Taxing questions: how flexible is your office? Your Furniture?

Some of the environmental solutions H&R Block came up with during a recent redesign--such as the use of flexible, easily disassembled furniture--are relevant to banks and other financial services providers.

The tax preparation service's 9,000-office network is highly unusual. Two-thirds of these offices are open only four months each year. During those months, 16.5 million clients visit the offices. Before the annual tax season begins, Block wains over 80,000 tax professionals through in-office classes. The office located in Sears department stores--700 of them--need to be completely dismantled and removed at the end of each tax season. And if that wasn't hard enough, Block sells only complex financial services products--tax preparation, financial planning services and mortgages.

How do you create an environmental solution that can address all of these demands? The company decided to focus on value, flexibility and a design system that constantly showcases the company's expertise. Managers understood the redesign challenges, but they also looked for opportunities. Their solution has four components, each intended to convey a particular type of "experience": Educating clients on the breadth of services available; creating through promotion a reason to try services now; creating a private collaborative consulting experience; and, using flexible furniture design to support "classes for tax pros and consumers.

Each redesigned office consists of five zones:

* Attraction zone, Windows and doors create calls to action that prompt passers-by to have their taxes prepared "here and now."

* Decompression zone. Oversized merchandising provides product orientation on mortgages, tax preparation and financial planning.

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