OP
Optimized, mobile service for meeting the customers at their convenience
The Finnish financial giant OP is aiming to deliver top customer experience while evolving from a traditional financial group to a diversified service company.
One of OP’s social responsibility principles is to offer services to everyone, including people outside of urban centers and without access to digital channels. Our shared challenge was to develop a service and space solution that meets people wherever they are in their day-to-day life making the service experience open for all customers. The project included developing a mobile service model, a toolkit and modular, mobile spatial solutions for service on the move.
Approach
On the one hand, our focus was in understanding the internal perspective of the service, ideating the new service concept and possible challenges together with the bank personnel. On the other hand, we also carefully studied the customers’ needs and preferences.
The design project focused on three intertwined areas: the service, tools, and spatial solutions.
Close collaboration and co-creation workshops with OP personnel and customers were key in the development and definition of the service model and mobile concept. The spatial solutions – including the service provider operating model – were also developed collectively with the client. Finally, based on the operating model, we designed, tested, prototyped and piloted the spatial solutions that satisfy the desired customer experience.
Result
OP on the Go modular solutions has led to both new kinds of customer encounters and to new ways of working. Customers now receive personal, full service at the On the Go service points without having to book a meeting. The service spaces are movable, modular, recognizable, easy to approach and safe. Moreover, the toolkit enables staff to provide financial services on the go and carries full access to OP´s in-house network.
The concept is a bold vanguard in the transformation of the banking business. Natural meeting points are formed around the modular spaces, where personnel meet customers as equals, while the mobile operation transforms the clerk from a salesperson to an associate. It is a representation of the new OP way that combines face-to-face and digital services whilst updating the internal service culture.
Tested in 15 locations during the autumn of 2016, the reception for the OP on the Go was positive. Customers felt that the service was useful, and OP recognized significant new sales potential.
- In 2016: 15 pilot testing locations
- In 2017: First OP on the Go team established
- In 2018: 50 OP on the Go solutions in use around Finland
“The OP on the Go is a flexible way to get customers’ business done regardless of time or space. It is lovely to be able to surprise the customer by being able to get their business settled on the spot.”
—Katja Malmberg, Customers Service Manager at OP Tampere
