The Top 5 Takeaways from Future Branches Boston 2025
At Future Branches Boston 2025, senior leaders, retail strategists, and technology experts from banks and credit unions gathered to share their ideas about the evolving role of the branch. They revealed that success hinges on bridging the gap between internal expectations and real-life customer experiences, as well as investing in the right people and tools to drive branch growth.
Below are the five most important takeaways from the event. These lessons provide a clear blueprint for financial institutions ready to rethink their approach and deliver meaningful progress in retail banking.
Takeaway 1: Branches Must Evolve from Transaction Centers to Relationship Hubs
The purpose of bank and credit union branches has fundamentally changed. Leaders must recognize that successful branches of the future will prioritize relationship-building and advisory services over transactional activities.
Branches Are an Opportunity to Deliver Advisory Services
Most bank customers and credit union members conduct transactions online. This leaves branches to fill another purpose.
As Gina Bleedorn, President & CEO of Adrenaline, explained in the session "Branching Reimagined: Merging Data and Design for Strategic Transformation”
"The purpose of the branch has literally done a 180 from what it used to be. First, the branch is your front door. It's your beacon, your billboard. Second is that it delivers financial advice. Third is that it delivers actual human service. Fourth is servicing transactions, which is what most bank branches still in existence today were originally built for. However, this will be the least important purpose for branches going forward.”
This shift requires institutions to reimagine their staffing strategies and employee skill sets. Interpersonal skills, empathy, and emotional intelligence are now important characteristics of a branch employee.
Branches Should Deliver Human-Centered Experiences
In in "A Human Edge: Defining the Branch of the Future”, Michelle Kile, Chief Retail Banking Officer of Washington Trust talked about how there is no single "right” answer to what a branch experience should be. "There are so many diverse customer bases that we have amongst our branches, and as we heard earlier, it's not a one size fits all approach. It can't be,” said Kile. "So when we're looking at our branches today, I am thinking of, ‘What's our purpose? Who are we trying to serve and why? What is the value?’”
Taylor Standlee, Head of Client Value and Outcome-driven Innovation, Amdocs Experience+Digital Engineering Studio, highlighted that there is a gap between upper management’s understanding of the customer experience and what customers experience first-hand: "76% of executives and leaders think they're ‘killing it’ in terms of the experience they provide,” said Standlee, "and only 26% of their customers agree.”
This massive gap underscores the need for financial institutions to focus intensely on the human element of service delivery.
Human-centered experiences are also now critical within the scope of hiring practices. As Lindsey Strange, Senior Vice President and Chief Retail Officer at Valley Strong Credit Union, noted in the same session:
"It really is about taking the people and orienting them; making sure you're, first of all, hiring the right people who understand how to execute on what you're looking for,” said Strange. "I'm of the mindset that I can teach my team member how to do the job, but it’s a harder time finding that sparkle or that fire in their belly, which I know we're all looking for every single day.”
Customers and members who enter branches want to have an experience focused on their needs. They want staff members to recognize them as their neighbors and be passionate about solving their problems.
Branches and branch staff that can deliver that highly-engaging experience develop stronger relationships between financial institutions and their communities.
Takeaway 2: Personalization Requires Deep Data Integration and Proactive Customer Engagement
True personalization extends far beyond using a customer's name. It demands sophisticated data integration and proactive service delivery that anticipates customer needs before they arise.
Branches and Touchpoints Should Be Linked Seamlessly and Act Automatically
Leaders must invest in systems and strategies that create seamless, intelligent experiences across all touchpoints. This includes adding automated services and, in the future, agentic AI.
Seun Aiyese, President and Head of Retail Banking at Southern Bancorp, emphasized this point in "Living Up to the Promise of Personalization”: "Imagine a customer calling about an overdraft fee and trying to stay in the queue to talk to an agent. The system could read the patterns and refund the fee.”
In Aiyese’s scenario, the connected banking system has automatically detected a fee that should be refunded and executed without customer intervention. However, Aiyese takes it a step further:
"You could then allow the [Interactive Voice Response] to say, ‘If your call is about an overdraft fee, it has already been refunded. Check your account in your mobile app, and you'll see. Thank you for being a customer. We appreciate you.’”
This level of proactive service requires breaking down traditional channel silos. Under a fully connected organization, automated systems could take the next best action available to them to prevent customers from having to wait on the phone or wait in line to resolve issues.
The System Must Respect the Customer’s Time
Nick Carr, Retail Project Manager and Banking Officer at Rockland Trust, shared a compelling example in the same session:
"The real quality of personalization comes down to whether the customer must explain their issue only once. We can track what the customer says on any designated channel, so whoever they receive assistance from, they are going to know exactly what’s going on. This way, you don’t ever have to put them through the trouble of explaining everything again.”
The technical infrastructure supporting this personalization must be robust and integrated. Whether the customer started their journey digitally or at the branch level, all data must be synchronized across channels and touchpoints.
This gives the bank or credit union the power to deliver efficient, personalized services in every context.
Takeaway 3: Employee Investment Drives Customer Experience and Financial Performance
One compelling concept from the sessions was that strategic investment in employee development directly correlates to both customer satisfaction and bottom-line results. Heartland Bank and Trust's transformation demonstrates this principle perfectly.
Heartland Bank & Trust’s Mentorship Program
After implementing their comprehensive retail mentor program, Deanne Conterio, Senior Vice President and Retail Banking Director at Heartland Bank and Trust, reported during the "Invest in the Future: The Value of Workplace Mentorships” session:
"We saw a significant increase in confidence among our new hires... 90% felt confident in their position, and about 83-85% felt good about the training. We then surveyed the more tenured employees... only about 60% of them felt properly trained and confident in their jobs.”
Employee Investment Reduces Turnover
More importantly, this investment translated to a measurable business impact, with turnover dropping from nearly 50% to 24% in just one year.
This isn't merely about retention costs—it's about the fundamental connection between employee experience and customer experience.
"Employee engagement equals the member customer experience,” said Lisa Zbrozek, Vice President and Retail Project Manager at Heartland Bank and Trust, during the same session. "The bankers are the ones who create the long-lasting relationships.”
Institutions prioritizing comprehensive onboarding, mentorship programs, and ongoing skill development create a competitive advantage that compounds over time.
Takeaway 4: Strategic Technology Integration Enhances Human Capacity Rather Than Replacing It
The fourth crucial takeaway is that successful digital transformation focuses on augmenting human capabilities rather than eliminating human touch points. This is especially important in AI implementation, but it is also true of most initiatives that involve automation.
Freeing Staff to Have Valuable Conversations
The most innovative institutions use technology to handle routine processes that don’t add value to customer experience. This frees employees to focus on relationship-building and complex problem-solving.
"About 75% of our new account applications are not decisioned by a staff person,” said Malori Schlosser, Digital Services Leader at Whatcom Educational Credit Union-WECU®, during the "Closing the Gaps in Account Opening and Customer Acquisition” panel.
"They're decisioned by automation, which then frees up a whole lot of time for our staff to really have those valuable conversations with our members.”
Leveraging automation in this way eliminates friction points while preserving the human element that customers value most.
Expanding Access and Convenience
Tracy Matula, Virtual Divisional Leader at SECU, described a similar experience during the "Virtual Branches and Video Banking Channels” fireside chat.
SECU’s virtual banking initiative enables business members to engage in transactions when they want to, regardless of the credit union’s schedule. Since business members must run their own businesses during business hours, they have a difficult time getting to a branch if the branch operates only during business hours.
"We were two weeks out with appointments, which was both a good thing and a bad thing,” said Matula. "We currently have sixteen staff members at the virtual financial center… and we also started expanding our hours.”
Once members found out about the credit union's new expanded virtual hours, SECU saw its appointment "no-show” rate fall dramatically. The organization then added its "open lobby” feature, which allowed members to queue virtually for hands-on services.
"Our business members now have the same opportunity to speak with a dedicated specialist.”
Takeaway 5: Take a Pragmatic Approach to AI Implementation
Banks and credit unions are now racing to transform branches with AI. However, one of the most critical insights from Future Branches Buston 2025 is that they should avoid trying to achieve perfection instantly.
Instead, they should embrace a pragmatic, step-by-step approach to AI, and they should start with simple, high-impact applications.
12 Minutes Each Day to Master AI
Frank Lazaro, Consultant and Author at Frank Lazaro, LLC, captured this perfectly during his "Building an AI-Ready Organization” presentation:
"You don’t need a specialty app to become an AI-ready organization. Our CRMs, platforms, and core banking applications are all going to incorporate some form of AI.”
Instead, Lazaro challenged the audience to "focus on the next 12 minutes, not the next 12 months.”
This concept emphasizes making small, consistent daily investments in generative AI tools to achieve significant time savings over the long term. By dedicating 12 minutes per day to using AI, individuals can save roughly an hour per week, which adds up to about 40 hours per year—the equivalent of a full workweek for each employee.
"If you're a 200-person bank, that's 80,000 hours. That's roughly four full-time employees’ worth of time,” he said.
This approach is particularly powerful because it addresses the real barriers to AI adoption: employee skepticism, resource constraints, and organizational resistance to change. By demonstrating immediate, tangible benefits through simple applications, institutions can build confidence and competency while their more complex AI initiatives develop.
Expect More Actionable Insights at Future Branches Austin 2025
As retail banking enters a new era of strategic transformation, real progress will happen when the entire community unites to share, learn, and grow together. That’s why Future Branches Austin 2025, happening November 18-20 at the JW Marriott in Austin, TX, promises to be essential for anyone shaping the future of banking.
Be part of the next wave of innovation and join hundreds of industry peers—come to Future Branches Austin 2025 to exchange ideas and drive retail banking forward.