"At the beginning of last year, Ms Oppenheimer poached Helen Dodd, a retail design expert, from Tesco.
Ms Dodd, who has spent 20 years working out how to attract customers to shops and keep them there, trooped 250 Barclays customers and staff through the Northampton warehouse to test the new layout and technology.
Nothing was sacred, not even the good old British queue with the black tape barriers. The new Manchester branch is experimenting with a ying-yang-shaped queue, broken up by waist-height pillars housing computer games. The branch's space-age information desk is pure Apple store, while, according to Ms Dodd: “We're trialling a lot of different queueing methodologies - people do PhDs on this stuff.”
The childrens' play area is inspired by the Science Museum. There is no glass separating tellers from customers, to stop people from raising their voices, something that Ms Dodd believes makes banking more stressful.
Curves are used to make customers feel “warmer”, while the glass frontage will make women more inclined to enter. “At the moment, they don't feel welcomed into branches,” Ms Dodd said. Concierges, dressed in uniforms by the designer Jeff Banks, will issue customers with tickets telling them how long they must wait and even if they would be served more quickly if they went to another branch.
Getting the right doormat was key - customers like dry feet, so Ms Dodd found a mat that dried wet soles within four steps. The Manchester branch operates to the same timetable as other retailers, with late night and weekend opening."
Posted by Ed Cotton
(2) In 2006, Barclays Bank in the UK undertook an interesting experiment to try and transform the branch experience.
While most typical branch enhancements revolve around design, this transformation was all about language.
The objective was to use the materials in branch to forge a new conversation based on new language. The goal was to move from the old world of bank as powerful, but patronizing to a bank that's more approachable and human.
The whole exercise was illustrated by the shift from chained black pens to free pens with slogans.
Posted by Ed Cotton