Service Innovation, Customer Experience Quality, and Business Performance in Nigerian Fintech Companies

This research empirically examines customer experience quality as a mediating variable between service innovation and business performance in Nigerian fintech companies, with data drawn from Lagos and Abuja operations. Nigeria's fintech sector has experienced rapid growth, driven by mobile money adoption, digital lending, and payment infrastructure development, creating intense competitive pressure that makes service innovation and customer experience strategic priorities. A cross-sectional quantitative survey was conducted with 210 product managers, customer experience officers, and business development directors. Structural equation modelling was applied. Service innovation dimensions assessed include product feature innovation frequency, user interface design innovation, process automation investment, and cross-platform integration capability. Business performance was measured through customer acquisition rate, revenue growth, and user retention. Findings reveal that customer experience quality fully mediates the relationship between user interface design innovation and revenue growth, while partially mediating the product feature innovation-retention link. Process automation investment showed direct performance effects without full mediation, suggesting efficiency gains operate through different channels than experience-mediated pathways. The study contributes to service innovation theory by demonstrating the experiential mediating mechanism in the African digital financial services context. Recommendations include investing in user research infrastructure, adopting design thinking methodologies, and integrating customer experience metrics into product development review cycles. Keywords: service innovation, customer experience, fintech, business performance, Nigeria.