Marhanum Che Mohd Salleh

Measuring Takaful Agents’ Understanding Towards the Objectives and Concepts of Takaful

As the Takaful industry increasingly taking innovative steps to improvise their marketing efforts, the introduction of Wakala system (agency system) is further enhanced. Takaful agents not only oblige to sell Takaful products, but they are also responsible to educate public pertaining to the objective and importance of Takaful products. Without excellent and proper understanding, the Takaful agents would fail to fulfill their responsibility to market the Takaful products. This study thus, investigates the Takaful agents’ understanding towards the objective and concept of Takaful besides the factors that contribute to their understanding. In addition, it is done to confirm the measurement items constructed to examine the agents’ knowledge on Takaful objectives and concept. Self constructed survey questionnaire was distributed to agents of Prudential Bsn Takaful Bhd. A descriptive statistic analysis and factor analysis was utilised to measure the level of understanding among the agents and also the factors contributed to their understanding. Results indicated that the level of understanding among the Takaful agents still discontented. Furthermore, learning culture has become the most influential factor to enhance the agents’ understanding. Overall, the results of this study would reflect the Takaful industry to prepare an effective learning environment to their agents in order to strengthen their marketing efforts.

Building Agent-Customer Relationship in the Takā Ful Industry : A Framework of Islamic Relationship Marketing

The term ‘relationship marketing’ has grown to become a popular subject in the marketing literature since the last three decades. The literature indicates the significance of maintaining long-term relationship with customers, especially in current days. The questions then arise are: what are the antecedents that significantly contribute in building and maintaining a long-term buyer-seller relationship?; and what are the outcomes of a strong buyer-seller relationship? The discussions on relationship marketing have even gained popularity in the Asian literature since 2000s; yet research conducted on the issue of Malaysian Islamic financial institutions is very scarce. The existence of a gap in the Asian literature on this topic has led the researchers to develop a suitable theoretical framework of Islamic relationship marketing for Islamic financial institutions, particularly the Takaful industry. The study expects that the framework of Islamic relationship marketing will be a material of reference for the Takaful industry players in strengthening their relationship with their customers. Indeed, a strong agent-customer relationship will ensure the development of the Takaful industry in the future. Keywords: Relationship marketing, Islamic marketing ethics, Takaful industry, Agent Takaful