Can Interactive, ‘Minority Report’ Signage Save the Branch?

Digital signage could do a lot more if banks were willing to put the technology to its full use and make the signs truly interactive.

The use of digital signage in bank branches is approaching ubiquity. A 2013 survey conducted by digital signage provider John Ryan found that 60% of respondents had deployed digital signage in their branches, and another 20% planned to do so within the next 12 to 24 months.

Digital signage allows for rapid and creative updating of formerly static items, and presents a lively, modern environment for branch visitors. Branch managers can control content locally, posting community events and presenting region-specific offers, while a central broadcasting hub can send out more general messages that may appeal to customers across the branch network. Further, studies show that customers pay significantly more attention to dynamic signs, and remember their messages better, than static ones.

That all sounds great, but the same John Ryan survey found that more than half of those who had installed digital signage were only “moderately satisfied” with it.

The missing piece may lie in interactivity.

“The technology exists today for digital signs to become a one-to-one marketing tool,” said Angela Vanderburg, digital practice lead for retail financial services at Stratacache, a Toronto-based digital signage firm. “When a customer walks into the branch, the technology is already there to greet them by name and present a relevant message.”

This sort of one-to-one marketing is already at play in Europe, Vanderburg said, but in North America, things are different. Stratacache’s research suggests that North Americans value the human touch and speaking to another human more that Europeans. “Banking is very different here [in the U.S. and Canada,]” she said. “It’s a cultural thing, how banks interact with people.”

In other words, banks are holding back on fully deploying the technology that already exists within their walls.

In the North American context, the signs are seen as a prop for branch employees.

“The new technologies are not trying to de-person the branch,” Vanderburg said. “They are there to empower employees to have a conversation with customers. The fear of looking stupid makes [customers] avoid conversations in the branch.”

Cultural differences aside, however, banking customers across the globe are moving more toward self-service for transactions. Interactive signs could play an important role in the branch is by sending messages to customers’ smartphones. In this way, a customer could carry on a private conversation while standing in a branch interacting with a digital sign.

In South Korea, technology like this is in already in place in the subway stations. Transit-riders can order food and other products at large signs, which interact with customers’ phones to authorize payments. Interactive signs from banks could do this too — but ordering a home loan is a different matter than ordering dinner.

These sort of technologies still seem a bit “Minority Report” to North Americans. “Banks are hesitant about being on the cutting edge,” Vanderburg said. “They want to be able to leverage the technology without impacting how people view them.”

Eventually, economics could force the banks’ hands. Leveraging the connection to the mobile phone is too good a chance to pass up, and if banks are going to hold onto expensive branches, they need to make them pay. Looking to Europe and Asia seems like a sign of things to come.

“We’re a few steps behind [in the U.S. and Canada], but moving in that direction,” Vanderburg said.

See an interactive sign in action below.