Impact of trust on the relationship of e-service quality and customer satisfaction

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to find the role of trust as a mediating variable between e-service quality and customer satisfaction in internet banking. Design/methodology/approach – The paper opted for an exploratory study using closed ended questionnaire. The empirical data are drawn from 367 customers of internet banking. Factor structure of e-SQ, customer satisfaction and trust has been tested using EFA and CFA by gap values and perception values. Structure equation modeling has been used to analyze the effects of independent variable e-service quality on customer satisfaction and the role of mediating variable trust. Stepwise analysis has been done to examine the effect of trust on customer satisfaction. Sobel test has been used to measure the indirect effect. Findings – e-SQ was found to be strongly correlated with customer satisfaction. The results confirm trust as a mediating variable between e-service quality while analyzing the same model with gap value and perception value. Research limitations/implications – The research implies that banking service providers should focus on improvement of trust parameters as well as those e-SQ dimensions which affects trust, to retain the customers and to get more customers for internet banking. Originality/value – The reliable and valid instrument confirmed in this research can be used by further studies detecting the relationships among these constructs in an extended context. The fundamental premise of the proposed research work model was to make banking service providers understand comprehensively the factors necessary to achieve high service quality that will significantly impact on customers’ trust, satisfaction.