6 practices to adopt in appointment-only branches

The COVID-19 pandemic has given Community First Credit Union of Florida ($2.0B, Jacksonville, FL) license to reimagine its branch experience. Through the aid of its process improvement team, the credit union has reconsidered the utility of its brick-and-mortar offerings, rethinking transactions and traffic entirely.

In the wake of the pandemic, the Florida credit union adopted an appointment-only model in its branches to safely accommodate those who needed the in-person experience — need being the operative word. The credit union aimed to reroute as many transactions as it could to its digital channels, leaving universal tellers in the branch to process more complicated fare.

“We want everyone to have a better experience,” says Jimmy Lovelace, the credit union’s senior vice president of member experience.

According to Lovelace, the appointment-only branch strategy only works when members understand, and follow, the appointment system. For Community First, moving to and maintaining an appointment-only experience presented more than a few challenges, and Lovelace has identified several best practices from the past year post-switch. Here, the executive pinpoints six that credit unions should consider when implementing appointment systems of their own.

 

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