Sources of "consumer stress": An exploratory research in banking sector

Abstract

Studies, which investigate stress concept in terms of consumer behavior, are limited. The stress concept has not given enough attention in marketing science, although there are some studies which investigate stress that consumers face about product attributes like danger, risk etc. Present study argues that consuming is a phenomenon which can not be thought without the stress term, since stress inevitably occurs in consumer buying behavior. So concept of "consumer stress" is tried to be illuminated and conceptualized by revealing possible sources of it. Under this framework, reasons of consumer stress are aimed to point out by conducting an exploratory research in banking sector. In-depth interviews were conducted with thirty randomly selected respondents who were asked to mention situations which create stress in banking services. As a result, more than seventy stressors generated which are classified as service attributes, ergonomic failures of branches, business applications, employees, web pages, automatic telling machines and tele-banking services. Suggestions and implications for future researches were offered at last. © EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2011.