Selection Decision and Loyalty Among Islamic Bank Customers.

The research studies on customer loyalty and bank selection decision particularly among Islamic bank customers. This study involved customers using the Islamic banking services at Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad (BIMB), Bank Muamalat Malaysia Berhad and Bank Kerjasama Rakyat Berhad in Alor Setar, Kedah. The research techniques in this study relied on distribution of 240 self administered questionnaires. Customer loyalty in this study expresses an intended behavior related to the service of Islamic banking and it was measured using the scale by Caruana (2002), while the instruments of bank selection decision was adapted from Zineldin (1996). The finding using Pearson correlation showed that there were signiticant relationship between selection decision and loyalty among Islamic bank customers. The five dimensions of bank selection decision emphasize service quality, delivery system, credit availability and price competition, promotion and reputation, differentiation and word of mouth also had the correlation with loyalty and significantly explained the variance of loyalty. Multiple regression andysis indicated that only 19.5 percent of the customer loyalty variance can be explained by those factors that be counted in this study. The results could he concluded that if respondents decide to select Islamic bank, the probability they might loyal to the bank is high. In terms of the analysis on demographic characteristics, the differences in almost findings between demographic factors and bank selection decision or customer loyalty were not significant. The characteristics of respondents would not effect them to select and be loyal to Islamic bank. In order to bind a customer and to have customer to repatronage, values must be created and maintained as well as to provide a loyalty program to customers. When a customer has created a value with the bank, it is difficult for the rivals to snatch that customer away