What Goes Where?

Map it Out

Paul Seibert, CMC, VP/financial design at CUES Supplier member EHS Design, a NELSON Company, Seattle

When members and non-members come through the front door of your branch, what is the experience you want them to have? Your answer will help determine your floor plan—how you want people to move through the space and how you want to communicate with them along the way.

I recommend creating a map for all the various needs people may have when they walk through the door. What is the path of someone coming in to deposit a check? Take out a business loan? Get cash? Deal with a problem payment?

Something really cool that I’m doing with a client now is using security camera video footage to see just how people move through the branch—whether, in fact, the floor plan is used as we planned. And we can make some subtle, but important tweaks. For example, we moved the card printer closer to where staff actually needed to use it. This video feedback allows you to prove a branch prototype works, and start perfecting it.

Be All You Can Be

Pat Clemens, SVP/senior sales consultant, CUES Supplier member Financial Supermarkets Inc., Cornelia, Ga.

When you’re building a branch inside a supermarket or another large retail space, you only get, on average, 650 square feet to work with. It’s a reminder to be really strategic in everything you do in the branch—a lesson that translates to stand-alone locations as well.

The floor plan of an in-store branch needs to facilitate interactions among people, first and foremost. Rather than a manager’s office, supermarket branches often have a multi-purpose room toward the back for more detailed and private financial conversations. And in the very back there is a secured room for cash handling.

While people are key, you also want technology front and center to provide service and to draw in non-members. Done right, a supermarket branch is a great advertisement for your credit union even when it is officially closed.

Deciding what to put where inside a branch is so important to the quality of the experience people have with your credit union. But it also matters, of course, where the branch itself is located. When it’s inside a big box retail store, you’re leveraging some of the best market research out there—that done by the retailer on where to locate a store. The retailer spends millions and millions on that store, so of course they’re going to try to get a lot of people through the door—people who can then see your credit union.

Technology by Zone

Doug Braun, senior vice president, CUES Supplier member inLighten, Clarence, N.Y. inLighten has identified five branch interaction zones and suggested technology to make each as involving for the member and productive for the credit union as possible:

Transaction zone. This includes the traditional teller line or individual pods for one-on-one interaction and provides numerous cross-sell opportunities. Large (47 inches or more) digital signage at eye level can help engage members. Speech privacy technology can also be used effectively in this zone.

Consultation zones. CUs are trusted advisors. Technology in branch waiting areas can help prepare members for their conversations with staff. For example, 10-inch tablets in a technology bar format or in waiting areas can offer information resources, such as PowerPoint presentations and videos or relevant Web links.

Exploration zones. 40- to 49-inch interactive displays encourage members to access information that’s more public than that offered in consultative zones, such as rates, branch hours, events calendars and special offers.

Self-service zones. Durable, user-friendly kiosks can quickly enable many common interactions, save members time, and free member service representatives for more consultative member interactions.

Transient zones. In these high traffic corridors between other zones, 40- to 47-inch digital screens can present promotional prompts and reinforcement of the credit union’s brand. They can help maximize impressions and ensure pull-through for the other interaction zones. 

Messages by the Map

John Mathes, director/brand strategy for CUES Supplier member Weber Marketing Group, Seattle, and co-presenter for CUES School of Strategic Marketing I and II

There’s a real science to messaging, a hierarchy of messaging. We’re orchestrating a storytelling environment. We want to talk about the brand and how we’re different, the community we’re in and our contribution to it, and our products. Once the space is defined, we go through and really dress it out with relevant messaging that’s hopefully also business-building.

We treat the teller pod area differently from the vestibule. In the vestibule, you’re probably in a hurry, transitioning from being outside to inside, and acclimating to the credit union branch environment. Here messaging is more of a welcome, branding component, or designed operationally to give hours and information. This is not the place for promotion.

As you navigate into the branch space—find your place, so to speak—there are some great opportunities to provide promotions. For example, a teller pod’s front surface usually has a messaging spot. If you have digital screens behind the teller pod on the wall, that’s a great place, too.

The office of a member service rep is a good spot for product messaging. While a member is sitting with a rep talking about one need, other products can be promoted on the wall. The waiting area is another good place to cross-sell services. There could be a screen giving information about insurance or investment advisory services or online offerings.

In deciding about when and how to use screens to deliver messages, we recommend asking the question, “What is the purpose of the screen in this location?” For example, are they totally signage or are they interactive, educational, or entertainment for kids? With these questions answered, an appropriate content strategy can be developed for that particular screen.

Lisa Hochgraf is a CUES senior editor.