**2.3. Hedonic benefit**

The main concern of banking institutions has been to maintain and/or increase connection with their customers by being able to provide products and/or services that give a high degree of satisfaction. The important role of customer satisfaction in the decision-making process has been widely studied. In fact, a satisfied customer will contribute to improve an institution's reputation [3] and will be willing to return and to recommend the institution [4], maintaining a higher degree of loyalty [5] and staying with the institution for a longer period of time [6]. It is thus very important for the banking institution to ensure that its customers obtain the state of satisfaction desired [1]. The different factors oriented to achieve this state of satisfaction are well known: perception of price and post-purchase performance [7], quality of the service received [8], perceived value [9], trust and empathy [1], and evaluation of what is received vs. expected [10]. Although it has been argued that satisfaction is affective in nature [11, 12], satisfaction can also arise from a good perception of the benefits that the customer possesses [4]. Further, these benefits can become a very important point when achieving greater connection between affective evaluation and customer satisfaction. It is known that affective evaluation can be a very important antecedent of the perception of the services the consumer receives [13], but there is still little evidence to show the presence of a connection between affective evaluation—benefits—satisfaction, especially in the financial market. This study proposes that satisfaction can be a result of the perception of functional benefit [14], hedonic benefit [15], and symbolic benefit [16]. It is also proposed that these benefits, in turn, result from the customer's affective evaluation [17]. This benefit triad can play an important role in the relationship affective evaluation–satisfaction. For a financial institution, it is very important that the customer come to identify with the benefits obtained as antecedents of satisfaction, and at the same time, as a result of his or her affective evaluation.

It has been argued that affective evaluation can be defined as an individual's set of emotions, whether real, predicted, imagined, or gathered from his or her relationship to others [18]. The specialized literature also indicates that affective evaluation is characterized as emotionally reactive, a response with minimal direct control [19]. In other words, the consumer will respond spontaneously to the stimuli he or she receives from the environment. Affective evaluation can be manifested physically [20]. The consumer will use body language to express his or her emotional state in the presence of these stimuli. Finally, it has been shown that affective evaluation responds to most stimuli and can be learned [21]. Thus, the consumer will express affective well-being in the presence of both material and nonmaterial stimuli received

The functional benefit expected is essential for a consumer. It is acquired as a result of the consumption of products and/or services that respond to consumers' essential needs and the solving of their problems [22], thereby avoiding frustrating experiences [23]. The customer

**2. Theoretical foundations**

through a specific product or service.

**2.2. Functional benefit**

**2.1. Affective evaluation**

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Given the relatively rational type of decision made by the customer of a financial institution, hedonic benefit is a very important attribute [26]. The customer will attend this institution motivated not only by need but also by the pleasure experienced through the attention received [27]. This benefit emerges as a result of the customers' psychosensory experiences, as a result fundamentally of the need for stimulation and the search for pleasing sensations that customers expect when using a financial institution [28]. The customer expects to find this pleasure through his or her experience with the service, which is associated with fantasies and feelings characteristic of its nature [29]. The perception of hedonic attributes involves an accumulation of global multisensory experiences. Institutions that can understand the customer's needs and activate these multisensory images by stimulating the different senses will be able to achieve a perfect consumption experience [30].

#### **2.4. Symbolic benefit**

Symbolic benefit can contribute to a great extent to strengthen the relationship between customer and financial institution, since it is associated with the underlying needs for social approval and self-esteem and corresponds fundamentally to attributes not directly related to the products [4]. Symbolic benefit is defined as the benefit received from multiple components of "self-concept." One's "self-concept" is essentially the result of the evaluations that others make of one, whether these evaluations are real or not [31]. It is composed of a variety of representations that each person has and that are united to a particular set of social circumstances [32]. The literature has used four components of self-concept to explain the consumer's behavior at the moment of consumption: real self-image, ideal self-image, social self-image, and ideal social self-image [33]. Consumers will seek to surround themselves with their reference group [34] and will prefer the banking institution attended by people who may reinforce their degree of belonging to this group.
