Credit Unions Reinvent the Branch Experience

While bank executives are closing branches at a record pace, some credit union executives are reinventing their branches, allowing people to experience how and why credit unions are different.

Marketing professionals refer to it as either experiential brand marketing, the brand-marketing experience or engagement marketing.

To create that experiential brand marketing, credit union executives are redesigning branches and cross-training staff to make the credit union experience personal, memorable, different and engaging – indelible positive member emotions that simply cannot be duplicated through digital channels.

On any given day, you can catch Signal Financial Federal Credit Union President/CEO François Verleysen at his new pride and joy. It sits on a busy corner of New York Ave. NW in Washington. The new $1.4 million branch, which opened last October, has already attracted extensive local media coverage and always gets curious looks from passersby because, for one thing, the walls move.

“Every time you walk into this branch it looks a little different,” Verleysen said. “It really is a fun space. I think it has kind of energized not only our membership, but it’s energized our staff because it’s rebranding and repositioning Signal as being very innovative, and this branch really showcases it.”

Beyond the branch’s glass façade is a wide open space of about 4,000 square feet previously occupied by Google employees. While there are no permanently placed desks, chairs or office equipment, they can be easily accessed when needed by staff. There are no teller counters and no permanent walls in plain sight.

The Signal Financial branch features movable walls connected to a ceiling track system, enabling staff to configure the spaces they will need for the morning and reconfigure them again in the afternoon, if needed. Even the two glass-enclosed offices in the back of the branch have foldable office furniture that can be stowed away into cabinets and disappear behind another movable wall of carved wood panels, creating a wide open space for a community event or private gathering. The U.S. Mint held its holiday reception there.

What’s more, each panel of the movable walls has fabric on one side and a white board on the other. The walls can easily slide into place to create small, semi-private office spaces with portable desks and chairs, while data and power connections can be pulled down from the ceiling.

Two cash recyclers, each with a retractable screen and keyboard that lock up into cabinets, are used by staff to complete transactions for members without being separated from them by a countertop.

The movable walls allow for other configurations such as a conference room. And if staff members need a screen to view a presentation, it lowers from the ceiling, as does a bracket-mounted projector.

Verleysen got the idea for this new branch design from art galleries that have movable walls to create space configurations required by art shows. Last month, the new branch displayed the art work of a 26-year member and plans are in the works to highlight the talents of other members as well.

“When I was hired three and a half years ago, one of the things I told the board was that we needed to create the new credit union’s brand,” Verleysen said. “I began looking for somewhere to create a flagship branch to showcase how we’re going to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the credit unions and community banks, and how we’re going to make a difference.”

That brand message emanating from the City Center branch essentially states that instead of closing branches like other banks, Signal Financial decided to innovate the branch to create a modern place that is welcoming, engaging, friendly and safe for members, nonmembers and the community.

The left front section of the branch features a coffee bar counter with power outlets and six rotational chairs, where members and nonmembers are welcome to charge and scan their personal devices while sipping on a cup of java made fresh from an adjacent coffee machine. Behind the coffee bar hangs a large screen that sometimes promotes the credit union’s latest products and services, news headlines or events. In the right front section of the branch are two ATMs that members can access 24/7.

Across the nation, the $978 million iQ Credit Union in Vancouver, Wash., opened an Oregon branch in December in the vibrant North Williams neighborhood, an urban haven for young professionals who want to live near downtown Portland with easy access by bike, bus and freeway.

iQ’s full-service branch has a smaller footprint of about 1,500 square feet and includes two teller pods that can easily serve four members at a time. The branch also houses three offices with privacy doors, an ATM and a coin machine.

“What is different about this branch is our staff model,” Danette LaChapelle, iQ’s SVP of marketing, said. “All of the staff were existing employees and selected six months prior to the branch opening. They began training for all positions in a branch so that no matter what their members wanted, they would be able to assist them.”

As part of their training, these employees rotated through all of iQ’s branches in Washington State to learn how branch managers successfully serve members from soup to nuts.

“They can start the member with a teller transaction and invite them into an office for a more in-depth loan discussion,” she explained. “There is no need to hand them off to someone else. This is what helps to deepen the relationships.”

In addition to opening new branches with open designs that seem to help facilitate face-to-face interactions between staff and members, more credit unions appear to be cross-training employees to take care of a range of member needs, from simple transactions to working on loan applications or helping with investment inquiries, noted Matt Purvis, a brand expert and principal of Purvis Management in Eugene, Ore.

“When I came to the financial services industry, I ran one of the largest branch networks for US Bank in the Northwest, and it was a quick education for me on how frustrated consumers were when they had to go from person to person to person,” he recalled. “I think credit unions have a real great opportunity to do more with cross-training, and in some cases with branch design, to facilitate that ease of flow from one type of activity to another. That is a stronger relationship-building style and really contributes to member experience.”

After all, because consumers know that financial products and services are commodities, what can truly differentiate a credit union is the member experience.

“It’s that experience, that interaction, that sense that these people really know me, they care about me, I can feel it,” he explained. “Branch design is a big piece of it because for staff that’s used to just sitting behind an office desk or standing behind a teller row, that doesn’t help you do things differently. When consumers can really tell that you’re here for them, you’re really here to improve their financial life, that experience is really what you’re selling and when you can do that through design, action and behavior, the products and services sell themselves.”