The Effect of Personal Branding, Service Innovation, and Empathy Maps on the Satisfaction of Digital Loan Customers Mediated by Trust in Pre-Retirement and Retirement Loan Products

Abstract

Digital lending services for pre-retirement and retirement loan products are emerging as a crucial support for civil servants approaching pension in Central Sulawesi. This study examines how personal branding, service innovation, and the use of empathy maps influence customer satisfaction in digital lending, with customer trust as a mediating variable. A quantitative survey of 100 respondents in Central Sulawesi (2023–2025) was conducted and analyzed using PLS-SEM. The results indicate that personal branding, service innovation, and empathy maps each have a positive and significant effect on customer trust and satisfaction. Customer trust also positively affects satisfaction and partially mediates the relationship between those factors and satisfaction. The proposed model explains a substantial portion of variance in trust and satisfaction. These findings highlight the importance of building a strong personal brand, continuously innovating services, and adopting empathetic approaches to improve customer trust and satisfaction in digital loan services for the pre-retirement and retirement segment.