EVALUATING THE MEDIATING INFLUENCE OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN SHAPING CUSTOMER LOYALTY TOWARDS INTERNET BANKING SERVICES

Abstract

The study examines the mediating role of customer satisfaction in the relationship between “service quality and client loyalty” in Internet banking services, focusing on the objectives of evaluating the service quality-satisfaction connection, assessing the “satisfaction-loyalty relationship”, and investigating the intermediating role of satisfaction. The study was quantitative and used a structured questionnaire to gather primary data on 200 Internet banking users in Delhi NCR, and studied the data using “descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and Structural Equation Modelling” (SEM). The findings illustrate that SQ and satisfaction have medium but significant relationships, and satisfaction and loyalty have weak relationships, whereas the SEM supports the fact that satisfaction is a partial mediator between the two constructs. The results show that simple standards of digital services are perceived by the users as sufficient, but the level of satisfaction is not enough to achieve long-term loyalty in a highly competitive environment of online banking. The study concludes that long-term allegiance relies on broader digital worth suggestion, such as trustworthiness, transparency of security, and stable interface execution. Limitations are associated with the self-reported and cross-sectional nature of the data and geographical restrictions of the sample that limit generalization. Further studies need to be longitudinal and multi-regional and consider behavioral aspects of trust, perceived risk, and digital literacy in order to reflect the changing consumer loyalty in technology-based financial ecosystems.