Sharjah Islamic Bank (SIB) has announced that it had selected Servion to customize a customer interaction management solution in an effort to improve its customers’ experience. The solution that Servion will develop for SIB will use a combination of Cisco’s Contact Center, Knoahsoft IVR and other call management tools.
Based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, SIB was founded as a secular bank in 1975. In 2002, it converted to Islamic banking to be consistent with Sharia law. The bank has 27 branches throughout the UAE.
Princeton, N.J.-based Servion Global Solutions, Inc. develops unique CIM solutions. Many of its clients have idealistic mission statements that in practice fall short of these ideals because of subpar customer experiences. The solutions that Servion provides to clients help them meet their objectives and save money in the long run on new customer acquisition and customer retention costs.
One of the best ways to improve customer experience is to get feedback from the customer immediately after a transaction. One of the vendors in Servion’s solution for SIB, Knoahsoft, provides an IVR survey product that lets a business capture input from a customer in an automated fashion.
The surveys are customizable, which is critical to giving companies valuable feedback and take corrective action, if needed. A survey full of boilerplate questions is not as useful as a tool, because customers tend to tune them out and when they don’t, the answers are not meaningful.
SIB has recognized the value of providing a superior customer experience as a way to differentiate from competitors. There is no shortage of banks in the UAE, and even being an Islamic bank is not unique with competitors like Dubai Islamic Bank and Emirates Islamic Bank in the region. In nearly every industry, customers have choices and if a provider of goods or services is not using technology to make their customers’ experience the best it can be, they will vote with their feet.