Consumer involvement in financial services: An empirical test of two measures

This study reports an empirical test of two involvement scales: Zaichkowsky's personal involve-ment inventory (PII) and Kapferer and Laurent's consumer involve-ment profile (CIP). The purpose of this study is to identify whether these two scales are applicable to financial services. Eight financial services are investigated: the use of a cheque book, overdraft facility, the use of Switch services, the use of a cash machine, savings account, investment services, mortgage services, and personal loan. The empirical findings show that the two scales indicate different levels of involvement in the eight financial services. The PII measure indicates that mortgage, investment and cash machine use are high involvement services. The use of savings account, personal loan, a chequebook, overdraft facility, and Switch services are found to be medium involvement services. The CIP shows that investment, mortgage, and savings accounts are rated as high involve-ment services. Personal loans, overdraft facilities, Switch card, cash machine, and chequebook usage are in the middle range of involvement. Being a multidimen-sional scale, the CIP provides more data about involvement. More investigation is needed in order to understand the links between consumer involvement in financial services and customer behaviour. The authors conclude with recom-mendations for further research into consumer involvement in financial services and its effect on bank customer behaviour.