Water utilities in the United States must communicate
with a variety of stakeholders, including customers,
the media, boards, and citizens' groups.
Often, they must disseminate negative, unpleasant, or
unwelcome information about rate hikes, conservation
measures, water source pollution, expensive infrastructure
projects, and management or ownership changes.
The biggest challenge facing water providers today is
finding effective ways to convey their variety of messages
to this range of audiences.
To better understand the communication practices
of US water suppliers, a national survey of 175 utilities
was conducted to obtain hard data about the toughest
topics, toughest audiences, communication techniques
used, and utilities' perception about the success of their
communication efforts. Survey responses indicated that
water quality was the toughest topic and residential
customers were the toughest audience. Of the approximately
60 communication techniques used, news
releases were the most common. As to success, nearly
three quarters of respondents rated their communication
efforts as very or moderately successful.
Statistical analysis of survey responses showed that
successful communication efforts were correlated with
10 principles of authentic communication: communication
must be truthful, fundamental, comprehensive,
relevant, clear, consistent, accessible, timely, compassionate,
and allow feedback. By adopting these proven
principles as best practices, water providers can
become more effective in communicating with their
various constituencies on today's increasingly complex
water issues. Includes 8 references, tables, figure.
| Edition : | Vol. 95 - No. 1 |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 640 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 10 |
| Published : | 01/01/2003 |
