GWI to conduct customer satisfaction survey  

GINA, GUYANA, Monday, May 08, 2017

The Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) will be conducting a national customer satisfaction survey to access data, and find out how its services can be improved.

The survey is part of the water 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, Managing Director of GWI, Dr. Richard Van West-Charles said.

Speaking at the GWI’s fifteenth anniversary launch on Friday, Dr. Van West-Charles explained that the overseas support will include the services (acting) President of the Alabama State University, Dr. Leon C Wilson. Dr. Wilson 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, Dr. Van 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.

Dr. Van West-Charles 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,” the Managing Director explained.

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. Van West-Charles explained.

GWI is also working on its website to enable its customers, who have access to the internet, to check their accounts online.

 

By: Macalia Santos