Management of Blantyre Water Board (BWB) has taken a radical decision to recall domestic prepaid meters, citing design shortcomings as the main reason for the decision.
BWB initiated the project of installing the prepaid meters some years ago.
At the time of introducing these prepaid meters, residents of Blantyre City were happy with the project because it gave customers some control over water consumption and expenditure in a specified period.
The introduction of domestic prepaid meters was a migration from the existing post-paid meters.
The difference between the prepaid and post-paid meters in water transactions is on overall customer spending on water per month.
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Using the post-paid meters, it is uncertain that customers would tell how they are charged for the monthly water consumption until they get a bill.
In sharp contrast, consumers easily manage their water monthly spending using the prepaid meters. In light of these facts, a customer would not get excited to hear that BWB is embarking on a campaign of recalling the domestic prepaid meters.
After all, in this world of technology, retrogressing to analogue systems should be resisted at all cost.
BWB’s statement written in English and Chichewa issued on January 31, 2024, gave reasons to back the board’s decision.
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Surprisingly, the English and Chichewa versions of the statement did not exactly communicate the same information.
The English statement indicated that BWB is recalling “most” of the domestic prepaid meters whereas the Chichewa statement talks about recalling “some” of the prepaid meters.
While this supposed error in the statements is not my major concern, it is the best thing to provide more accurate information to customers to avoid creating misconceptions.
Pondering on the significant design shortcomings as what has triggered BWB’s decision to recall the prepaid meters simply shows that BWB is not sufficiently generous with the provision of customer information.
A customer-centric institution should always be mindful on how it relates with its customers. It starts with how information is provided on critical decisions.
However, we know that insensitivity generally characterises institutions that operate in a monopoly space.
It is very clear that BWB has made a decision that resonates better with it as a sole supplier of water than making a decision on the basis of what its customers need or want.
There are multiple questions stemming from the utility institution’s decision. First, when did BWB realise that domestic prepaid meters have significant shortcomings?
Second, when they made a decision to purchase the prepaid meters in the first place, did they carry out a feasibility study to ascertain their efficiency and reliability?
Third, why is it that BWB is not disclosing the specific shortcomings that it has suddenly discovered?
Fourth, if the prepaid meters have significant shortcomings as communicated by BWB, haven’t these shortcomings significantly been affecting the delivery of customer services from the time they were installed?
If so, what compensation is BWB intending to provide to its customers for ‘affected’ delivery of services?
Immediately after reading the BWB statement, I carried out a spontaneous study targeting the randomly selected users of prepaid meters resident in Blantyre in order to find out if customers are aware of BWB’s decision, to obtain customer feedback regarding the decision to recall the prepaid meters and to probe their fears if the post-paid meters are re-installed.
The study findings show that customers are dissatisfied with the decision.
Some customers were simply sceptical about what is going to happen about the decision. The respondents who expressed dissatisfaction strongly believe that BWB inaccurately overcharges its post-paid customers.
The respondents further bemoaned the tendency of BWB’s personnel of impolitely disconnecting water when the customer delays to pay the bills, and as a consequence, customers are expected to pay the reconnection fees. This is not the case with the prepaid meters.
In customer satisfaction business model, companies that provide customer service such as banks, insurance providers, telecoms and utilities, just to mention a few, are required to conduct regular customer satisfaction surveys in order to track customer experience insights.
It is, therefore, doubtful if BWB management made its decision based on customer feedback obtained through research.
All in all, by recalling the pre-paid meters, BWB is taking its customers back to the times when the customers had several reservations with its billing system.
The author is writing in his personal capacity as a market researcher and a business consultant
