The increasing pressure on water utilities to meet growing
regulatory expectations is well-known. Customers are
also clamoring for utilities' attention, demanding service,
safety, and taste and creating pressure from a different
direction. Utilities' primary competition is the bottled water
industry because of a public perception of greater safety
and better taste. In the service arena, water utilities are
rated about the same as the average private sector organization
and slightly higher than the average federal agency.
This article is the third in a series on trends and
their implications for water utilities. The authors
examine how customers rate the service of water utilities
compared with other utilities, and discuss how
decision-makers and much of the general public are
largely unaware of or misinformed about environmental
and other issues affecting the water industry. The
authors go on to discuss how simply providing high-quality
water and engineering excellence are not
enough to ensure customer satisfaction and public
support, and they provide ideas for improving customer
service and satisfaction and countering media
misinformation. Includes 8 references, figure.
| Edition : | Vol. 97 - No. 9 |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 210 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 6 |
| Published : | 09/01/2005 |
