The Mediating Effect of e-Satisfaction Between e-Service Quality and e-Loyalty in Internet Banking

Internet banking is a demand-driven industry and therefore providing customers efficient banking services become an important issue of e-commerce success model as well as to sustain banks competitiveness. In internet-based services, such as internet banking, sustaining users' e-Satisfaction is crucial to guarantee high rate of customer retention and e-Loyalty towards banks. As highlighted in services marketing literature, offering high quality of electronic service (e-SQ) is increasingly important because this will make customers satisfied with banks service, and therefore examining the e-satisfaction role as mediator to the e-SQ and e-Loyalty is vital. However, most previous studies examining the mediating role of e-Satisfaction on the relationship between e-SQ and e-Loyalty in internet banking have given more emphasis on private banks and less focus on public banks. This research addresses this empirical gap and attempting to validate the significant role of e-satisfaction, as mediator between e-SQ and e-Loyalty in the context of Iranian public banks. A questionnaire was developed to measure e-SQ, e-Satisfaction and e-Loyalty among internet banking users of a public bank in the district of Kerman, Iran. A total of 298 completed questionnaire, representing 80% of response rate, was gathered using convenience sampling procedure. The result of hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the first three regressions showed significant correlations between variables of this study, and the last path of regression, that is when e-SQ and e-Satisfaction were controlled, proved the mediating role of e-satisfaction between e-SQ and e-Loyalty. Thus, the mediator of e-Satisfaction between e-SQ and e-Loyalty was also observed in the internet banking services of public banks. The result highlights the important of giving more attention to e-Satisfaction as mediator for enhancing e-Loyalty among internet banking users. The e-Satisfaction reflected users' judgment of a bank's internet banking service quality performance, and in e-commerce setting, it is a good predictor of e-Loyalty. The theoretical and managerial implication of the findings was discussed.