If you’re like everyone else in retail banking, you’re probably trying to figure out how to keep your branches relevant and profitable in a traffic-declining environment. It might surprise you that some of the most important items to tackle in your branch evolution have nothing to do with architectural design. To get started, what you really need to do is define the optimal business model for your organization and your markets. There are many, many factors that will influence your model, but here are five candidates for you to consider as you begin your journey.
Category Archives: Branches
Branch Makeover: Live from the Financial Brand Forum
As one of three design teams selected at the Financial Brand Forum, we were challenged with presenting a branch design concept to NYC-based Municipal Credit Union—live on stage, in front of 900 conference attendees. This presented a terrific chance to share our perspective on innovation.
Starbucks Theatre of Roasting
Seattleites know coffee. In fact, we’ve been called coffee snobs. So what does Starbucks, a major coffee icon in a coffee town, do when a green mermaid logo has become synonymous to the McDonalds’ golden arches where you can expect convenience and consistency? In a town of coffee snobs – me included – you need more. To stay relevant, Starbucks has created a very high-end, state of the art prototype store. A prototype store is nothing new for Starbucks, but this store, rumored to cost $20 million dollars, took it to a whole new level.
Inside the Elevations Branch 2.0
When you love where you live, it matters where you bank. Elevations Credit Union, based in Boulder, CO, built their brand on that premise. It’s about loving local, embracing differences, and reflecting the community in which you live. Weber helped Elevations define a branch prototype that extends that brand positioning into the newest Elevations branches — the first of which opened to the public this summer.
5 Tips for Your Next Branch Transformation Project
The new wave of mobile, social and online banking is reshaping how consumers bank. Their preferences and patterns are shifting forever. Financial institutions are scrambling to define how their traditional teller-focused transactional model will shift – or fade away. But what can you do to set your brand apart from competitors in meaningful and relevant ways to evolve technology and connect with consumers and business audiences?
Photo tour: BECU’s High-Advisory, Teller-Free Banking Branch
Not far from Microsoft, amid Bellevue Washington’s affluent high-tech community, BECU built a flagship branch engineered for advisory, investment, mortgage, and business services.
Beginning early 2013, Weber Marketing Group and architectural partners EHS Design, sat down with one of the country’s leading credit unions, BECU. Together, we searched for answers to some challenging questions: How do we build a facility for the affluent Eastside community? How do we make transactions more efficient while boosting our advisory services? How do we make a statement to the Eastside that this credit union is as sophisticated in its business offerings as any local bank?
10 Months later, we had the answer. This is a photo tour of BECU’s Eastside Financial Center. Together, we’ll take a careful look at the spaces that make this facility so special.
Strategic brand design: A driver of growth, enhanced culture and unique experiences
One of the keys to unleashing the potential of an organization to step into the next level of market growth is building and clearly articulating a unified brand strategy and brand-driven culture. With it, you can inspire and guide internal teams towards meaningful change and consistent communications that align to build a fresh and well-differentiated brand image. This can create a unique experience in the market, generating meaningful differentiation from competitors.
One of the first challenges facing most financial institutions is identifying whether your current brand program and messaging is helping – or hindering employees from knowing how to behave consistently and help customers bank smarter, simpler and solve problems every day.
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BofA Now Knows When You’re in the House.
Confession. I’m a BofA customer.
I know, I know…. but c’mon, don’t be a hater.
I’ve been with them a long fourteen years and at this point, it’s just too sticky. Early on, I needed nationwide ATM access. Plus it was handy to tell my credit union and community bank clients that I had to do my banking… “neutral”. It was a safe bet that I wouldn’t be consulting with BofA in the foreseeable future. And if I ever did, I guess I would have to bank “off shore” or something. Whatever that means.
I find myself needing to visit our safe deposit box on a frequent basis and that takes me into the branch (hmm… isn’t it interesting how safe deposit box access is diminishing). Today, I was greeted by a pleasant concierge, which in of itself is not a new thing, but she asked to see my debit card. Then she swiped it. In seconds she was looking at my entire relationship with the bank.
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The branch ship has not sailed
Fear not. This isn’t yet another post in the long line of recent rhetoric on whether the branch is alive or dead. You may be the one without a pulse if you’ve missed the litany of pundits lining up to support or depose the branch as a viable channel in retail financial services. But, if you’re like me, you’ve grown weary of all the branch naysayers with their death-knoll drumbeat of how backward organizations are if they continue to invest in brick & mortar. Most of these tarot-reading prophets come from the IT world, or from international climes that don’t connect to mainstreet in any way, shape or form.
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