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Introduction
The market-led view of competitive advantage is gaining increasing
acceptance and prominence in the literature (Mathur, 1988, 1992; Czepiel, 1992;
Bowman, 1992; Bowman and Faulkner 1997; Woodruff, 1997; Parasuraman,
1997; Slater, 1997). According to that approach, the key to gaining competitive
advantage is to add value to offerings more successfully than the competition,
in other words to create and maintain superior ``customer value''. Therefore, the
question of which elements of a particular offering are important in adding
value, according to consumers, becomes a key consideration as companies
attempt to formulate competitive marketing strategies. In a services
environment, and in particular in retail financial services, the characteristics of
such offerings and the resultant implications for consumer understanding and
the evaluation process may have profound implications for competitive
marketing strategy. That is to say, it is of little use an organisation attempting
to position an offering by emphasising a particular attribute which is little
understood, if at all, by its target market, or put more technically is not used as
a ``cue'' (Zeithaml, 1988) by constituents of that market. Equally, a firm trying to
position an offering as a low price alternative is not necessarily going to be
successful if consumers judge offerings primarily on other attributes.
Theoretical implications of the characteristics of services for the consumer
evaluation process have been advanced in the literature (Zeithaml, 1981; European Journal of Marketing,
Vol. 35 No. 5/6, 2001, pp. 639-660.
Gabbott and Hogg, 1994). In addition, Murray (1991) has offered an empirical # MCB University Press, 0309-0566
European analysis of consumer information acquisition in services. In the financial
Journal of services context, McKechnie (1992) has offered an overview of consumer buying
Marketing behaviour. Finally Cronin, et al. (1997) have carried out an initial investigation
into the construct of ``service value'' (i.e. customer value in a services context).
35,5/6 However, no large scale, systematic, empirical investigation of consumer
evaluation of service offerings, aimed at establishing which factors they judge to
640 be particularly important in adding value, has been carried out. Such an
investigation should aim to isolate factors which consumers use to judge
between offerings and should take account of the potential effects of variations
in service complexity and consumer knowledge. The investigation is important
as it will provide practitioners with an insight into consumer motivations for
choosing particular offerings over others. In turn, a more accurate insight may
enable managers to formulate more effective competitive marketing strategies
which attempt to provide superior customer value in those areas which are
important to the customer segment being targeted.
The investigation outlined here will focus upon retail financial services
markets. Financial services are arguably highly typical of service offerings in
general. Financial services are highly intangible and dominant and there are a
large number of financial services which the average consumer would
potentially find highly complex, meaning there may well be resultant problems
in terms of consumer cognition. Also many financial services are seen as high
risk purchases by many consumers, a view which may be exacerbated by the
fact that understanding is limited. Examples of the types of services which may
cause cognition problems are those such as schemes for pension provision, unit
trusts, investment trusts and share management services. In addition, the
financial services sector, which accounts for 6 per cent of UK GDP (Financial
Times, 1998), comprises a highly competitive set of markets where there has
been much environmental change in the last two decades. The resultant
competitive situation provides an excellent opportunity to investigate
consumer evaluation of typical services offerings and the implications for value
adding strategies and the gaining of competitive advantage. Although the
focus of this paper is retail financial services, it is envisaged that the findings
and managerial implications which result from the proposed investigation will
have a broader relevance, providing an insight into consumer evaluation and
resultant implications for adding value and gaining competitive advantage in
services markets more generally.
Thus, in this paper, factors affecting the degree of consumer understanding
of service offerings will be explored and the implications for competitive
marketing strategy analysed. Research propositions will be developed which
once investigated, it is hoped, will clarify pertinent issues for practitioners and
facilitate more effective formulation of competitive strategies. The paper is
structured as follows: the next section offers a brief analysis of the market-led
approach to competitive strategy. The following section considers consumer
evaluation of services. (In the interests of consistency and accuracy the term
consumers will be used in preference to customers, except where the latter has
been used previously to describe a particular construct or phenomenon.) The Consumer
next section covers the characteristics of the typical service offering. The evaluation
penultimate section develops research propositions in the light of the preceding
discussion, while the final section presents brief preliminary conclusions.
Service complexity
The question of service complexity was acknowledged as potentially important
in a recent study by Andreassen and Lindestad (1998) concerning the
importance of corporate image in engendering loyalty. Retail financial services
is a very broad term which covers a range of service offerings, from quite
simple offerings, which may be short term in nature, to those which are
potentially very complex and mentally intangible and difficult to evaluate.
Weinberg (1997) incorporated a distinction between simple and complex
services into his discussion regarding telemarketing of financial services. He
argued that simple services are those where consumers are more likely to
establish they have a requirement independent of any advice. He speculated
that consumers are also more willing to become involved in a search process for
such services, as such services tend to be straightforward and accessible. In the
case of more complex services there may be a lack of a voluntary need
recognition by consumers, which may mean that such services ``need to be sold
rather than bought'', as outlined above. Such services tend to be less
straightforward and accessible for consumers and advice may well be required
before features and benefits are understood, if indeed they are understood at all.
It may well be that a form of continuum exists between the two types of service
but it is suggested that services such as banking/transmission facilities,
personal credit and mortgages may fall into the more simple category, whilst
life insurance contracts, pensions and stock and share management may fall
into the realm of more complex services. A recent study (Devlin, 1996) provides
European preliminary support for such a line of thinking. He questioned industry
Journal of participants as to their perceptions of the complexity associated with various
Marketing types of retail financial services, and the results of a cluster analysis carried out
to group offerings showed that personal banking services, personal credit
35,5/6 services, mortgages and general insurance were perceived as relatively simple,
while life assurance, pensions, unit trusts, investment trust and shares were
644 perceived as complex. It is evident that such a schema represents a
simplification and it is suggested that further, more detailed research,
investigating the perceptions of consumers, is required to provide a more
detailed insight into how consumers approach the matter of service complexity.
Research propositions
The process of consumer evaluation of offerings and the potential implications
for adding value to offerings has been explored, from a theoretical perspective,
by a number of authors. Zeithaml (1988), looking at general consumer
perceptions of price quality and value, begins her exploration by introducing a
distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic cues, as well as a higher level
abstraction concept, when analysing consumer perceptions of quality and
value attached to offerings. Intrinsic cues are usually product specific
attributes, often tangible in nature. Extrinsic cues are external to the product,
with the examples of brand name and advertising being used by the author. An
important extrinsic cue is quality as defined by abstract dimensions which can
be generalised across offerings, which Zeithaml (1988) calls higher level
abstraction. When consumers are purchasing offerings where search qualities
are important in the perception of value and, hence, intrinsic attributes have a
high predictive value, then consumers will tend to rely on those intrinsic
attributes. However, Zeithaml (1988) argues that when intrinsic cues are scarce
(as is the case for many services), when it is costly in terms of time and effort to
evaluate intrinsic cues, and when the offering is high in experience and
credence qualities, then extrinsic attributes will be far more important in the
consumers' assessments of value. Extrinsic cues include quality of service,
reputation and advertising and promotion. Zeithaml (1988) continues by
stating that extrinsic attributes can serve as value signals and can substitute
for active weighing of benefits and cost, and this is likely to be the case,
particularly when the incidence of experience and credence qualities is high.
Relating such propositions to financial services offerings which are potentially
complex, it can be surmised that such a thinking may have important
implications for practitioners formulating competitive marketing strategies to
add value to offerings in the eyes of consumers.
European Zeithaml's (1988) arguments are similar to those made by Bharadwaj et al.
Journal of (1993), who state that when buyers cannot easily evaluate the qualities and
Marketing value of the service or capabilities of the service provider then brand reputation
may serve as an important proxy for more detailed evaluations. In the case of
35,5/6 financial services, branding is often at the organisational level (Devlin et al.,
1995). Bharadwaj et al. continue by stating that services which are highly
652 intangible and are, therefore, high in experience and credence qualities, will
find brand reputation important as a potential competitive advantage. They
also touch upon the role of relationships, stating that the formation of strong
relationships will be more important in attempts to gain competitive advantage
when services are highly intangible and, as a result, experience and credence
qualities are high.
Nayyar (1990) continues the theme by suggesting that buyers face a
potentially costly task in ascertaining the attributes of services prior to
purchase due to information asymmetries. He suggests that this information
asymmetry can be exploited by service firms who can take advantage of the
fact that buyers tend to attempt to lower such acquisition costs. Nayyar (1990)
stresses the importance of exploiting existing relationships when such
information symmetries are present and makes the point that reputation is a
potentially strong remedy to the information asymmetry which may exist in
the buyer seller relationship. According to Nayyar (1990), reputation is
transferable, i.e. an organisation-wide rather than service-specific concern. He
concludes by stating that if reputation can be legitimately transferred, then
service firms can gain competitive advantage in this way for services high on
experience and credence qualities, but as acquisition costs are less for services
high on search qualities, reputation is likely to prove less important in such
instances.
The work of Zeithaml (1988), Bharadwaj et al. (1993) and Nayyar (1990)
provide important theoretical foundations on which to build propositions for
empirical investigation. The first three propositions are presented with the aim
of clarifying specific points which have emerged from the literature review.
Subsequently, those issues which form the focus of the first three propositions
will be related to options for adding value, when further propositions are
presented. The first main issue which needs to be addressed is that concerned
with the nature of the service package and the resulting options for
differentiation. The theories of Mathur (1988) and GroÈnroos (1988) were
introduced and reconciled in section three and an array of elements which may
be differentiated and used to add value was established. It is both important
and timely to consider empirical testing of the nature of the service offering, as
information from consumers as to exactly what they believe themselves to be
receiving when purchasing or considering service offerings will help clarify the
boundaries of the bundle of attributes which is ``the financial services offering''.
Although there has been some theorising as to the nature of the service offering
and options for differentiation, empirical investigations have been lacking.
Thus, the first set of research propositions will attempt to highlight the
pertinent questions for investigation. Proposition P1a is concerned with the Consumer
degree to which consumers recognise that the service offering is comprised of a evaluation
number of attributes:
P1a: Consumers will exhibit sufficient cognitive aptitude to recognise that
financial service offerings comprise a number of elements.
Proposition P1b is concerned with attempting to model the service offering, 653
with the aim of arriving at a conceptualisation of the financial services offering
which can then be applied to subsequent research questions. The proposition
attempts to reconcile the theorising of Mathur (1988) and GroÈnroos (1988):
P1b: The model of the service offering which best describes consumer
cognition of the service offering comprises the following elements (the
first two taken together would represent the basic service offering in
GroÈnroos' model, and the merchandise element in Mathur's schema):
. Service features, which relates to that which is made available to the
consumer in terms of the particular service features and characteristics
and the benefits these may bring to consumers.
. Advice, which relates to the advice and assistance offered to consumers
which will be related to the knowledge, skill and expertise of the
service provider.
. Support, which relates to elements of functional service quality such as
attitudes and behaviour of staff, access and flexibility, reliability and
trustworthiness, service recovery and tangible factors.
. Corporate brand, which relates to the image, reputation and the
credibility of the organisation.
A further important area addressed thus far is that concerned with service
complexity. It is posited that the term ``retail financial services'' is a potentially
broad one, covering a range of service offerings from those which consumers
will find, in general, simple, to those which are potentially very complex and
mentally intangible. Empirical testing of consumer perceptions of service
complexity is necessary, to aid clarification of the potential implications for
competitive marketing strategy of differences in service complexity.
P2: Consumers will perceive a variation in service complexity between
different types of financial service offerings, judging some services to be
more mentally tangible than others.
In addition, it has been acknowledged that consumers of financial services may
differ in certain respects which may have important implications for the way in
which they evaluate financial services. This, in turn, may well have
implications for formulation of effective competitive marketing strategies.
Harrison (1994), basing her work partly on that of Kamakura et al. (1991),
showed that consumers of financial services varied in terms of perceived
knowledge and financial maturity. Such differences may well have implications
European for how consumers judge between offerings. In addition, it is suggested that
Journal of consumers may vary in terms of their degree of participation in the buying
Marketing process (Oliver, 1997) and there is a need to investigate whether such a
difference receives support from the data to be collected, Thus:
35,5/6
P3: Consumers of financial services will vary significantly with regard to
the degree of perceived knowledge, financial maturity and involvement/
654
participation in the purchase decision.
It is now necessary to develop a set of propositions designed to investigate the
potential impact of the variations in service complexity and consumer
perceived knowledge, consumer financial maturity and consumer interest and
participation. Dealing first with the issue of service complexity. Ceteris paribus,
greater service complexity increases dependence on experience and credence
factors and may mean that, using the terminology of Zeithaml (1988), extrinsic
cues such as image and reputation, as well as service quality may be
particularly important in consumer assessments of value. Bharadwaj et al.
(1993) concur with such thinking and in addition state that relationships may
be more important in such situations. Nayyar (1990) also cites the potential
importance of reputation when information asymmetries exist, most likely in
the case of more complex services. Thus, P4 attempts to relate such thinking to
the model of the service offering and options for adding value introduced
earlier:
P4a: The greater the degree of perceived service complexity, the greater the
importance of support elements, corporate brand and the relationship
element in adding value.
However, the less the degree of service complexity, the greater the potential role
of search qualities in adding value. That is to say that service features may be
important to consumers as they are able to appreciate features and benefits. In
addition, advice, dependent on the knowledge and skills of the service renderer,
may be more easily evaluated and appreciated for less complex services.
Finally, the role of price, taken to represent the total monetary and non-
monetary sacrifice, may also prove more important in less complex situations
as consumers may well find price more transparent and understandable in such
situations and are more able to weigh price against potential benefits.
P4b: The less the degree of perceived service complexity, the greater the
importance of service features, advice and price elements in adding
value.
Moving onto customer perceived knowledge, as introduced above when
discussing the Harrison (1994) schema, the same logic can be applied as was
the case for service complexity. A lack of perceived knowledge potentially
means less understanding, leading to increased reliance on experience and
credence qualities, whereas increased customer perceived knowledge may
increase the role of search qualities in customer assessments of value:
P5a: The less the degree of perceived customer understanding, the greater Consumer
the importance of support elements, corporate brand and the evaluation
relationship element in adding value.
P5b: The greater the degree of perceived customer knowledge, the greater
the importance of service features, advice and price elements in adding
value.
655
According to the Harrison (1994) classification, customers can also be
differentiated according to their degree of financial maturity, a measure which
encapsulates which financial service offerings customers have, or continue to
use. It is suggested that a greater degree of financial maturity may well
enhance understanding of financial services and lessen dependence on
experience and especially credence qualities:
P6a: The less the degree of financial maturity, the greater the importance of
support elements, corporate brand and the relationship element in
adding value.
P6b: The greater the degree of financial maturity, the greater the
importance of service features, advice and price elements in adding
value.
Finally, the potential for differences in the degree of customer participation
have been cited in the literature (Weinberg, 1997; Oliver, 1997). It is postulated
here that a greater degree of customer participation may well result in an
enhanced importance for search qualities, as customers who are particularly
active in the purchase process may make more of an attempt to utilise and
compare information they find prior to purchase. Indeed, at the extreme,
customers may be completely uninvolved in that they delegate the decision to a
third party entirely. Such a situation could be termed a ``credence'' action and is
likely to be motivated by factors contained in the support element, such as
trust, as well as the reputation of the provider.
P7a: The less the degree of customer participation, the greater the
importance of support elements, corporate brand and the relationship
element in adding value.
P7b: The greater the degree of customer participation, the greater the
importance of service features, advice and price elements in adding
value.
Measurement issues
A further issue which merits consideration is that of the measurement required
to investigate the propositions developed. It is conceded that the process of
measurement is potentially a challenging one, as appropriate existing scales
are not readily apparent for many of the constructs. In addition to the
incorporation of existing scales where appropriate, further scales must be
derived or adapted with the aid of qualitative developmental work, as espoused
by Deshpande (1983). This section will highlight existing scales where
European appropriate, as well as suggesting a process for establishing further
Journal of measurement instruments where necessary.
Marketing Testing of the propositions developed above requires first that the model of
the service offering incorporating service features, advice, support and
35,5/6 corporate brand are measured. In addition, the perceived total price of service
offerings needs to be established, along with the value of the associated
656 relationship, to provide a measure of the total value proposition of the offering.
The scale employed by Devlin (1998), developed partially with reference to
earlier work by GroÈnroos (1987, 1988) and Mathur (1988, 1992), was designed to
investigate how financial services managers formulated strategies to add value
to offerings, and as a result provides a useful starting point. It covered service
features, support and corporate branding issues in a satisfactory manner, but
requires further development in the areas of advice, total perceived price and
relationship elements. It is envisaged that such development would be
informed by qualitative research aimed at clarifying the domain of the relevant
constructs and providing a degree of triangulation, an approach recommended
by Deshpande (1983).
The issue of service complexity is central to the propositions developed
earlier. Although a small number of studies have incorporated measurements
of service complexity, either generally (Andreassen and Lindestad, 1998) or in a
financial services context (Devlin, 1997, 1998), further qualitative work is
required to refine the measurement of service complexity, particularly from a
consumer perspective. Semi-structured interviews with a range of financial
services consumers and potential consumers will assist in elucidating the
pertinent dimensions of complexity to be incorporated into a wider quantitative
investigation.
Finally, the testing of the propositions requires measurement of consumer
characteristics in terms of perceived customer knowledge, financial maturity
and customer participation. Harrison (1994), partially adapting the work of
Kamakura et al. (1991), incorporated scales measuring perceived customer
knowledge and financial maturity into a detailed study of segmentation issues
in financial services. Customer participation was investigated in a financial
services context by Foxall and Pallister (1998), who found that scales derived
by Zaichkowsky (1985) and Mittel (1989) both exhibited high and acceptable
levels of reliability and validity in a financial services context. Thus, it would
appear that existing scales would provide acceptable measurement of
consumer characteristics.
Conclusion
The purpose of this paper has been to set a research agenda in the area of
adding value to retail financial services offerings. To facilitate achievement of
this objective, first an exposition of the market-led view of competitive
advantage, which emphasises the importance of customer value, was
necessary. The questions of variations of service complexity, customer
knowledge, customer financial maturity and customer participation were then
introduced and the resultant implications for customer understanding and Consumer
evaluation of financial services offerings were presented. Then, the literature evaluation
concerned with conceptualisation of the service offer and options for
differentiation was analysed and the approaches of Mathur (1988) and
GroÈnroos (1988) were reconciled to arrive at a model of the service offering for
investigation. Finally, a number of propositions relating options for adding
value to offerings in the eyes of consumers and the implications of differing 657
levels of consumer understanding were developed. It is argued that research
aimed at investigating such matters is potentially very important to
practitioners in financial services markets, as an enhanced insight into
consumer motivations for choosing particular offerings over others may well
result. In turn, a more accurate insight may enable managers to formulate more
effective competitive marketing strategies which attempt to provide superior
customer value in those areas which are important to the market segment being
targeted.
Note
1. It is acknowledged that the situation may be more complex than that described here, as
there is the potential for a consumer to receive independent advice, which is not directly
connected to the service offering or the service renderer. However, independent advice is, in
essence, a separate service offering with its own fee or commission as renumeration. Thus,
it should be noted that in the following analysis advice refers only to that assistance
offered by a particular service provider. It should also be noted that a certain level of
understanding and mental involvement would be required on behalf of consumers in order
to evaluate and derive value from the advice, rather than just relying on trusting the
organisation and its representatives.
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