Having serviced the retail apparel business for so many years, I’m fully convinced of the value of fitting room call buttons. In fact, I firmly believe every fitting room should have a call button.
If you have been holding back on adopting this crucial piece of the retail success puzzle, you can’t afford to wait any longer.
Call Buttons in Fitting Rooms are Good for the Bottom Line
A customer who enters the fitting room is MUCH more likely to make a purchase than the sales floor shopper. How much more likely? A whopping 67% of customers who try on apparel make a purchase, vs. 10% of those who don’t make use of the fitting rooms.
If the shopper has interacted with a sales associate, the odds are even better. A customer who is serviced in the fitting room is more likely to purchase – and to spend more on that purchase – than one who uses a fitting room without any contact with an associate.
What does that mean in concrete dollars and cents? Here’s a quick overview of our findings after many years of client research:
- A shopper who stays exclusively on the sales floor might be worth $48.02.
- If a shopper with that same spending power goes to the fitting room, on average they will spend $95.12.
- If a shopper receives assistance in the fitting room, they are more likely to spend $130.07.
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If my math is correct, a shopper who receives assistance in the fitting room spends nearly three times more than a shopper who stays exclusively on the sales floor! The importance of making sure customers in the fitting room can get help when they need it just can’t be overstated.
Explaining why this is the case is a little more complicated, but bear with me, it’s a pretty cool story.
Why Is It So Important to Get Customers into the Fitting Room?
To understand why steering customers to the fitting room is so critical to the sales process, it’s important to learn a little about fitting room psychology.
Many retailers believe that once a customer heads to the fitting rooms, they have already made a purchase decision, and they’re only validating their choice.
Nope.
When a shopper moves from the sales floor to the fitting room, mentally they have only made the first step in the purchase decision process. It’s like the poker player who has anted up; at this point, he’d much rather continue to play the hand than to fold.
There is a very definite shift in the mindset of a customer who is on the way to the fitting room. Once they get there, making sure they can get help when they need it is imperative.
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Personalized Fitting Room Attention Seals the Deal
Maybe you can understand why you need to steer customers to the fitting room, but is personal attention once they’re in there really a big deal? The truth is, having someone attend to customers in the fitting room is the most important element to close the sale.
“Great,” you say, “but I can’t afford a full-time fitting room attendant, and my sales team can’t be tied up sitting outside the fitting rooms.” And that, Dear Reader, is why your fitting rooms need to be equipped with call buttons.
As for your next question, yes people actually do use call buttons. All the time. The first thing a customer does in a fitting room is take off their clothes. If the item they’re planning to purchase isn’t quite right, what are they going to do? Nobody with a shred of self-respect is going to wander, half-dressed, onto the sales floor to get a different size or color of the item they’re trying on.
Customers in the fitting room need someone to be there for them – RIGHT NOW! Otherwise, there is an excellent chance that they will put their own clothes back on and walk right out the door.
[Tweet “When a customer in the #fitting room needs help, they need it NOW! @alerttechinc”]
Facilitating casual fitting room interactions between sales associates and shoppers does more than help customers with their immediate needs in the fitting room. These exchanges also provide the perfect opportunity to suggest complementing pieces or to introduce your store’s loyalty program. The sales floor is too soon to engage in these conversations, and the cashwrap may be too late!
What Else Can Fitting Room Call Buttons Do?
Call buttons can help save money by keeping your staff on the sales floor until the moment of truth. They can also increase sales by making sure customers in the fitting room can get help when they need it. But better still, call buttons can provide valuable data about your fitting rooms.
Call buttons can give you better insight into what’s going on in your store by telling you:
- How many fitting room visits are made each day;
- How long customers are spending in the fitting rooms;
- How many times sales associates are called to the fitting rooms; and, finally,
- How long it takes staff to get there.
[Tweet “4 Reasons #FittingRoom Call Buttons Can Boost Sales @alerttechinc”]
If you couple this data with RFID tagging, you can also see EXACTLY what people are bringing into the fitting room. Add information from the use of Beacons technology, and you can also get a good view of who your shoppers are and what they like to buy. Perhaps more importantly, you can learn what they DON’T like to buy.
Conclusion
Call buttons aren’t just for airplane passengers anymore. They provide a simple and efficient way to give customers the personalized service they need while allowing you to maintain appropriate staffing levels in the store for the number of shoppers present at any given time. Call buttons are the missing link for many retailers, and you simply can’t afford to miss out on sales opportunities because your fitting rooms don’t have them anymore!
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