design:retail - September 2017 - 36

shopping with paco

036

Butch Cassidy and
the 21st Century

PACO UNDERHILL
CEO & FOUNDER
ENVIROSELL

p.underhill@envirosell.com

T FIRST GLANCE, the bank

branch at Grand Central
Terminal in New York was
deserted. On closer inspection, there were eight people
working, all of them hidden
behind desks or Plexiglas panels. Customers
came in and out like scared mice. The bank was
sad. There was a Butch Cassidy fence; on one
side, the bank's private, secure area with some
visibility to the public, and then the corral for
the general public on the other.
Bank robbery was the driving force in retail branch bank design through the end of
the 20th century. Today, robbing banks is not
about the stick up, but about cyber crime. It's
done by techies and other bankers, not Bonnie
and Clyde, or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance
Kid. The bank stick-up scene immortalized in
countless movies still happens, but the crime
is more pathetic than mythical. Surveillance
cameras document the crime from multiple
points of view and the chances are excellent the
criminal gets caught and convicted.
Branch design is still thought of as retail.
E-Trade on Madison Avenue even won a store of the
year award from this magazine in 2001, only to be
closed about a year later, a victim of both 9/11 and
changes to the world of day trading. The branch
was innovative with coffee shops, lecture halls
and lots of interactive displays. The year it opened,
E-Trade sponsored the Rolling Stones on tour and
tried to do a deal with Target. It was all extremely
cool and extremely flawed.
Bankers like to talk about technology, and the
ATM and online banking have revolutionized the
industry. Many of us only walk into a branch when
we have to. Yet there is an inherent conflict that has
ramifications to the commercial design industry.
The overwhelming majority of American wealth
is in the hands of people who are 55 and older.

SEPTEMBER 2017

DESIGNRETAILONLINE.COM

How many of us over age 55 know how to deposit a
check using our smartphones? More of us might, if
there was someone teaching us.
Financial literacy is at an all-time low. Interview
a teenager about how a checking account works
and balancing a checkbook, and they'll have no
idea; it's a 19th-century art form. What we know
is that so many sales of bank products beyond the
basic credit card, checking and savings accounts
are sold in the lea of life events-getting married,
having kids, moving, etc. The natural place for that
education to happen is in a branch. Just like the
Genius Bar at the Apple store, sometimes we just
need some face-to-face help.
Most retail merchants and bankers have recognized the need for cathedrals, churches and

GLOBALSHOP.ORG

chapels. The flagship (cathedral) has become a
well-accepted exercise: a place to inoculate the
existing and potential customer with the brand.
In banking, it is the churches and chapels that
need the work. The American mainstream
branch needs to get smaller and more nimble.
While some form of teller services need to be
retained, the Butch Cassidy fence has to go.
At a Brazilian branch bank in a shopping
mall, a human concierge greets the customer.
The concierge can help with an ATM transaction, or escort the customer with consulting
needs to a small conference room where they
can teleconference with the appropriate bank
services expert. Technology and a two-person
staff, assisted by a friendly robot, translate into
a cool space, a small footprint, effective operating and labor costs, and hours that conform to
the other stores in the shopping mall.
The chapel is both the remote ATM and
online services. We visit chapels once we have
converted. We run in and run out. We are comfortable doing the things we know how to do:
pay bills, check balances. In 2017, I have never
deposited a check with my smartphone. For
the modern banker, I'm still an old codger. Butch
and I have made it to the 21st century.
Branch banking desperately needs a retail
makeover. What happens if real merchants like
Walgreens or Walmart recognize that offering banking services to their existing customers
might prompt shopping synergies that are in
the their interests and layer into their need to
build e-commerce functionality? Citibank,
Bank of America and Chase can finally get some
real competition.
PACO UNDERHILL IS THE FOUNDER OF ENVIROSELL AND AUTHOR OF
THE BOOKS "WHY WE BUY" AND "WHAT WOMEN WANT." HE SHARES
HIS RETAIL AND CONSUMER INSIGHTS WITH DESIGN:RETAIL IN THIS
BI-ISSUE COLUMN.

Photo by PACO UNDERHILL

http://www.DESIGNRETAILONLINE.COM http://www.GLOBALSHOP.ORG

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