The Future of Branches

The Future Of Branches

View more presentations from Jeffry Pilcher.

“The Future of Branches” is another presentation by Jeffry Pilcher, Publisher of The Financial Brand and President/ICONiQ. It takes a look at trends in retail branch design, and examines the best practices for engineering a branded financial environment. The presentation features 50 photos and dozens of examples.

Here’s a summary of the main points.
- With your next branch, be deliberate, strategic and intentional.
- Don’t just do “what you’ve always done.”
- You need to build your branch around interactions, not transactions.
- Think like a retailer. Move from “fortresses” to “stores.”
- Cross-sell your financial products and services.
- Think in terms of retail zones. Create retail destinations.
- Create brand theater.
- Have a retail street presence.
- You can create a secure environment without compromising your retail focus… and without turning into Fort Knox.
- Make it enjoyable.
- Make it memorable.
- Differentiate.

The Idea is merely not about designing the brick yet also the social interaction of Customers get by going into branches. Staff are also the most important aspect of the in-branch experience (see slide 11).

The presentation was focused on design, as promised in the presentation’s title, “The Future of Branches - Trends in Retail Financial Branch Design.” And there were a number of tips in the presentation about how to use branch design to maximize sales. It was also pointed out that the examples included in the presentation aren’t necessarily recommendations. They are used for illustrative purposes only. Many are included simply to show extremes. And some are examples of what not to do (such as UNCB’s Starbucks-style “Gold Cafe”).

The presentation was never designed to be an all-encompassing exploration of branches. The Author, packed what he could into this webinar (which was intentionally built to be visually-based).

Stay tuned for Issues concerning staff and the strategic role/purpose of branches, which hopefully shall be considered by the Author for future “Future of Branches” presentations.

Source : http://thefinancialbrand.com/2009/05/14/the-future-of-branches/

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