Water prices, and determination of customer satisfaction: A comparison of private and rest sectors of managing in the rural water supply schemes

The paper compares water prices and affecting factors customer satisfaction on clean-water supply of private sector with the rest of management (State-owned companies, Province Center for rural Water Supply and Environmental Sanitation and People‟s committee). Using an explanatory regression model with the survey data from 67 water supply schemes and 900 households of different management organizations in two regions of northern and southern Vietnam. The paper shows that private sector has a higher water price compared to the rest sector of the managed area of 962 VND/m3 . Customers of private sector have a higher satisfaction level than the rest of the managed area of 4% compared to the average satisfaction level. The factors affecting customer satisfaction are: (1) waiting time for water deliveries, (2) pressure of water, (3) color of water, (4) smell of water, (5) location of household users and (6) project duration.