North Shore Bank opens small, high-tech branches
Focus on bright interior, self-service stations
For decades, bank branches were built to have a fortress-like look and feel. All-brick or concrete exteriors, few or heavily tinted windows, teller counters separating customers from employees.
“Some of the old styles were designed to intimidate — supposed to look big and rugged and sturdy and safe, like bombs could go off and your money would still be safe,” said bank consultant Bob Meara. “That’s not the design philosophy anymore.”
Now, Meara said, the issue for bankers is, “How do we make it welcoming and get customers to be engaged right when they walk in?’”
For some, that has meant a more casual atmosphere — bankers in polo shirts, someone near the door to act as a virtual host.
Brookfield-based North Shore Bank is taking it a step further, creating an environment
that reflects customers who are used to FaceTime and open-design spaces.
The bank has been building cutting-edge branches to replace dated ones located nearby. Its latest opened last week at 403 W. Silver Spring Drive, just across the street from Bayshore Town Center in Glendale, where the bank had a mall-based branch.
The branch features:
❚ Windows nearly from top to bottom on the street-facing sides of the exterior, making the interior bright with daylight and giving passers-by a look inside.
❚ A “concierge” banker who greets customers and asks what he or she can do to help, including demonstrating the bank’s consumer technology.
❚ A curved “teller pod” instead a teller window, where a customer can stand next to the banker and look at a computer screen displaying a personal account together instead of being on opposite sides of a counter.
❚ A private room and video connection where a customer who needs to talk to a mortgage or loan expert can have a screen-to-screen conversation without leaving the branch.
❚ A self-service coin counter that is free for use by North Shore Bank customers.
❚ An ATM and drive-through video teller service that lets people talk with a banker live seven days a week.
“Branches today really are a mixture of people and technology,” said Susan T. Doyle, senior vice president of retail banking at North Shore Bank.
North Shore now is building a state-of-the-art branch at 4060 N. Oakland Ave. in Shorewood to replace two old branches, each less than a half-mile away on N. Oakland Ave. Those two, one of which is North Shore Bank’s original headquarters, will close when the new Shorewood branch opens, probably in May or June.
Last year, a newly built Jackson Park branch at 4230 W. Oklahoma Ave. in Milwaukee replaced an old branch building, and a new full branch replaced a grocery store branch in Green Bay. Both feature an open design concept and advanced technology.
In all, North Shore Bank has 46 branches in Wisconsin, and there are plans to modernize some other locations as well. North Shore, with assets of about $1.9 billion, is the seventh-largest bank headquartered in the state.
Now that many people and businesses do a lot of their banking online or via mobile apps and come into branches less often, there’s no longer a need for big branch offices, Doyle said.
“We typically are putting up 1,500- or 1,600-squarefoot branches,” Doyle said. “We used to build 3,000- to 3,500-square-foot branches.”
A new-design branch can range in cost from about $500,000 to $1 million, depending largely on the price of the land where it’s built.
Although talk in the banking industry for years has been that branches will fade away as technology advances, people — even tech-savvy millennials — still want access to a physical bank, Doyle said. The branches give people a choice on how to do their banking, she said.
“Branches are alive and well, and we need branches because customers choose to bank differently,” Doyle said.
Meara, senior analyst in the banking practice of the financial services technology consulting firm Celent in Atlanta, Ga., said that while there are fewer branches as more transactions are performed digitally, people like to have a place to go to meet with a banker when necessary.
“Even digitally directed consumers — those who would just as soon go to their app to do all manner of banking as they do with all other things on their phone — still find themselves wanting to engage with a human and talk face-to-face when they’ve got a meaningful question or decision or problem,” Meara said. “So banks are trying to figure out, ‘OK, how do we have modern branches that are inviting, that aren’t so intimidating?’”
Although old school, one service of the new North Shore Bank branches that may prove to be a winner is counting coins free for people who have an account with the bank (or for a 5% fee for non-customers).
Some of the nation’s big banks, such as Chase, have stopped counting coins for their customers.
Meara likes the idea of having coin counters in the branches.
“Why not? In an environment where less people are coming into the branch routinely, you want reasons for new people to come in, even if it’s for coins,” Meara said. “They might come in, have a great experience, and the next time they need a banking product they’ll come to you.”
As part of the Bayshore branch’s grand opening celebration, this week customers and non-customers alike can count their coins free.
“We are then encouraging community members to donate loose change to help support Whitefish Bay and Nicolet high schools. North Shore Bank will match up to $1,000 of the coins donated to each school,” Doyle said.
North Shore Bank is believed to be the first Wisconsin bank to use video teller technology, in which a teller sitting in front of a camera and microphone in an office miles away talks live with a customer using a video teller station and performs transactions like check cashing.
North Shore has had video tellers for several years at some branches. Video tellers add convenience for customers and efficiency for banks, and Meara said they will become much more common at financial institutions in coming years. North Shore Bank’s video tellers are open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday in addition to 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday.
“Customers like that flexibility. They appreciate banking when they want to,” Doyle said.
North Shore Bank is part of the MoneyPass automated teller network, which Doyle said gives its customers no-fee ATM transactions at about 25,000 ATMs around the United States.
Jay McKenna, president and chief operating officer of North Shore Bank, said banks always need to pay attention to customer preferences.
“We listen to our customers, and they tell us what they want in terms of service delivery, technology and conveniences, and they are the ones writing the plan that we’re executing,” McKenna said. “And it will continue to evolve. We know that for sure.”