Assessing customer satisfaction of pre-payment meter usage in Asokwa district of ECG in Kumasi Metropolis

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Date
NOVEMBER, 2015.
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Abstract
The energy sector over the years has witnessed a tremendous change and transformation in the bid to increase customer satisfaction while at the same time solving the problems of administrative inefficiencies in the operation of the sector. ECG as a single producer and supplier of energy to both domestic and industrial consumers of power, there is therefore the need to come out with an alternative means of billing the electricity consumption of the consumers, hence the emergence of the prepayment meter system. Aside the significant benefit that pre payment meter give to customers, there is lack of consultation with stakeholders, pre-financing difficulties, theft and network challenges which result in customers not buying-in into the change from post paid to pre paid and hence results in having bad perception of the services as well as poor customer service. The study focused on assessing customer satisfaction of prepayment meter usage in the Asokwa District of ECG in Kumasi metropolis. The population of the study comprised of the customers that use prepaid meter and management of ECG. The survey was conducted on a total of 393 respondents out of which 344 responses were received representing 87.53% response rate. The study adopted purposive and convenience sampling technique to select management of ECG and customers who use pre-payment meter respectively. Among the challenges of prepayment meter usage is the fact that customers have to spend more on electricity after being moved to the prepaid meter, resistance to change since customers are used to the old system of payment, uncertainties of performance as consumers tends to experience more blackout when they shifted to prepaid billing system. Again consumers complain of spending more money for small unit of credit when they purchase more than once in a month, the system is equally disadvantageous to the poor. The benefits of prepaid meter usage include carefulness with energy consumption, minimal cost, and improvement in cash flow, cut down in revenue lost a well as acute curtailing on illegal connection. The study recommended effective monitoring, individuals should have separate meter, and converting of meter to cash and intensified education on pre paid meter usage.
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A thesis Submitted to the Department of Marketing and Corporate Strategy, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Masters of Business Administration (Marketing option).
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