Project
RCA Service Design Project for Lloyds Banking Group on 'Bank Branch of 2019'
My Role
Research, Problem analysis, Content creator, User test, Workshop facilitation
ShapeX
for Lloyds Banking Group
ShapeX is a strategy that empowers branch colleagues to take ownership of the bank branch to create a better work environment and ultimately shape better customer experiences.
The Brief
The brief from the Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) was asking to re-imagine what a bank branch should be and do in 2019. The role of the branch is unclear in 2019 due to shifts in customer behaviour; meaning more core banking activities are completed online. However, for many customers, the branch provides an important service, either because they don’t have access to digital and/or they prefer face-to-face communication.
Based on the brief, we needed to take into account that LBG has multiple brands (Lloyds Bank, Halifax, Bank of Scotland, Scottish Widows, Lex Autolease and more) and consider how a branch could accommodate those multiple brands. Also, branch colleagues are a vital part of LBG, so we needed to consider how their roles would fit with other elements of the service. Lloyds Banking Group's vision is helping Britain prosper, and our service had to take that into account. And lastly, we had to take into account the smart reuse of existing materials and low-cost improvements.
Business Problem
Through our research and interviews with people and branch colleagues, we found that the banking experience is not so much about sales anymore, it’s more about experiences and the collective branch effort. Therefore, rethinking the bank branch for the age of digital and self-service banking cannot happen without re-imagining the banks’ workforce, and their experiences.
Looking at today’s retail banks, we saw that banks are moving toward more customer centric experiences, but the problem is that currently, banks are still using staff as providers of service. However, since staff are the main link between customer and the bank, staff should be shapers of experiences rather than provides of the service.
But what does staff and branch colleagues as shapers of experiences mean? We see experience as two-sided spectrum. On one hand triggering autonomy for branch colleagues. On the other hand creating the feeling that you matter as a customer.
So then, how might we leverage branch colleagues to shape the branch experience?
The Service
ShapeX is a strategy that empowers branch colleagues to take ownership of the bank branch to create a better work environment and ultimately shape better customer experiences.
Ownership not on a materialistic level, but on a psychological level. Employees’ sense of psychological ownership for the organization is positively associated with both their attitudes (job satisfaction and commitment to the organization) and work behavior (performance and organizational citizenship).
