The Role of Technology in Customer Satisfaction in Public Service Institutions: A Case of Mombasa Water Supply and Sanitation Company

Customer satisfaction refers to the state of mind or the perception that customers have about an organization and its products or services at the time their perceptions have been met or surpassed. This state reflects the lifetime of the product or service experience. Customer service is an integral part of any organization. In a competitive corporate world organizations must identify the key success factors in terms of customer satisfaction because businesses can only be sustainable if the quality of customer service can result in customer satisfaction. Over the past few years, customer satisfaction and technology have become conjoined. Customers today are demanding more and more techno-savvy service that will provide quick and efficient service that will keep pace with the ever changing technological world. Given that customer purchase and re-purchase is the backbone of business sustainability, businesses have no choice but to re-invent customer service in technologically innovative ways. The public service sector, which has long been labeled as customer averse must thus toe the line in this era of technological transformation. According to a report on Kenyas ICT integration into public services (2016), currently service areas on the government side, which have embraced ICT, include the iTax portal, Huduma Centres (under the Ministry of Development and Planning), the Integrated Financial Management Information System and the e-Citizen portal. The report further states that the rising number of smart phone users will support growth in mobile money usage and cashless payments, especially as the industry looks to provide new value-added services such as consumer payments, cash disbursements and collections in value chains such as agriculture, healthcare, education, power, water and other fast moving consumer good value chains. However in the public service, and more so in the water sector the service delivery is yet to keep pace with the dynamism of service delivery technology. Services such as meter reading, payment of bills and resolution of customer complaints are still done manually. There has however, been a deliberate effort to incorporate the Mpesa service to ease payments of water bills by the customers. The purpose of this study was to establish whether adoption of technology in key customer service segments will increase customer satisfaction with services provided by the Mombasa Water Supply and Sanitation Company, despite the several challenges in water service provision as outlined. It was hoped that the findings of the research could be generalized and applied to other public service institutions found in the County of Mombasa and those located in other Counties in Kenya. To achieve this, the study reviewed literature on case studies done by other researchers in various part of the globe that sought to determine the relationship between customer satisfaction and technologically enhanced customer service delivery. The research also sought to identify achievements, lessons learnt and challenges of implementing technology enhanced service delivery. The researcher explained the relationship between customer satisfaction and three independent variables using a conceptual framework. Finally the study drew conclusions and recommendations that would contribute to improving customer satisfaction in water services, by the use of technology, and which can also be replicated in other public services. The data collected will be analyzed using descriptive statistics and regression, presented in tables and charts extracted from both MS Excel and Statistical Package for Social Studies (SPSS) software tools. The data collected will be presented in tables and charts extracted from both Ms excel and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software tools version 20.