ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a discussion of consumer decision-making based around established information-processing models of consumer choice. It then proceeds to summarise some research findings relating to consumer behaviour before going on to examine some of the marketing approaches that organisations might use. The chapter provides a brief overview of the process of researching financial services consumers. The majority of research on financial services consumers has relied on traditional cognitive-based approaches to understanding consumer behaviour. Understanding consumers and specifically, their needs, their expectations and their responses to marketing activity is central to effective marketing. The difficulties that consumers experience in relation to problem recognition are often compounded by a lack of transparency in marketing. Typically, alternatives are evaluated in relation to dimensions specified in the initial problem-recognition stage; if consumers are in some senses inert or inactive in relation to problem recognition then the criteria being used for evaluation are likely to be poorly defined.
