An underused branch, store or customer space does not necessarily have a space problem. It may have a purpose problem.
Customer behaviour changes. Transactions move online. Service expectations develop. A location originally designed around one activity can remain physically usable while becoming less relevant to the people it was built to serve.
Experience strategy helps organisations decide what that space should do next. Rather than beginning with a refurbishment, it starts by defining why customers would choose to visit, which interactions benefit from taking place physically and what commercial role the location should play within the wider business.
Start with purpose, not the floor plan
When footfall or transactions decline, the immediate response can be to reduce space, close locations or add new features in the hope of increasing activity.
Those decisions can come too early.
Before changing the environment, organisations need to understand what customers still value about a physical experience. Some tasks may be easier online. Others benefit from reassurance, expertise, discovery, collaboration or face-to-face conversation.
The useful questions are therefore strategic:
- Why would a customer make the journey?
- Which activities work better in person?
- Where does digital create convenience, and where does it leave a gap?
- Which customer groups are not being served well today?
- What should the location contribute to the wider estate or channel strategy?
The answer can change the brief completely.
M Worldwide’s work with Syn Vodafone started with the question of why physical stores were needed in an increasingly digital category. Research showed that customers were comfortable researching online but still valued face-to-face expertise when making decisions about contracts, packages and bundles. The resulting pilot reframed the store as a flexible Digital Media Hub rather than simply preserving the established retail model.
Give the space a role customers can understand
Repurposing does not mean filling unused square metres with more things to do.
[Inference] Based on common experience-planning patterns, advice areas, events, hospitality, demonstrations, community facilities, learning spaces and flexible services may provide additional reasons to visit when they respond to a defined customer need and operating model.
A banking environment, for example, may need less room for routine transactions but more space for conversations and education. M Worldwide’s Lloyds Bank Manchester project responded to a shift towards advice-led engagement by rebalancing the branch around flexible support and advisory conversations.
M Worldwide also led the transformational design of Newcastle Building Society’s Monument branch, creating a human-centred environment shaped around the changing role of face-to-face financial services.
The important point is not that every underused space should become a community hub or an advice centre. The new role must follow the organisation, customer and location.
Avoid activity without a proposition
An empty area can make additional activity look attractive. Add seating. Install screens. Run events. Introduce a coffee offer.
None of those decisions automatically creates relevance.
If the customer cannot understand why an activity belongs there, the space can become busier without becoming more useful. New functions also create operational requirements: staffing, storage, technology, maintenance, communications and ownership all need to be resolved.
Experience strategy provides the logic for deciding what belongs.
A new function should have a clear relationship with the brand proposition, a customer need and an operating model. If one of those is missing, the organisation should question whether the idea deserves space at all.
Translate strategy into spatial decisions
Once the purpose is clear, environmental design can turn it into a practical experience.
Different propositions create different requirements. Advice may need privacy without becoming difficult to find. Events may require flexible infrastructure without disrupting everyday service. Product discovery needs visibility and room to compare. Community activity may need access outside normal trading patterns.
Planning therefore needs to consider:
- zoning and adjacencies
- sightlines and visibility
- privacy and acoustics
- staff positions and movement
- digital and physical touchpoints
- flexible infrastructure
- customer communications
- operational requirements at different levels of demand
M Worldwide’s Environmental Design approach explicitly combines planning, traffic flow, layouts, digital integration and operational workflows with the physical design of the environment.
The strategy defines why the space exists. Design determines how that purpose becomes usable.
Measure whether the new purpose is working
Repurposing should not be judged by whether a space feels busier after launch.
Measures need to reflect the role that has been defined.
A service-led environment might track appointment uptake, assistance requests or customer confidence. A destination may look at repeat visits, dwell or participation. A flexible retail format may consider conversion, service usage and space productivity.
Some new uses may create direct revenue. Others may strengthen relationships, improve service or make an existing property asset more productive.
The measures should be agreed before the new experience is designed so that the business has a clear definition of success.
Turn unused capacity into useful experience
Underused space is evidence that the relationship between a location and its customers may have changed. It is not, by itself, evidence that the location has no future.
Through its Transformation Programmes, M Worldwide uses experience strategy to help organisations define future visions and translate them into practical programmes of change across physical and digital touchpoints. Its Futureback™ process is designed to begin with the future state before working back towards nearer-term action.
For organisations reviewing branches, stores or destinations, the more useful starting question may therefore be less “How much space do we still need?” and more “What could this space now be useful for?” Contact M Worldwide to discuss how experience strategy could help redefine the role of underused customer-facing space.
Frequently asked questions
What is experience strategy?
Experience strategy defines how customer needs, business objectives and physical and digital touchpoints should work together. It gives design decisions a clear purpose before detailed execution begins.
How can experience strategy help with underused property?
It can identify whether a location needs a different customer, service or commercial role before the business decides to refurbish, reduce or close it.
Does repurposing always require a major redesign?
No. The appropriate response may involve changes to services, communications, zoning, technology or operations as well as physical design. The scale should follow the problem being solved.
