What do Walgreens, Starbucks, and the Olive Garden have in common? Their message is clear: What you see is what you get.
I frequent the Olive Garden because their products, services, and price are consistent. Visit any Olive Garden West of Tuscany and expect to have a similar experience. Their message is clear. The Olive Garden brand is the total experience. Quality food, clean facilities, and prompt service are all important, but it is the experience that brings me back.
A common question after eating at a certain restaurant: “Would you go back?’ Good food is essential, but the total experience is what brings people back. A successful bank has the essential products and services and an environment that fosters their brand and delivers a meaningful customer experience.
The organizations identified above have products and services that are understood, and the customer always gets what they expect for their dollar. No brick wallpaper or Tromp L’oeil. And why is clarity and consistency so important? It builds trust. Your customers trust you to deliver quality products and services – consistently and with clarity. In the banking business the word “trust” is often in your bank name.
Are you a garden variety bank? Is your bank’s message clear? Do your customers and prospects understand what you are selling and what they are getting?
If your message is not well defined – conduct an organizational audit.
Why do an organizational audit?
The organizational audit is a cultural inventory that analyzes who you are as a group. Banks promote their services and myriad financial products but not enough to establish market distinction. The organizational audit is a process that defines your bank’s culture and identity by mapping your organizational thumbprint – which is your history and organizational evolution.
I define your brand as “the result of the promises you make to your banking customers.” Your bank has a brand. Is it the message you want to send? Have you created the kind of experience that will bring people back?
Although logos and artifacts are important visual elements, it is the environment that reinforces your bank’s identity. An environment transcends bricks and mortar; it extends to areas like wall displays and check desk pads. Your bank’s historical critical path is a string of significant events that has formed your culture. The unique historic path of your bank is your bank’s “cultural thumbprint.” Define the critical path and you will be closer to clearly defining the organization.
What is an organizational audit?
Websters defines organization as “an administrative and functional structure” and “audit” as “an examination of an organization’s or individual’s accounts or financial situation and a methodical examination and review.” The organizational audit is a formal examination of a group’s administrative and functional structure. The organizational audit surpasses the analysis of a Bank’s functional structure and defines a bank’s soul by looking beyond organizational charts, business plans and financial statements.
Key elements of the organizational audit include:
- Researching the historical origin of ownership, customers and community.
- Mapping bank facilities.
- Tracing trends and bank services provided over time.
- Performing an historical demographic analysis.
- Analyzing the bank’s logos and names, assessing graphic connections from origin to current graphics standards.
- Analyzing graphics, colors and tones in printed materials, on your website and in your facilities.
- Grading continuity among all customer touchpoints, including your electronic branch (website).
- Creating or updating your bank’s style guide.
- Collecting historical images from bank archives, community records and libraries.
- Tracking census data.
- Identifying indigenous influences including neighborhood businesses, bank customers and climate.
So, where do you start?
Find three firms that provide consulting and design to financial institutions. Request a response to a qualifications-based request for proposal provided by you that includes:
- Define the term “brand” in the context of banking.
- How will your firm:
- Define the bank’s brand?
- Integrate the bank’s culture into future bank designs?
- Shape the bank’s image and brand?
- Establish the relevance of the bank’s culture to its image, brand and future facilities?
Assemble a facilities team comprised of strategic bank personnel and your consulting firm to create the organizational audit together.
The organizational audit aids in defining your identity by assembling the required ingredients, tossing around new ideas, mixing them in with conventional wisdom and historical precedent, and peppering it all with references to your new cultural identity. Conduct an organizational audit and make this the era of your bank’s
salad days.
