Low Income Consumers Stigma Discrimination and the Stress Response in Services

Abstract

Marketplace discrimination, which involves a differential treatment of customers in the marketplace based on perceived group-level traits, is common in service encounters.

In this study, we attempt to answer a basic question: How low income customer’s deal with stigma and what are the major coping strategies utilized during a service encounter. In order to create and evaluate strategies for dealing with the destructive effects of stigma we must understand its nature and impacts on marketing activities.

Drawing the study under Social Identification Theory (Tafjel and Turner, 1979), the research was design with a qualitative approach with 210 interviews with low-income customers, done in the South of Brazil, using Critical Incident Technique (CIT) for the interviews. The data transcriptions was analyze with Content Analysis N-VIVO software, to evaluate the stigma impact during service encounters and also, what kind of coping strategies were used by low income customers. Coping differences may explain some consumers' decisions not to complain. These findings give some directions and managerial implications for those companies who intend to deal with low-income consumers.