The challenge
Community banking was at an inflection point. The existing teller system was approaching sunset in 2024 — not just technologically, but conceptually. The way tellers worked, the tools they used, and the experience they delivered to customers had been designed for a world that was rapidly changing.
The question wasn't just "what system do we replace this with?" It was a bigger one: what should the teller experience actually look like for the future of community banking?
That's the question Arvest Bank asked. And it's the question we set out to answer — not by assuming, but by going in and finding out.
What we did
The engagement was structured as a discovery initiative — meaning we weren't brought in to build something specific. We were brought in to find out what should be built, and why, and for whom.
That started with an extensive process review — analyzing over 400 individual teller tasks to understand what tellers actually do, where time is spent, and where the friction lives. Not what the job description says. What the work actually is.
From there we moved to primary research — frontline staff interviews to hear from the people doing the work every day, and competitive analysis to understand where the industry was heading and what other financial institutions were doing to get there.
Two patterns kept surfacing across everything we learned. First, heavy dependence on physical branches — especially in rural areas and for customers who weren't comfortable with digital banking. Second, manual paper-based processes that slowed efficiency and created inconsistent service experiences across the organization.
Five design principles
From the research, we developed five core principles to guide every recommendation — ensuring that whatever came next would be grounded in real user needs, not just technology trends.
Proposed solutions
With the principles established and the research findings clear, we moved to solution exploration — identifying specific interventions that could meaningfully improve the teller experience in the near term while laying the foundation for a more ambitious future state.
The future vision
Beyond the immediate solutions, the research pointed toward a larger vision for what the ideal teller experience could become — if community banks were willing to invest in the infrastructure and the relationships to get there.
Industry context
The research didn't happen in a vacuum. The competitive landscape was shifting in ways that made the findings more urgent — not less.
Rural banking institutions were investing in relationship banking but risking falling behind digitally — exactly Arvest's challenge. Urban banks were pushing hard on self-service, automation, and AI. And an emerging trend — banking integrated into transportation and mobility services — pointed to a future where customers would spend even less time in physical branches.
The window for community banks to differentiate on relationship while building toward digital wasn't closing — but it wasn't staying open indefinitely either.
What this work established
This engagement produced something more valuable than a feature list or a technology recommendation. It produced a shared understanding — of what tellers actually do, what customers actually need, and what the future of community banking could actually look like if the right investments were made in the right order.
The five design principles became a decision-making framework. The research findings became organizational knowledge. And the future vision became a north star that could guide technology decisions for years — not just the immediate system replacement.