Issues with Community Outreach. In a technical report for EcoFiltro based on survey work completed by the 2015 NAPA- OT Field School in Antigua, Guatemala, researchers found that 87% of filter users in the sample self-reported both a reduction in the incidence of diarrhea and in household expenses– particularly with regards to purchasing water jugs and bottled water–due to the filter (Handojo et al., 2015). It is important to disclose that this self-reported data could have been affected by courtesy bias. However, it does not change the fact that the EcoFiltro has been found to remove 99.99% of E. coli through laboratory tests (EcoFiltro, 2020). Despite these findings, there are not enough community members trying the filter, and in low-income households that do adopt it, long-term retention rates are suboptimal. This could potentially be happening because the rural populations have a difficulty understanding the water purification benefits of a filter (Xxxxxxxxx & Xxxxxxxxx, 2019). The lean data field surveys reported that 83% of the customers surveyed reported drinking water exclusively from the EcoFiltro, and 75% reported to be satisfied with the product overall. This means that beyond the suboptimal adoption rates, there are also minor issues with the consistency surrounding filter use and the overall acceptance of the filter. The surveys also found several other potential reasons for why this trend is prevalent, even though the surveys did not include a specific instrument for directly assessing long-term filter retention. Product failure was reported by 11% of the clients who were interviewed, which explains why the filter was abandoned in those cases but may not explain the broader trend. One piece of data that could potentially make sense of these tendencies is the fact that 65% of clients who needed to replace the filter did not know where to purchase the new filtering unit. This taps into one of the major flaws currently affecting the company, which is the lack of an efficient system to quickly address broken pieces and remind customers how they can go about replacing their filtrating unit. Building from this finding, the surveys also found that most answers to open- ended questions revolved around a need for better customer service and a greater presence of EcoFiltro in their communities (“Lean Data Field Surveys,” 2018). The need to increase community engagement and improve customer service–particularly in cases of damaged product or filters than need replacements–is, there...
