**2.5. Satisfaction**

Customer satisfaction has been widely recognized as a determining factor not only of customer loyalty [6], but also of the firm's sustained profitability [35]. A satisfied customer shows greater resistance to price elasticity, enabling the organization to increase its competitiveness, reduce its costs, and improve its reputation [36]. For a financial institution, it will be very important to have customers with a high degree of satisfaction. Review of the specialized literature enables us to define satisfaction as a post-consumption emotional response that simply happens or that occurs after a process of comparing expected vs. real performance [11]. When satisfaction results from confirmation of expectations, it can be defined as "evaluative satisfaction." When it is the result of nonrational processes, it is defined as "emotional satisfaction" [37]. Satisfaction will have a positive influence on any customer's post-purchase behavior [38], since it stems from general appreciation acquired after the customer's visit to a financial institution.

attractive product increases the functional benefit the customer desired [44]. In the context of the financial services industry, it is thus possible to formulate the following hypothesis:

Antecedents of Satisfaction with Financial Services: Role of Perceived Benefits

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**H4.** The better the effective evaluation of the banking service, the better the functional benefit

In the specialized literature, it has been argued that, during the process of choosing a service, affective evaluation influences the hedonic benefit expected [45]. That is, the pleasure experienced in the purchasing process is the result of the favorable affective evaluation the consumer makes [46]. Further, the consumer's hedonic behavior will be positively affected by the affective evaluation of his/her environment [47]. In the context of the financial services

**H5.** The better the effective evaluation of the banking service, the better the hedonic benefit

According to the literature, affective evaluation is highly relevant, since it is an antecedent closely linked to the symbolic benefit that the individual expects [48, 49]. Further, affective evaluation is decisive for the consumer to obtain the symbolic benefit desired [50]. In the con-

**H6.** The better the effective evaluation of the banking service, the better the symbolic benefit

**3.6. The affective evaluation of the banking service as antecedent of the symbolic** 

**3.5. The affective evaluation of the banking service as antecedent of the hedonic** 

industry, it is thus possible to propose the following hypothesis:

text of the financial services industry, therefore, it can be assumed that:

This can be represented schematically as follows (**Figure 1**):

**Figure 1.** Theoretical model. Source: Own elaboration.

perceived by the client.

perceived by the client.

perceived by the client.

**benefit perceived by the client**

**benefit perceived by the client**
