Index of Paper Presentations for the Parallel Sessions - Academy of ...

‗Our bank is located in the central business district, as you can see, but we don‘t just want toportray a ‗strictly business‘ atmosphere. Why not change our image? Many of our clients drop infor coffee at Starbucks and we are part of that jazzy feel…‘ (Assistant marketing director, BankA).Bank A‘s employees tended to feel they were part of a changing trend in how banking institutionswere perceived.Actually, we don‘t feel constrained by our image at all. People already know our brand. Theytrust us. They know we are not going to go away tomorrow (laugh). So, we can befriendly….(Marketing Manager, Bank A).Our bank looks more like a shop…you know, glam shop where you can drink coffee, tastecookies, local food, have a cup of tea. We are thinking about introducing new services all thetime. We change the music about…I don‘t know…about every few months. We like to changeaccording to special festivals and events. We have installed special plasma screens to show musicvideos, not just the same old boring news…our customers are hip and young (at least they want tobe, so why not….?). We have special rooms to help mature customers feel pampered as well(Customer Relations Manager, Bank B).We get very good training. Customer service, product training, everything…I think atmosphere ispart of the training, actually. Atmosphere helps us enjoy our jobs and we pass this on to ourcustomers. Of course, when things go wrong, nothing helps! But we have to control our emotionsand atmosphere does that also…(Relationship Manager, Bank B).I like this bank. It doesn‘t feel intimidating. I also get very good service. Everything is welldesigned,I think. The couches are so, so, so comfortable – they‘re designer (couches), Ithink…(Customer, Bank B).Actually, banking is an experience, isn‘t it? So, why shouldn‘t it be like…quite fun? We used tohave to queue…which I didn‘t like much, but now we sit down instead and someone comes to askus what we want, sometimes they even offer drinks, tea, coffee…it‘s still professional but lessscary…(Customer, Bank A).Singapore, being a developed country and one of the key Asian hubs for financial servicesalready had a long standing tradition of retail banks that had established and well designedservicescapes. For Singaporean banks an international servicescape design that included all thetrappings of the best in design and layout was not adding much value and differentiation. Onapplying Hightower‘s (2010) ―International Servicescape Construct‖ we find that the Singaporean