Evaluation of relationship marketing in Islamic banks in the UAE: Empirical evidence based on sensitivity analysis algorithm

The recorded success of a number of Islamic banks during the recent global financial crisis has indeed attracted the attention of a number of conventional commercial banks. Because these conventional banks are now operating Islamic windows, Islamic banks must focus their efforts on building relationship marketing that is grounded in the principles of Shariah to retain and attract prospective customers. This paper proposes the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) sensitivity analysis methodology to test the stability or robustness of the priority ranking of relationship marketing tactics. It used AHP-based questionnaire survey to evaluate the relative importance of factors accounting for relationship marketing success of Islamic banks. Relationship managers consider customer loyalty as the most important end-result of relationship marketing, followed by competitive advantage, customer satisfaction, and financial performance. Based on the performance sensitivity analysis, the overall priority of the alternative course actions accounting for relationship marketing success was robust (stable) to the changes in the importance of all the major objectives.