Association Between Demographic Characteristics of Users’ and Overall Satisfaction with Water Supply Service

Abstract

Water constitutes an indispensable resource for various aspects of daily life, encompassing essential needs such as drinking, cooking, sanitation, and irrigation. Beyond household applications, diverse livelihood activities, including livestock management, gardening, crop cultivation, food processing, aquaculture, and fisheries, also rely on water. The assessment of customer satisfaction holds paramount significance in driving performance enhancements for service providers, even within government-owned entities offering critical services like water supply. This research aims to scrutinize the interplay between overall satisfaction with water services and its determinants, including satisfaction with water quality, and various parameters such as water supply hours, tap pressure, supplied water quantity, management responsiveness and communication, and water tariff. Anticipatedly, water supply hours, quantity, and quality are expected to exert a crucial influence on user satisfaction. Although users express a satisfaction level above neutral, it falls short of reaching a fully satisfactory level. Key contributors to user satisfaction involve aspects such as water supply hours, pressure, quantity, and quality, while complaints about water supply yield slightly lower satisfaction. Satisfaction with water service hours, quantity, and quality emerges as a driving force for overall satisfaction. The analysis reveals no significant association between overall satisfaction and demographic variables such as occupation, gender, age, education, and the main income source. However, a noteworthy association exists between satisfaction with water pressure and the water collection method, and a robust link is observed between satisfaction with water quality and respondents' water treatment practices. The provision for complaints is significantly associated with satisfaction regarding management responsiveness and communication. Multiple regression analysis underscores a positive relationship between overall satisfaction with water services and satisfaction with water quality and supply hours, indicating that higher satisfaction with these factors enhances overall satisfaction with water services.