Digital Payment Ease and Service Quality in MSMEs: Trust as a Mediator of Customer Satisfaction

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-960-5_3How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Service Quality; Digital Payment Ease; Customer Satisfaction; Customer Trust; MSMEs

Abstract

This study examined how service quality and digital payment ease affect customer satisfaction in micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Simalungun Regency, Indonesia, with customer trust as a mediating variable. A quantitative explanatory design was applied, involving 319 digitally active MSME customers. Data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results showed that both service quality and digital payment ease had significant positive effects on customer satisfaction. However, these effects were largely indirect through customer trust. Digital payment ease had the strongest influence on trust ( β = 0.601 ), while service quality moderately impacted trust ( β = 0.317 ). Customer trust itself was a robust predictor of satisfaction ( β = 0.412 ). The model explained 68.0% of the variance in customer trust and 59.7% in customer satisfaction, indicating high explanatory power. This study highlights the critical role of trust as a psychological enabler in digitally transforming MSMEs. Practical implications suggest that MSMEs should prioritize user-friendly digital payment systems and consistent service delivery to strengthen customer relationships. The main limitation lies in the cross-sectional, non-probability sampling design, which restricts causal inference and generalizability. Future research should employ longitudinal designs and compare rural and urban contexts to explore behavioral differences over time.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Hengki Mangiring Parulian Simarmata
AU  - Darwin Lie
AU  - Nagian Toni
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/31
TI  - Digital Payment Ease and Service Quality in MSMEs: Trust as a Mediator of Customer Satisfaction
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Economics, Business, Management and Accounting (ICEBesMA 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 21
EP  - 43
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-960-5_3
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-960-5_3
ID  - Simarmata2025
ER  -