Introduction
Non-Revenue Water (NRW) is often measured in volumes, percentages, and financial losses, but behind these numbers are relationships that influence how the system performs. Customers report leaks, pay bills, apply for connections, protect infrastructure, provide information, and interact with utilities when services fail. Their willingness to continue doing so is influenced by the trust they have in the utility. My experience in the water sector has shown that customers often begin with a willingness to engage with the formal system. The challenge emerges when that engagement repeatedly fails to produce a credible response. Building on the earlier systems and governance analyses, this article interprets how everyday utility–customer interactions build or erode public trust and how the resulting behaviors can contribute to the persistence of NRW.
Trust Is Built Through Experience
Public trust is shaped by what customers experience. Reliability of supply, billing accuracy, responsiveness, fairness, and transparency all influence whether customers view the utility as credible and responsive. I have witnessed customers use their own transport to visit utility offices simply to report a leak, only to be redirected to another office. Others have called repeatedly about leaks that remained unrepaired for days. I have also seen customers apply for legitimate water connections and wait extended periods because meters were unavailable. In each case, the customer had already demonstrated willingness to cooperate with the formal system. When that effort does not lead to action, cooperation can gradually turn into frustration. Trust is therefore built not simply by providing channels for engagement, but by demonstrating that engagement produces results.
When Trust Shapes Customer Behavior
The system implications become more visible when customer experiences begin to shape how they respond to the utility. During crackdowns on illegal connections, I have encountered highly concealed connections, including water connections routed through bedrooms. Customers disconnected by the utility sometimes reconnect themselves at night and remove the connection in the morning to avoid detection, while others bypass meters altogether. I have also witnessed a different response among customers with greater financial means. Faced with unreliable supply, some invest in private boreholes and subsequently ask the utility to remove the water meters from their properties. While some customers respond to service challenges by circumventing the formal system, others who have alternatives may simply exit it. In both cases, the utility risks losing revenue and weakening the customer relationship. These behaviors cannot all be explained in the same way, nor can illegal practices be justified. However, viewing them only as enforcement or commercial problems risks missing the wider system dynamic. They also raise questions about access, reliability, customer experience, and confidence in the utility. When customers begin finding ways around, or completely outside the formal water system, the implications extend beyond individual dissatisfaction to the sustainability of the utility itself.
When Trust Breaks Down
Billing and service reliability are particularly important in shaping perceptions of fairness. I have handled numerous complaints from customers who reported having no water for extended periods yet continued receiving bills. Others disputed bills they believed did not reflect their consumption, while some reported stolen meters and faced the uncertainty that followed. Individually, these may appear to be operational or commercial problems. Collectively, however, they can become a trust problem. When customers repeatedly experience a disconnect between the service they receive and what they are expected to pay, they may begin to question the credibility and fairness of the system. Declining trust can then affect payment, reporting, cooperation, and willingness to engage with the utility.
Trust, Communication and Responsiveness
My community engagements have shown how strongly reliability and communication intersect with trust. Customers have expressed frustration with rationing arrangements where water may be expected only twice a week. If supply fails during their allocated window, some may have to wait until the following week. In some cases, prolonged water scarcity has contributed to public demonstrations. By the time dissatisfaction reaches the streets, the problem has moved beyond an interrupted water supply and may reflect a deeper breakdown in the relationship between communities and service providers. Communication therefore cannot simply announce rationing schedules. Customers need timely information, explanations when supply changes, and visible action when concerns are raised. When reports and complaints repeatedly produce little response, the absence of action becomes a message in itself.
Trust, Fairness and Shared Responsibility
NRW reduction requires shared responsibility between utilities and customers. Yet asking customers to follow rules, pay bills, protect infrastructure, and report illegal activity also requires confidence that the system itself operates fairly. I have handled complaints in which customers alleged that staff requested unofficial payments to influence outstanding bills or facilitate reconnections. I have also observed situations where political influence shaped the deployment of water bowsers to selected locations during periods of scarcity. Even where such decisions may respond to genuine needs, perceptions that access to scarce water depends on influence rather than transparent criteria can undermine confidence in the system. In a resource-constrained environment, therefore, how water is allocated and how rules are applied can matter to public trust almost as much as how much water is available.
Trust as a Feedback Loop
Taken together, these experiences reveal a reinforcing relationship between utility performance, public trust, customer behavior, and NRW. Customers may initially engage through formal channels such as applying for connections, reporting leaks, questioning bills, reporting stolen meters, or participating in community meetings. When those channels produce credible and fair responses, trust and cooperation can strengthen. The relationship can operate in either direction. Better utility performance can strengthen public trust, encouraging positive customer behavior such as paying bills, reporting leaks, reducing water theft, protecting infrastructure, and participating in utility engagements. These behaviors can contribute to lower NRW, which in turn supports better utility performance and further strengthens trust. Conversely, poor utility performance can erode trust and contribute to negative customer behaviors such as unauthorized reconnections, meter bypasses, illegal connections, disengagement, or exit from the utility system. These behaviors can increase NRW and further weaken utility performance, reinforcing the conditions that contributed to declining trust. Figure 1 below illustrates the two reinforcing feedback loops and the relationships among public trust, customer behavior, NRW, and utility performance
Figure 1 above shows how these relationships can become self-reinforcing. The positive loop represents a trust-building cycle, while the negative loop represents a trust-decline cycle. The varying arrow weights indicate the relative strength of influence among the system elements. Together, the loops illustrate that public trust is both shaped by utility performance and capable of influencing future performance through customer behavior and NRW outcomes. Public trust is therefore not simply an outcome of utility performance; it is a system condition that can influence future performance
Integrated Public Trust Insight
My interpretation is that the trust challenge in NRW does not necessarily begin with customer unwillingness to cooperate. Many customers initially engage with the formal system by applying for connections, reporting leaks, avoiding self-reconnections, paying bills, raising disputes, and participating in community discussions. What becomes critical is how the system responds to that engagement. Seen through a systems lens, customer behavior is therefore not isolated from utility performance. Engagement, circumvention, disengagement and exit occur within a wider relationship shaped by service experience, responsiveness, fairness and confidence in the utility. This does not excuse illegal or inappropriate behavior; rather, it suggests that enforcement alone may address the behavior without addressing the conditions that help sustain it. Public trust becomes the connecting mechanism between customer experience, behavior, NRW outcomes and future utility performance.
Reflection
This analysis has reinforced my understanding that public trust is not separate from NRW management; it is embedded in how the system functions. Technical interventions remain essential, but their effectiveness can be strengthened or weakened by the everyday relationship between utilities and the communities they serve. For me, the deeper lesson is that customer cooperation should not be taken for granted. Every application for a legitimate connection, leak report, billing inquiry, complaint, or community engagement creates an opportunity to strengthen that relationship. How the utility responds can determine whether customers continue to see value in working through the formal system or begin looking for ways around or outside it. If customers stop believing that engagement leads to action, how far can NRW reduction really go?
Author: Ernest Chea I Email: ernest.chea@strathmore.edu
SiBI Institute Extern, PhD Candidate, Social Marketing, Strathmore University Business School
Mentor: David Tsetse, Ph.D., Founder and President I SiBI Institute
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