Redesigning the Bank Branch Experience
Summary
Overview
This was the second project phase that Idea Couture did for BanRegio Grupo Financiero, a Mexican regional bank. Previously, the team studied the experience of the first 90 days after becoming a BanRegio customer.
Objective
Assess and understand the general public and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) customers' overall experiences in bank branches.
Methods
Trend scan + Interviews + Card Sorting
Insights
General Public: clients are looking for self-service options, and any online interactions with the bank are affecting loyalty and trust.
Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs): clients seek an in-person consult and a place to connect and learn from others.
Recommendations
Community: Provide small and medium enterprises (SMEs) the space for networking with other enterprises.
Advisory: Offer expert financial advice to customers on 1:1 conversations for goal setting.
Retail: In-person digital services that clearly show customers the value proposition of BanRegio’s products and services.
Impacts
New and innovative experience for BanRegio’s customers, who now have access to personalized financial services and a closer relationship with their bank.
Background
Idea Couture collaborated with BanRegio Grupo Financiero, a Mexican regional bank with around 150 bank branches in Mexico. Previously the Idea Couture team explored the experience of the first 90 days of new BanRegio customers to understand pain points and people's desires in financial services.
As a second phase of the previous project, we explored the current and future customers' financial services needed to design a new banking experience. We explored the physical and digital spaces and human interactions between bank teller-customer, financial advisor-customer, and customer-customer.
Role: Lead Design Researcher.
Tasks: Interviewed clients, analyzed and synthesized information. Formulated key takeaways and design recommendations. Collected and reviewed emerging trends relevant to the industry.
Collaborator: Veronica Vela, Project manager
Objectives
Identify general and SME clients needs for interior design in bank branches when seeking financial advisory and commercial banking services.
Examine the SME client's desires for
community creation settings and activities.
Assess general client's adoption of digital banking services to understand pain points and needs for future online service development.
Approach
Trend scan: to explore the future of retail banking services and
analogous industries.
Interviews: to understand financial advisory needs, the current perception of the bank’s products and services, and the space where group activities occur.
CardSorting: to evaluate the preferences for retail bank branch spaces and perceptions of human interactions during their visits.
Cognitive Walkthrough: to understand user needs when using digital bank service
Insights
Money might translate into achieving hopes, dreams, and changes in expectations of one's life. But bank branch design, bank tellers, and financial advisors and services do not necessarily treat this topic with the same relevance as customers.
Life stages also influence an individual's relationship with money. As a secondary effect, this impacts customers' relationships with banks.
Banks should focus on three crucial opportunities for change:
1. From transaction to service
Individuals want a bank branch focused on providing a service rather than transactions. Customers perceived that they opened up and trusted a bank with their money but obtained few benefits in return.
They expected an expert to manage their finances but have met with a new bank employee every time due to a high employee rotation. People perceive that employees might be biased by personal gains when offering certain bank products and services.
2. From bank branch to store experience
Customers disliked the overall banking experience. Visiting the bank branch and managing money are unpleasant activities that may encourage them to avoid seeing the bank branch.
The bank branch is the preferred channel to get banking products since the call centers and digital services alone have not been efficient in previous experiences.
3. From individual experience to community creation
Products seem abstract and complex. Customers tend to rely on digital services to comprehend the current product offering because visualizations help conceptualize the value of financial products.
Self-service and digital transactions are rising in Mexico, and bank branches are becoming redundant. Although people still want to have human interaction to generate trust, which is essential for financial services, loyalty, and customer closeness.
Recommendations
Organize events in the bank branch where clients can create meaningful connections.
Organize events in the bank branch where clients can create meaningful connections. Arrange networking events, workshops, and chats to discuss relevant topics for BanRegio's clients. Allow clients to launch and show their products during the 'networking nights.' Such events could translate to a marketing strategy and empower clients to improve their business.
Have a financial advisory service that customizes the products and services to the current client's dreams and goals.
We recommended hiring experts who can have one-on-one conversations and create good client relationships. Implementing a CRM system that supports the link between customers and banks and analyzes the information obtained from this platform would enable BanRegio to develop new products and services.
Build a bank branch with an interior design that sets up the stage for specific behaviors.
Create an environment that invites customers to stay longer in the bank branch, similar to a coffee place or retail store. Have adaptable spaces according to the needs of the customers' visit and locate the bank branch in a regularly visited area (e.g., inside shopping centers).
Impact
BanRegio started implementing Idea Couture's recommendations in the La Rioja bank branch. Recently, in 2021, BanRegio opened a new bank branch in Mexico City, including some of our teams' recommendations to create a closer relationship with their clients.
In 2016, we shared with BanRegio:
Branch Design Manual: We included a list of trends for retail store experiences, including technological tools and interior design. Our team developed architectural blueprints and interior design plans for new bank branches and detailed furniture selections for the different spaces.
Human Interaction Manual: Financial advisors manual with a description of how to interact with clients and guidelines for HR when recruiting employees. We assembled a Human-Interaction Manual, mapping ideal customer experiences in each focus area (financial advisory, networking, and retail). Using the Cleaver DISC Assessment, we defined the ideal employee's profile. We included the desirable customer journey maps highlighting customers' tasks, touchpoints, the financial advisors' tasks, and back-end actions and tools needed to succeed.
