A recent news story caught my attention. Several retailers are reducing or removing fitting rooms to cut costs, reduce theft and simplify operations. On paper, it makes perfect sense, fewer fitting rooms mean less space, fewer colleagues required to supervise them and fewer opportunities for stock loss.
The problem is that customers do not experience retail through the lens of operational efficiency, they experience it through the lens of effort. More than a decade ago, while leading a customer experience improvement programme at Primark, I learned just how expensive customer effort can be.
The problem we thought we were solving
Back in 2014, I led a cross-functional working group examining ways to improve the customer experience in Primark stores. The business had conducted extensive customer research which revealed something fascinating. Most customers enjoyed shopping in Primark, but around half said they would visit more often, stay longer and spend more if the in-store experience improved.
One issue surfaced repeatedly - fitting rooms. Initially, that seemed surprising. Customers were finding great products at attractive prices. Why would fitting rooms matter so much? The answer became clear when we spent time in stores observing customer and colleague behaviour.
What we discovered was that Primark, like many retailers, was viewing fitting rooms through one lens while customers were viewing them through another. The business saw fitting rooms as a security challenge, but customers saw them as a buying decision moment. Those are not the same thing.
A visit to Birmingham
One of my strongest memories from that project is spending time with the manager of a particularly busy store in Birmingham. This was not a theoretical discussion in a meeting room; it was retail reality. The store was handling huge volumes of customers every day and queues regularly formed outside the fitting rooms.
Customers became frustrated waiting and when they finally reached the front of the queue, many were told they could not take all their selected items inside because of company limits designed to reduce theft. Arguments followed, frustration increased and then came the most striking part. Abandoned baskets, dozens of them, every day.
Customers who had already selected products, invested time shopping and were close to making a purchase simply gave up and walked away. The clothing then had to be collected and returned to the shop floor by colleagues. Everybody lost: customers were frustrated, colleagues were frustrated, managers were frustrated and sales were lost. Yet the process was working exactly as designed, which should have been the warning sign.
The least experienced colleague in one of the most important roles
As we dug deeper, another pattern emerged. The colleagues assigned to fitting rooms were often among the least experienced members of the store team. Why?
Because fitting rooms were largely viewed as a security function and the primary task was to count garments, enforce limits and prevent theft. However, customers saw the situation very differently.
By the time someone enters a fitting room, they have already completed most of the buying journey. They have found products they like, selected sizes, carried items around the store and they are close to making a decision. In many cases, they are shopping with a friend or family member and actively seeking reassurance. This is one of the most commercially important moments in the entire customer journey and yet many retailers treat it as an operational necessity rather than a sales opportunity.
Solving the right problem
One of the most valuable decisions we made was involving the Birmingham store manager and his team directly in designing solutions. Too many improvement projects happen to stores rather than with stores. The people closest to the customer usually understand the reality far better than those sitting in head office.
Together, we examined the customer journey, colleague frustrations, operational processes and security concerns. We tested changes to colleague training, reviewed fitting room layouts, redesigned operational guidelines, and most importantly, we challenged assumptions. Was every rule genuinely helping customers and was every restriction genuinely reducing loss? Were we solving the right problem or had we become so focused on preventing theft that we had forgotten to make purchasing easy?
The pilot results were encouraging. Customer satisfaction improved, colleague engagement improved, abandoned baskets reduced significantly and sales increased. Perhaps most importantly for sceptics around the business, there was no evidence that stock loss increased because of the changes.
The improvements were eventually rolled out across the wider Primark estate.
The unexpected hero
The person who helped sell the changes internally was not me, it was the Birmingham store manager. This mattered enormously: many stakeholders were understandably concerned about the potential impact on theft. The manager had credibility, had lived the problem, seen the queues, witnessed the customer frustration and watched colleagues dealing with conflict throughout the day. Most importantly, he had seen the results. His experience gave confidence to others across the business. It was a reminder that successful change is often driven by practitioners rather than presenters.
Why this matters today
You might think this is simply a story about fitting rooms. It isn't, it’s a story about customer effort. The same debate is playing out across retail today when retailers remove fitting rooms, or replace checkouts with self-service, or introduce AI chatbots.
When they are reducing staffing levels, pushing customers towards apps and automating complaint handling, the question is always the same: who is doing the work now?
Sometimes businesses celebrate operational efficiencies that simply transfer effort from the organisation to the customer. Costs go down, customer effort goes up and loyalty slowly erodes. Not because customers are angry, but because customers have alternatives.
The question every retailer should ask
The fitting room project taught me a lesson that has remained with me throughout my career. Every operational change should be evaluated through two lenses: what effort does it remove from the business and what effort does it add to the customer?
Retailers are usually very good at measuring the first question, but many never ask the second. However, customers experience every additional queue, every unnecessary click, every confusing policy and every frustrating interaction and the cumulative effect is enormous. Customers do not generally leave because of one catastrophic experience; they leave because businesses repeatedly make things harder than they need to be.
A final thought
The retailers that win in the years ahead will not simply be the ones that reduce costs most effectively, they will be the ones that reduce effort most effectively.
Back in 2014, Primark's fitting rooms taught me something surprisingly simple. The biggest opportunity was not preventing more theft; it was making purchasing easier.
That lesson feels just as relevant today as it did then, because customers rarely notice when you remove cost from your operation, but they notice immediately when you add effort to theirs.
At RetailCX, we specialise in helping organisations harness the power of leadership and employee engagement to enhance customer experiences. Contact us to learn how we can support your journey toward a more innovative and customer-centric future.