CX/UX / Financial Services
Redesigning GE Money Bank’s branches in Central and Eastern Europe so that waiting, queuing, and advice felt open and human instead of bureaucratic—and turning ten pilot branches into the country’s top-rated bank for customer satisfaction.
The brief
After cost cutting, the pre-crisis performance of GE Money Bank’s top 10 Czech branches was only average. Queuing and consultation were broken, and the branches still mirrored a Communist-era bureaucracy: no privacy, no transparency, and less business.
An operational assessment recommended growth in Central and Eastern Europe through a redesigned branch experience. Our job was to find out whether better design could lift branch performance—and to prove it.
After one year, the pilot branches grew customers 2.6x, loans 2.3x, and deposits 4.3x per branch, and moved the bank from #6 to #1 in consumer satisfaction in the Czech Republic.
Process
Six weeks of design research across 8 cities in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Russia: 28 customers, 39 staff, 25 branches, and 150 analogous sites in retail and hospitality.
We synthesized four behavioral archetypes and the moments that matter in a branch visit, then set five design principles, from “start with the basics” to “act as ‘we’.”
Concepts were built and tested at full scale through role play, leading to separate paths for quick cash transactions and for consultations, constructive waiting, and private conversation coves.
Ten branches were built and tested in the Czech Republic in 2009, and the results after one year of piloting are shown below.
Six weeks of fieldwork in eight cities across the Czech Republic, Poland, and Russia, with customers, staff, branches, and analogous retail and hospitality sites.
Furniture and layout carried a totalitarian power dynamic, putting staff and customers on opposite sides of the desk.
Customers waited and consulted in the same crowded space, with no privacy and no clear order.
Four behavioral archetypes—Pilots, Partners, Passengers, and Patients—mapped against the moments that shape a branch visit.
The principles captured what we heard and observed in the field and guided every design decision that followed.
Three spatial concepts—sequence, diner, and hive—explored different ways to organize the branch around customers.
Spaces were prototyped at full scale and tested through role play, the most reliable way to check that a layout creates the behavior we wanted.
One path keeps cash transactions moving quickly like a sidewalk; the other slows down for consultations like a living room.
A library of products sits next to what they make possible—local car dealers beside car loans, real estate beside mortgages—showing what a bank does while customers wait.
Conversation coves replaced adversarial desks with seating that puts banker and customer side by side.
A simple nudge: posting peak hours encouraged customers to visit when the branch was least crowded.
Ten branches were built and tested in the Czech Republic in 2009, with transparent facades that show what a bank is instead of hiding it.
Per-branch customers, loans, and deposits in 2008 compared with 2009, after one year of piloting.
Film
Previous case study
Human Performance Institute
Next case study
Patient Adherence Redesign