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Not Cookie Cutter Branches
Some CU branches are giving members the chance to see, hear, smell, taste and touch the difference from the bank down the street.

By Bryan Ochalla

June 2, 2008

Editor's note: The following first appeared in the June 2008 issue of Credit Union Management.

If someone walked into one of your branches wearing a blindfold, would they have any idea they're in your credit union?"

Jeff Stephens, founder and CEO of Portland, Ore.-based Creative Brand Communications, answers his own question with a succinct, "Probably not."

Stephens, a former marketing project manager for Umpqua Bank, also based in Portland, isn't picking on CUs. "The answer would be 'no' for most financial services providers," he says.

You don't need to buy a blindfold to test out Stephens' theory-covering up your logo will suffice. Without it, he suggests, "most people wouldn't know if they're in your credit union or the bank down the street-because sight is the only sense being used to create an experience."

The same can't be said for some companies that have developed a strong brand, Stephens says. "Take Starbucks: If you put on a blindfold and walked into a Starbucks, you'd know where you are. Their stores certainly have a distinctive smell, but there's more: The sound of the coffee and espresso machines in the background and of the music playing overhead and the feel of the fabric used on the furniture all point to the fact that you're at a coffee shop and, in particular, a Starbucks. 

"Covering up the Starbucks logo wouldn't change a thing," he adds, "because they've made calculated design decisions that engage all five senses-not just sight-and create a unique experience for every person who walks through the door."

Credit unions hoping to leverage the branding power of the senses have to

utilize all five of these tools that are at their disposal and can help create the deepest experience possible for consumers," according to Stephens. "Most financial institutions haven't even begun to do this," he adds. "You could say that if they have five hands, four of them are tied behind their backs."

Following The Umpqua Example
Stephens says his former employer, Umpqua Bank, is one of the few financial institutions with all five arms free.

The much ballyhooed bank engages all of its customers' senses-for instance, it incorporates sound into its branches by playing music produced by local musicians and even lets customers create their very own, personalized CDs. But the way Umpqua addresses sight may be the most interesting to credit union executives.

Stephens says Umpqua Bank has "infused itself into the fabric of the community" as the final step taken in a three-step process of building a successful brand: Find your story, tell your story and prove your story. Umpqua proves its story in its branches because "visually, every square inch is dedicated to aligning the bank branch with the neighborhood it resides in," he says.

A few CUs already are applying that valuable lesson.

For instance, $14.1 billion (Canadian) Vancity Credit Union, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, has been building community-specific, theme-designed branches since 2003.

"We don't 'cookie cutter' anymore," says Sherry Scoular, manager/facility planning at the 392,000-member CU.

Endicott, N.Y.-based Visions Federal Credit Union has taken a similar approach to building branches since 2000.

"We used to build branches that looked like what everyone else was building," says President/CEO Frank Berrish, a CUES member. When the credit union, with $2 billion in assets and approximately 120,000 members, expanded into northern Pennsylvania, "we knew our brand wouldn't carry over to the people in that state. We're well known in New York, but we were pretty much unknown in Pennsylvania at the time."

The first branch the credit union built in Pennsylvania didn't do much to alleviate the problem. "It was flat," Berrish says. "It didn't do anything to set us apart or grab anyone's attention."

Visions FCU's second Pennsylvania branch was another story. "We challenged DEI [a Cincinnati-based design/build firm and a CUES Supplier member] to come up with a design that didn't look like every other branch in the area," Berrish says.

"There were six banks on the strip already," he adds. "We knew that if we built a branch with four sides and flat roof, we'd just be the seventh.

"We wanted to differentiate ourselves from the competition. We wanted people to walk through the door of that branch and say, 'Wow. This is not your typical financial institution.'"

The result is a five-sided, tin-roofed branch that reflects the community's love of the outdoors. Antique fishing gear hangs on the rustic, timber-lined walls, as does a panorama of people using similar equipment in nearby creeks. A pup tent pitched in the middle of the lobby hides a television that occupies kids while their parents complete their transactions.

"It looks and feels like a Yellowstone lodge," Berrish says.

Another of Visions' branches, built in Watkins Glen, N.Y., in late 2004, looks and feels like a winery-fitting, as the village of about 2,000 rests within the Finger Lakes wine country. A third, built in Norwich, N.Y., late last year, harkens back to when the town of nearly 4,000 was a stop on the Chenango Canal (which connected the Susquehanna River to the Erie Canal in the mid-1800s but was filled in after it was closed in 1878).

"The branch looks like something that might have been around in the canal days," Berrish says. The rustic wood and stone exterior give way to an interior that features many of the same elements: flagstone walls, antique wooden tables weathered by ball-peen hammers, a black-and-silver stove straight out of the 1800s-even a 12-foot-tall waterfall.

"We wanted it to seem homey," Berrish says. The original plan was to bake cookies and make coffee in and on the aforementioned stove, but the health department put the kibosh on that one. "We do serve coffee," he adds, "but it's not made on the stove."

Still, the 2,917-square-foot branch serves its purpose: to differentiate Visions FCU from the competition. "There's another bank in town that has $4 billion [in assets] and probably 60 to 70 percent of the business," Berrish says. "We wanted people to come to our branch instead, but we knew that if we built a branch that looked like any other bank branch, we wouldn't be able to do that." The branch has surpassed its one-year goal in just 5 months, Berrish says.

Scoular says Vancity CU came to a similar conclusion after former CEO Dave Mowat joined the CU in 2000. (Mowat left last June to become the president/CEO of ATB Financial in Edmonton, Alberta, and was replaced by CUES member Tamara Vrooman the following month.)

Shortly after he started, Mowat toured the credit union's branches "and realized they were dead dull," Scoular says. "That certainly doesn't keep people from being intimidated when they walk into a financial institution, which is usually how they feel."

So, the new CEO and his staff went back to the drawing board "to create environments that make people feel relaxed, make people feel like they can sit down in a comfortable chair and drink a cup of coffee," Scoular says.

At the center of Vancity CU's newfound strategy is the knowledge that its members "wake up on Saturday morning and go to the local bakery, the butcher, the grocery store-and their local financial institution," Scoular says. "We want to be part of the community in that way and we want to look like the community, too."

In 2003, the CU went a long way to accomplishing that goal when it built a branch in Lynn Valley, a community located in the midst of Coast Salish territory in North Vancouver, British Columbia. A local First Nations artist was commissioned to create a 16-foot totem pole that serves as the centerpiece of the branch, which also houses a veritable forest of trees and a rock wall. (First Nations in Canada is equivalent to Native American in the United States.)

Focus group participants who suggested having the totem pole and rock wall were wowed when they came to the new branch's grand opening, saying things like, "You actually did what we described." Employees said they were pleased to work there. Plus, the branch's numbers have been excellent.

"Our branch thrived from day one. That project started us down the road to where we are now," Scoular says. "We thought, 'Well, that worked well. Let's keep doing it!'"

And indeed, Vancity CU has continued to engage staff members and the community in making stand-out facilities. Twelve of the credit union's 59 branches have been "theme designed" thus far. Scoular says about three branches are renovated each year, as are any branches that are brought into the fold through merger.

Vancity CU goes the extra mile when it builds branches in new locations by engaging employees and members of the community in the design process. To begin with, staffers are asked during focus groups what they think defines that particular community. While prepping a branch in Pitt Meadows, a rural farm community east of Vancouver, for instance, dykes, farms and herons made the shortlist, which was then passed on to an artist who came up with a series of sketches that incorporated the best ideas.

Those drawings were shown to members of the community, who provided feedback. The sketches were then handed off to interior designers who brought them to life in a branch that features a floor made of reclaimed barn board from a local farm, a teller line delineated by replicas of tractor fronts and a wall-size mural of the Golden Ears mountain that is visible from most of Greater Vancouver. 

The branch has been embraced by the community. But what about all those people who still have to do their banking in one of the credit union's "cookie cutter" branches? "Members and even employees ask me all the time, 'When is our renovation coming?'" Scoular says. "If I could renovate all of them at the same time, I'd definitely make a lot of people happy."

Know Your Neighborhood
Another credit union that has built multi-sensory branches that take into account the surrounding community is $426 million Amplify Federal Credit Union in Austin, Texas. 

For almost 40 years, the credit union, which currently serves more than 40,000 members, operated as IBM Texas Employees Federal Credit Union. After the powers that be expanded the credit union's field of membership to include anyone living in the Austin area, however, they decided to change its name to better reflect its services.

The CU's name wasn't the only thing that changed between 2004 and 2006-its five branches changed, too.

"We wanted to open things up and remove the barriers between our staff and our members," says VP/Marketing Kent White. Visitors understand what White means as soon as they walk into an Amplify FCU branch, all of which are remarkably uncluttered by the accoutrements usually seen in financial institutions. Although a rather untraditional teller desk awaits visitors at one end of a particular branch, the rest of the space is filled with café-style tables and chairs and a rolling cart that offers up locally brewed gourmet coffee and bottled water.

The flexible furniture was chosen for a few reasons: 1) it allows Amplify FCU staffers carrying tablet PCs to serve members anywhere in the branch (or outside, according to White, who says members sometimes complete transactions in the parking lot) and 2) it allows the credit union to hold "Amplify After Hours" events, such as a recent concert by Grupo Fantasma, which drew a crowd of 800.

Members can hear local performers at the credit union even when a concert isn't in progress, as an American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers license allows Amplify FCU staffers to play music that fits the "Austin scene," as White puts it. "You won't hear any elevator music in our branches," he adds.

"When you come in to an Amplify branch, you hear great music, smell coffee brewing and see someone walking toward you with a wireless laptop, so you can complete your transaction at one of our café-style tables," White says. "It's a much more relaxing experience than most people are used to in a banking environment."

Sight But One Sense
Amplify FCU, Vancity CU and Visions FCU may be doing some cool multi-sensory things in their branches, but they're far from the norm among credit unions, or financial institutions in general, for that matter.

"Most companies, credit unions included, only think about sight-if they think about any of the senses at all," Creative Brand Communications' Stephens says. "Even then, their thinking is pretty limited. They tend to think their brand is defined by their logo, the typography they use or the way their Web site looks. But that's only one small piece of the puzzle.

"The experience you have when you walk into a credit union branch can be broken down into many different facets and factors," he adds, "and sight is just one of the senses you use to create that experience. You're hearing and smelling and touching and maybe even tasting things, even if you aren't aware of it."

Stephens says he understands why credit unions have been slow to catch onto what the retail industry has known for some time. "Financial institution people in general tend to have tunnel vision. They're very concerned with what their competitors are doing or what their competitors have found to be successful, but they aren't all that good at looking at those outside their industry and learning from them."

Seattle-based culture consultant Denise Wymore agrees. "Credit unions are so good at R&D: rip off and duplicate," she says. "That's why they all look alike. They ask each other, 'Which architect did you use? OK, we'll use them too but we'll use different colors.'

"Why not use that strategy on Starbucks or Umpqua Bank?" she adds. "Those are the kinds of companies credit unions should be turning to for ideas and inspiration."

Bryan Ochalla, a former editor of Credit Union Management magazine, is now a free-lance writer based in Seattle.