Loyalty Determinants within the Ride-Hailing Ecosystem: User Satisfaction as an Intermediary Between Brand Identity and Service Excellence in Indonesia

This study examines the effects of brand image and service quality on customer loyalty, with customer satisfaction acting as a mediating variable among Gojek application users in Magelang, Indonesia. Understanding the determinants of customer loyalty is essential for sustaining user engagement in the increasingly competitive app-based transportation industry. Data were collected from 114 respondents via an online questionnaire using purposive sampling. The data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares–Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS 3.2.9 software. The findings reveal that brand image has a positive and significant effect on customer satisfaction, whereas service quality does not. Moreover, neither brand image nor service quality directly affects customer loyalty. In contrast, customer satisfaction has a positive and significant effect on customer loyalty. Mediation analysis indicates that customer satisfaction fully mediates the relationship between brand image and customer loyalty, but does not mediate the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty. These findings underscore the importance of strengthening brand image perceptions and enhancing overall user satisfaction to promote long-term customer loyalty in app-based transportation services