Challenges in Electric Bill collections and its determinants of adoption of online electric bill payments

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify Challenges in Electric Bill collections and its determinants of adoption of online electric bill payments in Jimma District, Jimma customer service centres. To analyze data both qualitative and quantitative research approaches were used. In addition explanatory and descriptive research design was used. The total population of this study are 28307 from this 202 sample were selected from the two customer service centres in Jimma town. The target population of this study was post-paid customer of the centres. An interview questionnaire was used to collect their opinion. The data were analysed using SPSS version 20. The descriptive result of the study shows the majority of customers pay their electric bill on a cash basis, meter reader read meter irregularly and customers wait for a long period of times to pay their electric bill at centres. The findings of binary logistic regression further revealed that types of customers, employment status, simplicity, compatibility, and relative Advantages have a positive and significant effect on the adoption of online electric bill payments while Trialability, Observability, income, and educational level were found to be insignificant in this study. In addition to this Age has a negative and significant relationship with the adoption of online electric bill payments. Furthermore, the study recommended that the centres should create awareness for the customers about online electric bill payments, and also they should work on expanding online electric bill payments to solve the problem that customers experienced with cash basis electric bill payments.