CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH FINDINGS
4.9 Impact of Consumer Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction on Consumers’ Behavior
Research question # 4 intends to define consumer satisfaction impact path way to rural water supply sustainability. Analysis was done by cross tabulations and regression in three progression steps. The first stage of regression was to establish the factors that have an impact on the rural water supply service quality whose indicators are down time period, frequency of breakdowns and management system. The second regression was to regress and establish how the three water supply service quality indicators affect consumer
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satisfaction at this stage cross tabulations were also run to analyse the extent of impact. The third step is to regress consumer satisfaction with consumer behaviour, this is intended to discover if any statistical significant causal relationship exist between the two variables. Consumer behaviour in the current research means participating towards ensuring that effective community demand, increasing access to capital and cost recovery, dynamic operation and maintenance are in place always.
In the current research desired consumer behaviour to sustain a water supply is depicted by the following actions as adopted from Montgomery et al., (2009).
Achieving effective community demand involves the following behaviours:
Improving communication between the service provider and the beneficiary community
Conducting comprehensive demand assessments and understand local priorities
Increasing community ability to articulate demand and assure their negotiating power among donors and providers.
Leading in ensuring development of critical-thinking skills and independent decision- making abilities in community members
Encouraging and Empowering fellow rural individuals to take a principal role in demand assessment and project planning.
Becoming initial adopters and casting themselves as champions of change through personal networks.
Stimulating more reluctant community members to take action.
Engaging apathetic local government officials in order to increase access to human and financial resources.
Increasing access to capital and financial sustainability
Utilizing creative methods of loaning, saving, and managing funds that could allow households and communities overcome financial hurdles in water and sanitation
Increasing financial sustainability by providing equitable access to improvements in water
Ensuring that there is adequate support to cover up the technical short falls or financial gaps is critical.
Establishing dynamic operation and maintenance practices
183 Developing the financial plan structure and content.
Developing operation plan that describe standards of operation
Capacity building through skill development training seminars
Including the primary users of the water system in the decision-making process
Achieving gender parity in decision making and
Compensating for time spent on community water commensurate with tasks performed
Water supply break downs in the past 6 months Never 1-10
times
11-20 times > 20 times Average Total
Le vel of satisfa ct ion Very satisfied 56.9% 50.9% 41.2% 16.7% 52.9% Satisfied 18.6% 22% 17.6% 16.7% 20.1% Low satisfied 5.3% 12.7% 5.9% 50.0% 9.4% Not satisfied 17% 13.3% 35.3% 16.6% 16.1% Don’t know 2.2% 1.1% 0% 0% 1.6% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% (188) (173) (17) (6) (384) Pearson Chi-square= 25.124, p=0.014
In table 12 respondents were asked to disclose their level of satisfaction and frequency of their water supply break downs in the past six months of the survey. This was to establish the relationship between functionality of the water supply facility and consumer satisfaction. Observation
There are five categories of respondents in relation to their experience of break downs at their water point as follows 1) Never experienced a breakdown 2) Experienced 1-10 break
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downs 3) experienced 11-20 breakdowns, 4) Experienced more than 20 break downs in the past six months of use of the facility.
1) 75.5% (sum of very satisfied and satisfied respondents) of the respondents who never experienced a breakdown of the water facility were found to be satisfied with their water facility.
2) 72.9% (sum of very satisfied and satisfied respondents) of the respondents who experienced 1-10 break downs were found to be satisfied with the facility.
3) Just 58.8% (sum of very satisfied and satisfied respondents) of the respondents who experienced 11-20 breakdowns were found to be satisfied with their water facility. 4) Only 33.4% (sum of very satisfied and satisfied respondents) of the respondents
who experienced more than 20 breakdowns were found to be satisfied with their water facility. 75.50% 72.90% 58.80% 33.40% 0 1 to 10 11 to 20 >20 % o f sati sf ie d c o n sumer s
Frequency of water point breakdowns in every six months
LEVEL OF CONSUMER SATISFACTION
Figure 18: Proportion of Satisfied Consumers in Relation to Frequency of Break downs185
The relationship between the two variables in table 12 is statistically significant (Pearson Chi-square= 25.124, p=0.014) meaning water supply break down frequency or functionality has a statistically significant relationship with overall consumer satisfaction. However as per observation 1 and 2 of table 12, frequency of break downs should be managed to not exceed ten break downs in every six months of analysis in order to achieve at least two thirds of the consumers satisfied. Of interest in figure 18 and table 12 is the fact that even with no breakdown still there are other people who may not be satisfied with the water facility. This means that there are also other factors that contribute to overall satisfaction of the consumer other than frequency of break downs alone however a larger proportion of the consumer (75.5%) will use frequency of break downs as a measure of satisfaction.
Water supply down time
1 - 48 hours 2 - 14 days 14 - 30 days More than 1 month Average total Le vel of satisfa ct ion Very satisfied 63.5% 43.2% 39.1% 37.5% 49.7% Satisfied 13.5% 32.4% 21.7% 12.5% 21.5% Low satisfied 10.8 12.2% 26.1% 12.5% 13.3% Not satisfied 12.2% 12.2% 13% 37.5% 15.4% Don’t know 0% 0% 0.01% 0% 0.1% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% (74) (74) (23) (24) (195) Pearson Chi-square= 26.160, p=0.01
In table 13 respondents were asked of a period that a break down takes to be fixed (down time period) and this was compared to their level of satisfaction. This was done to determine the relationship between down time period of the water point and consumer satisfaction.
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Observations:
There are four categories of respondents in relation to their experience of water point down time period as follows 1) 1-48 hours, 2) 2-14 days, 3) 14-30 days, 4) more than a month.
1) 77% (sum of very satisfied and satisfied respondents) of the respondents whose experience of a down time lasted only 1-48 hours were found to be satisfied with their water facility.
2) 75.6% (sum of very satisfied and satisfied respondents) of the respondents whose experience of a down time lasted for 2-14 days were found to be satisfied with the facility.
3) Just 60.8% (sum of very satisfied and satisfied respondents) of the respondents whose experience of a down time lasted for 14-30 days were found to be satisfied with their water facility.
77% 75.60%
60.80%
50%
1-48 hours 2-14 days 14-30 days > 1 month
% o f sati sf ie d c o n sumer s
Down Time Period of a Water Point
LEVEL OF CONSUMER SATISFACTION
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4) Only 50% (sum of very satisfied and satisfied respondents) of the respondents whose experience of a down time lasted more than 30 days or a month were found to be satisfied with their water facility.
The relationship between the two variables in table 13 is statistically significant (Pearson Chi-square= 26.160, p=0.01) meaning water supply down time period has a statistically significant relationship with overall consumer satisfaction. However as per observation 1 and 2 of table 17, down time period should be managed to not exceed fourteen days in order to achieve at least two thirds of the consumers satisfied.
The current research also cross tabulated consumer satisfaction with water point management model and it was found that the relationship between management model and satisfaction is not statistically significant with a Pearson Chi-Square value of 7.876 and a p
value of 0.795. Meaning the management model is not an important element of consumer satisfaction.
Independent Variable B SEb Beta t P
Down Time Period -.167 .085 -.144 -1.956 .05
Frequency of Break
Downs -.311 .198 -.117 -1.571 .118
Governing Body .091 .068 .096 1.345 .180
Management Model .157 .096 .115 1.627 .105
R2=0.064, F (4,190) =3.271, p=0.013
Table 14 presents the results of the Multiple Regression Analysis. The results show that at p<0.05 it is only Down Time Period (beta=-0.144, t (194) =-1.956, p=0.05) that plays a major role in predicting Consumer Satisfaction. Almost 6.4% of the variability in Consumer Satisfaction can be explained by reference to Down Time Period (Time taken to repair a water supply fault) R2=0.064, F (4,190) =3.271, p=0.013.
Further analysis of consumer behaviour and consumer satisfaction show that the correlation and descriptive statistics for the regression of consumer behaviour on consumer satisfaction
Table 14: Multiple Regression Analysis of Consumer Satisfaction by Downtime Period, Frequency of Break Downs, Water point Governing Body and Management Model
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is statistically significant with a Pearson Correlation of 0.253 and p<0.001; the correlation is positive meaning as consumer satisfaction increases so is consumer behaviour. The results too show that consumer satisfaction plays a major role in predicting consumer behaviour (beta=0.253, t (383) =5.119, p<0.001. Almost 6.4% of variability in consumer behaviour can be explained by reference to Consumer Satisfaction (R2=0.064, F (1,382) =26.207,
p<0.001). The logical presentation provides the below schematic presentation of how issues relate to each other in order to attain sustainability.