Adding value to service offerings: The case of UK retail financial services.

An organisation's ability to compete effectively in a particular market is increasingly seen as being dependent on its capacity to deliver offerings which comprise a competitive bundle of benefits, or value, to the consumer. Options for adding value to services and achieving competitive advantage may be limited due to customer reliance upon experience and credence qualities during the purchase decision. This article investigates such matters by offering a study of those factors which managers emphasise when attempting to formulate strategies to add value to service offerings and hence, achieve competitive advantage in services markets. In particular, it focuses on Great Britain retail financial services markets. Financial services are arguably highly typical of service offerings in general, with more complicated financial services in particular being highly intangible as well as problematic in terms of consumer cognition. Participants stated that the "features and quality of the core service provided" element of the "value adding mix" was significantly more important in the case of complex services. Image and reputation are potentially important in overcoming customer reliance on experience and credence qualities and organisation level brands should be nurtured, protected and developed to assist effective competition by offerings from an organisation.