The Digital Experience, Perceived Convenience, and Brand Transparency as Antecedents of Customer Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Customer Confidence

Abstract

As the fintech industry is rapidly innovating and reshaping customer access and experience to financial services, customer satisfaction is one of the top priorities for the financial services providers in Pakistan. The study explores how digital experience and perceived convenience and transparency of the brands affect customer satisfaction, with the mediation of customer confidence in the fintech users in Pakistan. Based on the literature of service marketing and trust, seven hypotheses were formulated and subsequently examined with the use of Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) on the data obtained from a structured questionnaire which obtained 267 valid responses. After one item was deleted from the Customer Confidence scale due to discriminant validity concern, the results show that all three independent variables positively and significantly influence customer confidence, with perceived convenience, digital experience and brand transparency being the strongest predictors. However, customer satisfaction is a good mediator for customer confidence and the customer's other three antecedents are fully mediated by customer confidence. The relationships between the constructs of the study in the refined model are good. The results add to the service marketing literature on fintech and provide practical advice for fintech managers aiming to increase consumer confidence and satisfaction by communicating clearly, having an intuitive digital interface, and delivering the service in a convenient manner.