Savvy retailers know that the fitting rooms are one of the most critical areas of the store. After all, when a customer uses the fitting room, the chance they’ll make a purchase jumps to 67%, versus 10% for those who do not try their purchases on.
But how do you evaluate whether or not your fitting rooms are working as they should to turn shoppers into customers? Well, you can start by making sure you’re not missing out on the top key performance indicators (KPIs) for your fitting rooms.
Fitting Room KPIs: What You Need to Know
There has never been more data available to help retailers understand the health of their stores. While each data point is significant on its own, when you stand back to take a look at the sum of the parts, you can see where things are going well, and where there is room for improvement.
[Tweet “Fitting rooms have 4 #KPIs that matter. Do you know what they are?”]
There are four main fitting room KPIs that retailers should use to enable the kind of strategic decision-making that drives sales. Getting a better handle on these data points will help determine the performance of your fitting rooms, and ultimately the success of your store.
1. Number of Fitting Room Visits
Most retailers monitor the traffic entering the store. Coupling this data with the traffic entering the fitting rooms gives insight into whether or visitors are making the switch from shopper to customer.
Our industry benchmark data tells us that roughly 25% of client make it into the fitting room, but there is a wide variance between stores, and even between different locations of the same store. Each store should take steps to increase this percentage month over month, and year over year.
2. Length of Fitting Room Visits
The average length of time spent in the fitting room is just under six minutes, but again it varies by store. When you know the time your shoppers spend here, you can ensure you have enough staff to keep try-on wait times to a minimum.
If the average duration of fitting room visits is creeping up, it’s an excellent time to look at the training protocols for customer engagement for your associates. If it’s falling, you may need to examine the physical state of the rooms to make sure they’re comfortable and inviting.
[Tweet “Missing Out on the Top Indicators of Fitting Room Success?”]
3. Number of Fitting Room Calls
You can only know how many times customers ask for assistance in the fitting room if you have installed fitting room call buttons, and you absolutely should. Fitting room call buttons allow your associates to successfully engage your customers, at an appropriate point in their fitting room visit. No more awkward knocks at the door at an inopportune time!
When you know the how often customers are calling for assistance, you can adjust staffing levels and even break times to help ensure there isn’t a long wait for help when a customer needs it.
4. Call Button Response Times
When a customer wants assistance in the fitting room, they want it now. This is the moment of truth for their purchase decision. If they wait too long and decide to re-dress instead, there’s a good chance they’re going to keep on walking… right out the door!
You can encourage customers to ask for help, but that’s only half the battle. Once you know how long they’re waiting for service in the fitting room – which you can do with a dedicated call button system – you can do what you must to improve the wait times every day.
[Tweet “#CustExp matters in the fitting room.. understanding wait time is half the battle!”]
In some cases, this may be an adjustment in staffing levels. In other stores, it may be part of the associate training program. But until you know how long customers are waiting for fitting room assistance, you can’t do anything to cut down on those wait times – and, you don’t even know whether that’s something you need to focus on.
Summary
Four fitting room KPIs are crucial to your store’s performance. When you understand how many people use the fitting room, how long they’re spending to evaluate their purchases, and what kind of service they’re receiving, you can make real, strategic changes to your store operations.
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