Gulf Banks' public relations use of interactive communication with customers

Abstract EN

The study aimed to investigate the websites role in communicating with banks customers in the Kingdom of Bahrain, and its efficiency in carrying out banks' duties and responsibilities towards customers by identifying the contents that customers preferred to follow on the Bahraini banks' websites and weaknesses of these sites.

The study used the survey method and depended on a simple random sample.

A total of 300 questionnaires were distributed to gather information from Bahrain's commercial and Islamic banks' customers, after excluding questionnaires that did not include answers to all questions, the study sample included 241 customers (137 of commercial banks and 104 of Islamic banks).

Results of the study: Commercial and Islamic banks relied on e-mail and SMS to contact with customers.

Bahraini banks are concerned with contents regarding: activities provided by the bank and the leading figures, how to conduct business transactions, investment opportunities and savings, periodical and annual reports issued by the bank and the bank phone numbers and e-mail.

The study shows that commercial banks was superior to Islamic ones in concerning with information about the bank's services, the bank' role in society, the bank's leading figures, and investment opportunities. More than half of the respondents said that the website of the banks responded to their inquiries within two weeks, and there are no statistically significant differences between commercial and Islamic banks according to the duration in which Bahraini banks responded to customers' complaints and inquiries.

The e-mail ranked first in customers interaction with the Bahraini banks' website, then links to additional information, the participation of topics via social networking sites ranked third, followed by printing data provided on the site, then downloading files, and direct chatting cams in lastThe results of tasting hypothesis confirmed a correlation between the extent to which the public relations departments in Bahraini banks updated the banks' websites and customers' attitudes towards the importance of these websites.

Also, it proved a positive correlation between the weaknesses of the Bahraini banks' websites and customers' attitudes towards the importance of these websites.

In addition to a positive correlation between the extent to which Bahraini banks' managements updated the banks' websites and customers' attitudes towards the importance of these websites.