Branch Experience for GE Money Bank

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Message Branch Experience It didn’t take a global financial crisis to make banking an unpleasant chore for many people in central and eastern Europe: Consumers there, though highly educated, have limited knowledge of the products and services available. Banking relationships are generally characterized by a lack of trust, experience, and understanding. Potential customers are often too embarrassed to ask questions, for fear of being seen as naive. GE Money Bank, a relative newcomer to the region, recognized this as an opportunity. Already perceived as a modern, stable, and global financial institution, GEMB had branded its services as easy, clear, and rewarding. Changing its retail branch experience to deliver exactly that was key to its growth. GEMB partnered with IDEO to reinvent its branch concept and in-store experience in three distinct markets: Poland, Russia, and the Czech Republic. The challenge was to do so while developing a scalable footprint, keeping build-out costs and incremental headcount to a minimum, and coming up with a flexible marketing materials for diverse communities and languages. The new “retail branch experience” would embody the brand and meet these strategic objectives. The design team talked with customers and staff in 10 cities and observed their behavior in 25 branches and 50-plus analogous sites. The biggest issue they uncovered was that the bank staff’s gestures and spatial cues were encouraging an “us vs. them” atmosphere, rather than the desired “we.” They also identified two basic customer “journeys” — one task-oriented (“I have to do something”), the other question-oriented (“I have to ask something”) — that informed their core design principle: customer space should match pace. They conceived three possible branch floor plans, and after conducting tests with full-scale mock-ups and collecting more feedback, the team selected the most effective design. Whereas in most banks customers line up and wait for the next available teller, GEMB’s new retail branch experience reshapes how customers meet with employees, placing the emphasis on service. The spatial layout resembles a restaurant more than a traditional bank; GEMB and IDEO reconceived back-of-house activities and added team rooms and features that make welcoming clients, cash handling, portfolio management, and organization much easier. The first branch based on the new design opened in January 2009 in Bystrc-Brno in the Czech Republic. Management is supporting the concept with enthusiasm, shifting its approaches to training, marketing, and merchandising. Bank employees, who had to make adjustments in their operations, have expressed a strong desire to work in the remodeled branches. The approach shows great promise for engaging customers, too — an enviable competitive advantage in any market. http://www.ideo.com/work/branch-experience-for-ge-money-bank

It didn’t take a global financial crisis to make banking an unpleasant chore for many people in central and eastern Europe: Consumers there, though highly educated, have limited knowledge of the products and services available. Banking relationships are generally characterized by a lack of trust, experience, and understanding. Potential customers are often too embarrassed to ask questions, for fear of being seen as naive.

GE Money Bank, a relative newcomer to the region, recognized this as an opportunity. Already perceived as a modern, stable, and global financial institution, GEMB had branded its services as easy, clear, and rewarding. Changing its retail branch experience to deliver exactly that was key to its growth.

GEMB partnered with IDEO to reinvent its branch concept and in-store experience in three distinct markets: Poland, Russia, and the Czech Republic. The challenge was to do so while developing a scalable footprint, keeping build-out costs and incremental headcount to a minimum, and coming up with a flexible marketing materials for diverse communities and languages. The new “retail branch experience” would embody the brand and meet these strategic objectives.

The design team talked with customers and staff in 10 cities and observed their behavior in 25 branches and 50-plus analogous sites. The biggest issue they uncovered was that the bank staff’s gestures and spatial cues were encouraging an “us vs. them” atmosphere, rather than the desired “we.” They also identified two basic customer “journeys” — one task-oriented (“I have to do something”), the other question-oriented (“I have to ask something”) — that informed their core design principle: customer space should match pace. They conceived three possible branch floor plans, and after conducting tests with full-scale mock-ups and collecting more feedback, the team selected the most effective design.

Whereas in most banks customers line up and wait for the next available teller, GEMB’s new retail branch experience reshapes how customers meet with employees, placing the emphasis on service. The spatial layout resembles a restaurant more than a traditional bank; GEMB and IDEO reconceived back-of-house activities and added team rooms and features that make welcoming clients, cash handling, portfolio management, and organization much easier.

The first branch based on the new design opened in January 2009 in Bystrc-Brno in the Czech Republic. Management is supporting the concept with enthusiasm, shifting its approaches to training, marketing, and merchandising. Bank employees, who had to make adjustments in their operations, have expressed a strong desire to work in the remodeled branches. The approach shows great promise for engaging customers, too — an enviable competitive advantage in any market.