developing a meaningful relationship with a customer over the long term, or having a laugh and one too many glasses of wine with new contacts at a networking event—it is still pretty incredible.

Let’s just hope as Pepper improves with each passing year, she doesn’t one day outsmart us.

For more information on VoIP phones, technology or IP telephony for businesses in the UK and Ireland, please call VTSL on 0207 078 3200.