Title: Segmentation of retail bank customers based on occasions (Agribank of Iran as case study)

Authors: Shahriar Azizi; Mikael Parsa

Addresses: Faculty of Management and Accounting, University of Shahid Beheshti, Tehran, Iran ' Faculty of Management, University of Kharazmi, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: Maintaining and expanding market share in Iran banking industry has become extremely difficult. The interconnectedness of national and religious cultures as well as the personal interests of the customers have established many occasions in Iran. Using a combined approach of qualQUAN, this study seeks to identify various occasions and then segment the customers in the retail sector on that basis in the Agribank of Iran. In the qualitative section and through individual in-depth interviews with 17 customers, 20 occasions were identified in four main categories of national-historical, religious, personal and special occasions. In the quantitative section, the data were gathered through a closed questionnaire from 421 customers. Using the clustering technique, the customers were classified in three categories: national-historical oriented, specific-oriented youth and the personal-oriented ones. Finally, the importance of occasions in each category is identified in each cluster.

Keywords: occasion; occasion-based marketing; Agribank; segmentation; clustering technique.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIMB.2020.109064

International Journal of Islamic Marketing and Branding, 2020 Vol.5 No.1, pp.28 - 42

Received: 28 Nov 2019
Accepted: 09 Apr 2020
Published online: 18 Aug 2020 *