Customer Service has long been the Achilles heal of many water utilities
worldwide. Customer perception affects many divisions within a utility.
In the financial area it can affect payment patterns, which in turn affects
cash flow, receivables and ultimately profit or loss. Community
Relations strategies must be geared to customer perception. Human
Resource is also affected, if a utility is perceived to be bad it might
experience difficulty in attracting and retaining quality employees.
In some countries regulatory bodies have been established to ensure that
minimum quality standards are maintained that are based
on international benchmarks. This paper discusses a
methodology that was designed and implemented in Jamaica with
tremendous success.
This methodology stressed top management commitment,
without which the best of intentions were failure bound. This
methodology included analysis of service gaps, which is the difference
between the service the customer perceives as being good versus the
current service level from the utility. These service gaps were obtained
through the establishment of focus groups and the employment of
phantom customers. These gaps were broadly divided into operational
issues and customer relations issues. The two broadly defined areas
were then categorized and quantified using complaint tracking, time and
motion studies, Pareto, histogram and trend analysis. Baseline data and
subsequent data integrity was of utmost importance to ensure that
correctly identified problems were the ones prioritized for action.
After the major problems were identified, remedial actions were taken.
These actions included staff assessment with a view to relocating,
retraining and hiring new staff to ensure proper job fit; the re-
engineering of some processes to ensure customer satisfaction and
shorter response time.
The results were then monitored and tracked to compare pre- and post-
customer satisfaction levels. The service gap was decreased
considerably. Incremental and continuous improvements will ensure
that this gap remains small. This total paradigm shift and quantum
improvements in customer service has been well documented in the
Jamaican media and by the Jamaican regulatory body, the Office of
Utility Regulations (OUR). Includes figures.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 170 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 7 |
| Published : | 03/19/2003 |
