While reading a recent article in The Financial Brand, How to Turn Every Branch into a Destination Worth Leaving Home For, I couldn’t help but think of a destination that I’ve visited many times, one with which millions of people are very familiar. It’s a destination that nearly 50 million visit each year.
You know the one. Walt Disney World.
I thought, well, there are certainly a number of lessons that branch-building community banks could take from Walt’s $90 billion entertainment company. And that’s because, as I see it, the principles that make Disney destinations successful are remarkably similar to those that can make community banks indispensable to their communities.
Lesson 1: Hire for attitude. Train for skill
Where does it start? Disney doesn't hire employees. It hires cast members. And that designation isn’t simply semantics. It's philosophy. Every employee is a member of the cast, a performer. From ride operators to custodians to hotel housekeepers, each contributes to the guest experience.
Disney's Traditions is an onboarding program that immerses every cast member in the company's service culture before they ever meet their first guest. The goal isn't simply to teach procedures; it's to teach purpose. This emphasis on culture has long been documented by the Disney Institute, where organizations worldwide can “leverage our expertise to help strengthen your organization’s customer experience.”
For community banks, the lesson is clear. Customers rarely remember the interest rate. They remember how they were treated. Every teller. Every lender. Every receptionist. Every interaction.
Lesson 2: Test it first
One of Disney's greatest strengths is that everything the company does is “put to the test.” The company never bets anything on an untested idea. Disney’s Imagineering team prototypes attractions, studies guest movement, tests queue designs, evaluates restaurant concepts, and refines experiences long before opening day. According to Disney Institute, Disney's innovation process relies heavily on “experimentation, iteration, and learning,” rather than assuming the first idea is the best one.
Lesson 3: Listen obsessively
While Disney always imagines big and always tests the waters first, the company excels at one of the most critical functions of marketing; It listens. Disney is continuously collecting guest feedback, whether it’s a resort stay, a product purchase, or a planned film release, through surveys, mobile apps, social media, customer observations, mystery shoppers, operational metrics, and frontline employee insights. The company continually measures satisfaction in a never-ending process of refining and refreshing. What’s working? What isn’t? Why? Why not? As a result, it is almost a certainty that a visitor will never have the same, memorable experience twice. Guests should, according to “The Disney Way,” enjoy a new and different experience with each visit.
The Disney Institute notes that “guest feedback drives continuous improvement across virtually every aspect of the experience.” Banks should ask themselves: How often do we ask customers what they think? The best branches evolve because customers help design them.
Lesson 4: Make service the real attraction
People assume Disney's attractions create loyalty. Research suggests otherwise. Again and again, guest surveys find that cast members consistently rank among the most memorable and satisfying aspects of a Disney experience. Each cast member is courteous, friendly, and helpful. And they routinely receive some of the highest satisfaction ratings in Disney's own guest feedback and in independent customer satisfaction research. Disney has built an entire culture around four service standards: Safety, Courtesy, Show, and Efficiency, with courtesy serving as a foundational principle taught to every cast member through training at the Disney Institute.
The rides matter. The hotels matter. The fireworks matter. But what visitors remember are the people. Community banks should remember that. Customers may initially choose a bank because of convenience. Is the opportunity to sit in the branch with a laptop and do remote work important? Is the ability to order a decaf mocha skinny latte grande worth the visit? Does removing walls really make that much of a difference?
According to American Banker in "The bank-branch café is still booming," the short answer is yes. Look at Capital One. By most measures, Capital One's Café concept has been very successful, although perhaps not in the way most banks traditionally measure branch success. That’s because “Capital One didn't set out to build better bank branches. It set out to create a third place; somewhere between home and work where people could comfortably spend time, whether or not they were banking customers.” While traditional bank branches are often evaluated by deposits opened, loans originated, or transactions completed. Capital One appears to be measuring something broader:
- foot traffic
- customer engagement
- brand affinity
- relationship building
- financial education
- and opportunities for meaningful conversations
As Jennifer Windbeck, Capital One's head of retail bank channels and operations, explained in Coffee, Sculpture, and Financial Advice: Banks try to make new branches less intimidating”:
"Banking shouldn't be that experience of someone sitting in a suit behind a desk talking about your loan application, but it should be someone who is sitting with you, offering to help you through those questions about money and finances."
The cafés combine a coffee shop, coworking space, financial education center, and light-branch banking into a single environment. The result? “Financial conversations happen naturally rather than across a traditional teller line.”
The American Banker article notes that when Capital One introduced the concept more than a decade ago, many questioned whether consumers would embrace a hybrid coffee shop/bank. Years later, the publication concluded that the cafés were “a hit worth reinvestment, with Capital One refreshing existing locations and expanding the model.”
And expand it, they have. According to Capital One’s website, it now operates more than 60 Café locations across 18 states and Washington, D.C., and continues to market them as community spaces where anyone, not just a customer, is welcome to work, study, attend events, or meet with a banking ambassador.
Becoming a destination
The Imagineering team at Disney doesn't ask: "How do we build another theme park?" It asks: "How do we create an experience people can't wait to return to?"
Community banks should ask the same question. A branch shouldn't simply be a place to cash checks. It should be a place where customers feel welcome. Where financial conversations happen comfortably. Where expertise meets hospitality. Where relationships are built. Banks spend millions designing buildings. Disney reminds us that people don't fall in love with buildings. They fall in love with experiences. And that's a lesson every branch-building bank should take to heart.
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Want to learn more about what we can do for your community bank and your marketing efforts? You can start by visiting bankmarketingcenter.com. Then, feel free to contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or via email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com. As always, I welcome your thoughts.