The Investment Center at Naugatuck Savings Bank’s main office at 87 Church St. in Naugatuck offers a comfortable setting for those seeking to do business with the bank.

At Naugatuck Savings Bank, most customers don’t race from the front door to the teller, conduct their business and race back out again.

Distractions abound in six of the bank’s 10 branches. Customers who do business at the bank’s main office at 87 Church St. in Naugatuck may be drawn into a cozy nook, called the Investment Center, where three off-white armchairs face a flat-screen television showing a financial news network and where the walls are lined with publications like Forbes or Money magazines.

Other customers might make their way across the room to one of the two computers sitting on a curved, blue desk that faces another flat-screen television, this one tuned to CNN. Here, customers can check their e-mail or instruct their children to park in front of one of the computers, where child-friendly Web sites are bookmarked, while they conduct their business.

If the teller counters weren’t mere feet away, the room – which is decorated in yellow, blue and cherry-toned wood – would look like a sophisticated living room, or maybe a cyber-cafe in Boston’s Beacon Hill or on New York City’s Madison Avenue.

But the bank’s design is not merely intended to be inviting and attractive.

“We have adopted … a more retail-oriented design,” said bank President Mark Yanarella.

The design of the building allows for more interaction between bank employees and customers and is the product of a new philosophy that more and more banks are using.

If a bank hasn’t caught on to the fact that it has to be “customer-centric,” then it’s behind the times, according to Peter Govoni, senior account executive at the Rochester-based firm Willey Bros., which designed some of Naugatuck’s branches in the new style and has worked on helping banks across New England develop their brands.

Over the past few years, banks have found they need to move from a “you need us” attitude to a more competitive “we need you,” retail-oriented attitude, Govoni said.

Banks designed like cyber-cafes, or even traditionally designed banks with small changes, such as bigger waiting areas or round tables that take down barriers between customers and bank employees, are all intended to create a path through the bank and push customers past displays touting the institution’s products. The design incorporates strategies that retail stores use, Govoni said.

Just as important as making customers aware of the bank’s products is facilitating interaction between customers and staff.

“There’s more of an awareness that it’s important to interact with people in the branch,” Govoni said.

At Naugatuck Savings, the Investment Center and the computers with Internet access help with that goal, Yanarella said.

Some of the branches also have a Loan Center, where customers in the center’s waiting area can use a computer program that allows potential borrowers to experiment with landscaping or additions for their homes. Computers there also have relevant Web sites, like the Kelly Blue Book site, bookmarked so customers can do research while they wait.

Personal Service

Areas like the Loan and Investment centers offer opportunities for bank employees to approach and start talking to customers, Govoni said.

“Banks want to have more than a quick in-out for their customers,” he said. “The intent is that they train their customer service staff to interact.”

The computer stations at Naugatuck’s branches also have benefits beyond letting customers check their e-mail.

“It gives us a great place to demonstrate our online banking,” Yanarella said.

The personal service customers receive at banks like Naugatuck is more necessary than ever if banks want to stay alive, Govoni said. Online banking services are common and give customers fewer reasons to come into the branch. But if a bank’s employees can start offering good service, advice and personal attention that customers can’t find on the Internet, they can keep customers flowing through the doors, Govoni said.

“The branch keeps a personal transaction,” he said.

Yanarella decided to revisit the designs of Naugatuck Savings’ main office, as well as its nine branches, about two years ago after he attended a conference in California. Since the bank offers services, such as investments, that many other banks don’t, Yanarella wanted the difference to be reflected in the bank’s look.

The design also helps customers feel more at home in the bank, Yanarella said.

“We made it a very comfortable lobby to be in,” he said. “I think people really like it.”

Banks modeled after cyber-cafes have become more common in the past five years, Govoni said, and are familiar sights in metropolitan areas like Boston and New York City where banks have a lot of competition.

But cyber-cafes aren’t the only way to make a bank more customer-friendly.

Rockville Bank, based in South Windsor, has been moving into Tolland and Coventry, where it is hoped customers who have been shying away from the merger of Tolland Bank, New Haven Savings Bank and the Savings Bank of Manchester will come its way.

The branches in Tolland and Coventry are both in temporary locations now, but President Bill McGurk hopes to give the branches a taste of the cyber-cafe look when they open their permanent locations.

But he doesn’t plan on going whole hog. Because of the merger, he wants to project the bank as stable, with few ongoing changes, so the new branches will have a traditional look with a few technological perks.

“That will be kind of a blend [of old and new],” he said. “You can’t flout that kind of tradition.”

The bank has a customer base of mostly 35- to 55-year-olds, along with some older customers.

“We do have a nice element of older customers, who don’t like us to change anything,” McGurk said.

So the new branches will have features like the flat-screen televisions showing CNN and computers with e-mail access, but won’t have the very modern look of other banks using that kind of technology.

Rockville Bank has used some other, less advanced technology in its other branches. Some have customer-operated change machines that are free to bank customers, as well as Legos with which children can play.

Even with the new amenities that banks are offering, they still need to stick to banking basics, Govoni said.

“The branch still needs to be about location, location, location,” he said, adding that perks such drive-through windows and quick service will always be important.