Interacting with Muslim customers for new service development in a non-Muslim majority country

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the process of interaction with the Muslim customers in developing new Islamic financial services in a secular and non-Muslim majority emerging country, India.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected using a multiple case study methodology in which the service managers of 23 financial service firms and their customers were interviewed. A total of 46 managers and 31 Muslim customers provided data for this paper.

Findings

A service firm must interact with its Muslim customers to obtain key input and information for developing new Islamic financial services, particularly in a Muslim minority country. The Muslim customers are willing to work with the financial service firms for the purpose of new service development and are a good source of information for new Islamic financial services.

Practical implications

The paper has implications for the financial service firms interested in achieving growth and prosperity by developing and marketing new services to the growing population of Muslim customers in the emerging markets, particularly India.

Originality/value

The issue of customer interaction in new service development is a key concept in the extant literature, yet no study has explored this concept for the Islamic banking and financial products in a non-Muslim majority emerging market. This is the first paper that has applied the customer interaction in new service development theory to the interaction process of Muslim customers in a non-Muslim majority country and, thus, addressed a worthwhile research gap.

Citation

Alam, I. (2019), "Interacting with Muslim customers for new service development in a non-Muslim majority country", Journal of Islamic Marketing, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 1017-1036. https://doi.org/10.1108/JIMA-06-2018-0111