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DSE 2012: Bringing bank digital signage out from behind the teller

A 134-branch bank wanted to use digital signage to create a more personalized and engaging experience for its customers.

March 9, 2012 by Christopher Hall — writer, self

Salt Lake City-based Zions Bank wanted to bring its digital signage out from behind the teller and to create an interactive customer messaging and engagement experience for its patrons.

The bank worked with Broadcast International, also headquartered in Salt Lake, to create that experience, and BI used its booth at to this year's Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas to at least in part re-create the Zions Bank experience.

"We wanted to bring in the Zions experience here to the show to show how a complete end-to-end digital marketing and merchandising solution might work," said BI Vice President of Enterprise Sales Kevin Lawrence.

Zions Bank had deployed digital signage before, but it was — while good — a more passive experience with digital screens behind the tellers, Lawrence said. Zions wanted to their digital merchandising to be more interactive and engaging and to touch bank customers throughout the branch. The bank also wanted to leverage mobile interactivity and touch to increase engagement with customers, he said.

Now, in a six-location pilot, the first thing customers see when they enter the branch is a digital poster that eliminates previous print signage, allowing the bank to create additional campaigns and have them presented in a playlist and to use QR codes to make them interactive with smartphones.

As the customer walks past that poster, they are handed off to the next touch point, a checking or transaction stand where they can fill out deposit slips or other paperwork — and where they can interact with tablet-based signage. Customers can interact more with the touch tablet and interrupt its pre-scheduled playlist to access information of personal interest to them.

There are also still screens behind the tellers, but they now display both bank-wide messaging as well as content specific to the branch. The bank also has deployed tablets at the teller windows, allowing more direct messaging to the customer designed to drive interaction between the teller and the customer.

And finally, BI also installed digital signage in the new accounts area, using a different messaging strategy to inform new accountholders of the bank's financial products. And BI also uses music in this area, both to increase customer ease and satisfaction and to create a kind of privacy curtain for conversations.

BI also brought two Zions Bank executives in to this year's DSE to talk about the pilot program. Project Manager Marsha Baldwin and Vice President of Retail Marketing Marilyn Taylor said the new system is helping to re-brand the bank and has been even easier for them to implement than they'd hoped.

"It puts us in the digital life, and it updates us in the world of today," Taylor said.

Zions Bank is in the midst of conducting exit polling at the six branches in Utah and Idaho to which the new system has already rolled out, and the reaction "has been extremely favorable," she said. Zions Bank plans to roll out the system to all of its 134 branches next.

Baldwin said she initially expected to need more people to work on the project than she did, but the combination of BI's managed services approach and the ease of use of the system have surprised her.

"It really is easier than we imagined," she said.

And the new system has changed the branch experience, Taylor said. The bank can now advertise all of its products and services digitally, rather than focusing on one product for three months with paper merchandising, she said.

"And we can also have the community message out there, so the experience of the branch is that yes, we are a community bank," Taylor said. "We have community messages up there, and here are many products and services, because everyone who walks through the door isn't looking for the same thing ... The experience for our customers is much better."

And that community and location-specific marketing makes Zions Bank a personal bank, rather than an impersonal leviathan, Lawrence said.

"Now instead of it being Zions Bank and 130-some-odd large branches, it's about my bank," he said. "It's a different connection."

Taylor also had some parting advice for others considering going digital. To her, she said, it should be about creating an entire experience and a whole environment, and about making a statement that the bank is engaging with digital and embracing the future.

"I would just say that people should, before they engage in digital signage, know what they want for an end result and have a goal in mind, instead of 'piecemealing' one piece of signage like one thing behind the teller line and letting the rest go," she said. "It makes sense to figure out, 'What do we want overall for the customer experience as they enter the bank?' and know what that is and create that up front."

Read more about digital signage in banks and financial institutions.