How do you create a truly customer-centric islamic financial Essay

How do you create a truly customer-centric islamic financial institution - Essay Example More particularly, in case of retail banking range of bank networks, size is an important factor, in which they are seen to suffer heavily (Presley, 2013). Figure 1 Source: (Garbois et al., 2012) Therefore, the Islamic banks should focus on these two areas; firstly on other channels like phone banking and online banking in order to increase market share. Secondly, the Islamic banks should also look for establishing alternative branch model depending on the needs of the customers. The alternative branch model also offers other advantages like reduction in operating cost, set-up time and capital investment. When the Islamic banks are competing with the conventional banks, it signifies that they are attracting the customers, who give less significance to the Sharia compliance while conducting their financial deals and more importance is given to the efficient services and products that are offered by the banking market in large (Anon, 2010). The three key elements that are most importan t while targeting the right customers segment are; firstly, is the identification of the customers segment that is least open to the Islamic banks for their financial purposes. This step leads to identification of the exclusion. ... Designing strategies to attract these customers can make the Islamic banks much more competent to face the competition from the conventional banks. In order to achieve this objective, the banks need to identify broader set of customer’s requirement and remain at par with the conventional banks in regards to pricing and ease of use. In this context, product innovation should be given paramount importance. There are some products that can be offered in the new Islamic banking structure that are not in compliance with the Sharia law like the hedge fund, which are for the high net worth individuals and derivatives, that are for the corporate clients. Some Islamic banks are now seen to offer derivative products by going against the compliance law (Bock, 2010). Top tips for creating and maintaining a customer-centric organisation In order to create a customer centric image, the organization needs to emphasize on the environmental and social efforts and apart from these, ethical valu es should also be given importance. In order to incorporate those in the Islamic banks, the employees should be educated about the Islamic bank structure and products. Customers play a very important role in generating revenue and sales for the organization, whether it is financial or any non-financial institution. Studies have shown that customer focus is very low in Islamic banks. Therefore, in order to increase the revenue, customer satisfaction should be the top priority. Following should be done in order to focus on the customers: Whenever dealing with any product, the salesperson needs to be very well aware of the product and services they are offering. This awareness is seen to