https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5975-7268
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ABSTRACT
Research into the benefits of digital water metering (DWM) identified many benefits that were previously unrevealed in the literature. Many benefits are tangible and more easily quantified. Others, like a possible change in customer satisfaction (CS), are not. The objective of this study was to quantify any potential changes to CS from switching from conventional meters to DWM. The findings of a questionnaire survey of 178 customers determined a current average-CS score of 5.8 (0 (low) to 10 (high) scale); positive shifts in CS levels to individual DWM benefits of between 0.4 and 3.0; and, we demonstrated a prototype CS change prediction model that DWM implementation would derive a long-term CS step-change. The developed survey measurement items will benefit water utilities seeking to ascertain the benefits of DWM. The study will be of interest to researchers and water industry practitioners measuring CS and those developing business cases for DWM projects.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the participating water utilities who offered their comments on the survey instrument, those who put the final survey to their customer focus groups, and those who shared their customer satisfaction processes for this paper. Thanks go to the generous support of the many moderators of Facebook Community Noticeboards who allowed the authors to post the survey and enable their members to have their say.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.
Notes
1. Net Promoter, Net Promoter System, Net Promoter Score, NPS and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.