Citizens Bank had developed a strong differentiated brand position and implemented it across many of their touchpoints including advertising, customer service, and product offerings. The challenge was to align the branch environment with their brand positioning and further deliver on the customer experience.
“We asked our customers what we could do to make their experience even better, then tapped one of the nation’s best retail design experts to deliver on that feedback.”
Chairman and President, Citizens Financial Group
- Reflect the Citizens brand personality
- Deliver on the brand credo (a commitment to customers, colleagues and community)
- Facilitate easy, self-directed banking with a personal touch
- Conducted extensive branch audits and management interviews to understand Citizens brand personality
- Developed detailed design criteria and Customer Experience MappingSM
- Created an impactful storefront appearance with bold graphics, 3D merchandising and other techniques customarily employed by fashion retailers
- Used illuminated “Hello” pylons to greet the customer in the entryway, with chocolates and special Citizens offers
- Created large-scale graphic interior “billboards”—uncharacteristic for a financial institution—to give an emotional tone to the environment
- Placed an oversized check desk in the center of the branch to also serve as a central community table
- Used unexpected, up-tempo music in the ATM vestibule and lobby
- Represented local citizens in the branch with a ticker of local facts, a bulletin board for posting notices and local events and specially focused community merchandising