At 9 a.m. today, Dec. 5, BECU is opening a 3,000-plus-square-foot financial center at 551 N.E. Northgate Way, Suite B, according to our sister blog PhinneyWood.
With our branch’s opening, the BECU inside the Greenwood Safeway is also closing today, PhinneyWood reports. Stacie Wyss-Schoenborn, vice president of member solutions for BECU, told the blog that the Safeway branch was just too small:
As some background, BECU decided to leave the Greenwood Neighborhood Financial Center to provide both our members and employees a better overall experience. With just under 400 square feet, it proved challenging to consistently provide our members an exceptional experience. Additionally, given the close proximity of desks maintaining member’s confidentiality proved at times difficult. The new Northgate branch will be over 3,000 square feet and the existing Greenwood staff will also be relocating to the new location.
That’s wonderful! Hopefully they’ll give GHCU (lousy customer service and a high turn over rate) some serious competition!
Did they at least leave an ATM at the Safeway?
A “Grand Opening” is planned for mid-January. We visited the Northgate Branch on opening day, saw that the branch has lots of floor space, double the online/telephone banking kiosks. I agree with the difficulty of maintaining member confidentiality in small spaces: while waiting in the designated lobby area, or doing express banking, I could hear the members discuss their finances from ten-fifteen feet away at one branch.