The Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) says will be conducting a national customer satisfaction survey to access data, and find out how its services can be improved.
The survey, GWI states is part of the company’s focus of adopting a customer-centric approach, whilst maintaining equity at all of its locations across the country. It will be conducted by GWI staffers, with support from an overseas-based Guyanese Professor.
This is according to Managing Director of GWI, Dr Richard Van West-Charles who speaking at GWI’s fifteenth anniversary launch on Friday explained that the overseas support will include the services of (acting) President of the Alabama State University, Dr Leon C Wilson. Dr Wilson, he said, has conducted some of the largest survey research projects on families and adolescents in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. The most recent has been the Adolescent Health and Protective Factors in Guyana (2012), Media Habits in Guyana (2007-08) and Youth Trends in Trinidad and Tobago (2009).
The survey which will cover aspects of GWI’s services such as overall satisfaction, availability, accessibility and quality, is expected to drive the water company’s policies going forward, as it relates to improving service delivery, West-Charles explained.
He added that the company’s focus of adopting a customer- centric approach is also seeing an incorporation of the citizenry helping to arrest GWI’s high Non-Revenue Water (NRW) loss. GWI has approximately 55 percent NRW, compared with countries in Europe whose loss stands at five percent.
The Managing Director noted that, in two to three weeks, GWI will be launching a mobile application (app) which would allow its customers to help the water company with leak detection. “All citizens that have their cellphones, would be able to have this app on their phones and whenever there is a leak, they would be able to take a picture of water leak and send it to us and we will go after it.”
Additionally, customers would also be playing a more active role in reading their meters. “Many people have complained about the estimated bills, especially metered customers, so we shall be giving an app also to customers so that they can read their own meters with their own cellphone and send it to us. They have a record, and we have a record, and you will get a correct reading of your bill,” Dr West-Charles explained.
GWI says it is also working on its website to enable its customers, who have access to the internet, to check their accounts online.
