What is the perfect water corporation? How do you measure the level of customer service?

1. The Invisible Water Corporation
Peter Prevos
PhD Candidate, School of Business
Manager Land Development, Coliban Water

2. Value Proposition
 VicWater (2011)
Strategic Vision for
Water Management
 “The 'value proposition'...
needs to be defined and
communicated to
customers”
Water corporations often communicate
the value proposition through
technological achievements.
14 September 2012 The Invisible Water Corporation 2

3. Benchmarking of Water Services
 ESC proposed
performance indicators
 Random selection of
targets
 What is perfection?
 Research into water
service quality
 Invisible Water Corporation
 SERVAQUA
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4. Service Quality
 Value
Perceived benefits
minus perceived cost
 Quality
Meeting specifications
 Satisfaction
Comparison with
expectations Complaining about high water bill.
Source: neptunetg.com
14 September 2012 The Invisible Water Corporation 4

5. Consumer Benefits
 Needs
Physiological
Sociological
Psychological
 Wants
Raw water Gardening is an activity that covers all
types of needs – from physiological
Potable water (movement, food) to providing a sense of
self actualisation.
Recycled water
14 September 2012 The Invisible Water Corporation 5

6. Consumer Cost
 Monetary
 Psychological
 Sociological
 Time
Women in Ethiopia carry water from a lake back
to their homes. The time spent hauling water
can be significant in areas where sources of
domestic water supply are limited. Source:
waterencyclopedia.com
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7. Marginal Utility
 Perceived value is
determined by
marginal utility
Least important value
to a consumer
 Water
Life sustaining
Waste transportation The marginal utility for water is low
because its lowest utility is flushing it
down the toilet.
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8. Consumer Involvement
 Water and sanitation
are considered low
involvement services
Increases as
perceived level of
certainty of supply
decreases
No empirical
validation of this During the drought, many customers
claim spent large amounts of time and money
to retain the ability to use water.
14 September 2012 The Invisible Water Corporation 8

9. Water & Sanitation Services
 Core services
 Facilitating services
 Needed for service
delivery (grey)
 Enhancing services
 Extra value (white)
 Focus on core
services
Lovelock’s Rose of Service applied to
water corporations.
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10. Customer Satisfaction
 Overall Satisfaction
 Overall valuation of
the service portfolio
 Moment of Truth
 Interaction with
service provider
 Expectations of
outcome Every time a customer opens a tap,
flushes a toilet or contacts the water
 Satisfaction, neutral corporation constitutes a moment of truth.
or dissatisfaction
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11. Overall Satisfaction
 The sum of
transaction specific
satisfaction
 Other influences
Public image
Trust in corporation The drought and subsequent restrictions
have a large impact on overall customer
 Existing models satisfaction.
SERVQUAL
SERVPERF
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12. Transaction Specific Satisfaction
 Core Services
Network reliability
Water quality
 Facilitating services
Minimise phone calls
Easy to understand
Burst in Kangaroo Flat. Water supply
bills disruptions cost customers additional time.
bendigoadvertiser.com.au
Self serving website
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13. The Invisible Water Corporation
 Minimise consumer
time investment
 Service quality ideal
No water disruptions
No water restrictions
No boiled water
notice A boiled water notice is a service failure
as it requires consumer more time to use
water.
No phone calls
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14. Further Research
 SERVAQUA
Model for water and
sanitation service
quality
 Time utility
 Consumer perspective
 Pilot study
 Validate model
 www.prevos.net/water
14 September 2012 The Invisible Water Corporation 14

15. Questions?