Now bank at your own Virtual Branch

Urja Communications, a pioneering Interactive design and marketing firm, recently conceived and designed a very innovative, first of its kind website, i-zone (http://izone.icicibank.co.in), for ICICI Bank. i-zone is a virtual branch of a bank with virtual staff but real customers and real transactions. Urja and the ICICI Bank team worked to develop the website visualizing the minutest of details right from deciding the business flow of transactions offered at this virtual branch to designing the lay out, selecting the models, writing their speech, recording the shoot and even selecting upholstery of the furniture. We used web 2.0 features such as Java scripting, AJAX etc to provide rich multimedia experience to the users. It’s a novel concept, very simple to visualize but complex to execute.

The first prototypes explored different options of the bank layout, seating of staff and how the user would experience an interaction with a “real” branch officer online. The virtual branch was designed in and created using architectural principles (in auto cad), and based on actual ICICI Bank branch layouts.

The real challenge was to deliver these contents over slower connection speeds without compromising the user experience. We conducted several trials, did bandwidth testing, tried streaming servers and eventually hit the right combination of content and bandwidth. This is a beta site and over the few next months the website will be made more interactive, including more products and services.

According to Priya Sarin Singh, Creative Director at Urja Communications who spearheaded the project, “The i-Zone truly stretched the possibilities of what a brand can do in the online space, in terms of extending its customer experience and using technology to create more touchpoints.” “Being a prototype with no real precedent, it was pretty exciting and challenging to work on. 3 important things which were the basis of success for us - first coming to the right mix of technologies to deliver this experience smoothly on various connection speeds, secondly, getting the layout and the perspective right, and finally, marrying business requirements with the flow of communication intelligently.”

Contact Information
Shyamal Asangi
Business Analyst
B-3060, Oberoi Garden Estates
Chandivli, Andheri (E)
Mumbai 400 072
Tel: +91-22-2847 5730
Mobile: 9850553315
Email: shyamal@urja.com
Website: http://urja.com/