Risk classes of the superclass S2 - Customers

SR 2.1 Social acceptability- customers:

Social acceptability is the outcome of a collective judgment or collective opinion of a project or company. The collective judgment may be positive or negative and is never set in time. It is made up of what people feel about a company, based on their experience, what they have heard/read about the company, or available facts.

Customer dissatisfaction with the services offered by the infrastructure company can undermine the usefulness and usability of the asset in the long term and even lead to regulatory interventions in extreme cases.

SR 2.1.1 Perception of quality of service:

Quality of service is the description or measurement of the overall performance of a service, particularly the performance, as perceived by users. In the context of social acceptability, a company perceived to be providing poor quality of service can result in decreased usage of the asset and negatively impact the revenue of the company, poor acceptability may also lead to decreased investments in (other) assets owned/managed by the company or in some cases lead to monitoring by authorities and subsequent interventions such as fines.

SR 2.1.2 Perception of affordability of service:

The perception of a service being affordable to a large proportion of society (at least the top of the bottom quartile). The perception of affordability by the customer base can contribute to poor social acceptability of infrastructure assets leading to reduced usability (for example, tolls roads being under-used due to very high toll rates; see Maulana, 2019) and even regulatory interventions (such as government acquiring highways to change toll structure; see Hassan, 2019). It can also impede/promote investments into certain types of infrastructure classes. For example, as the production cost of renewable energy falls, it translates to renewable energy becoming more affordable and socially acceptable for a large part of society and thus becoming an attractive asset class for investors (WEF, 2021).

SR 2.1.3 Perception of accessibility of service:

The perception of a service being available and physically accessible to as many users as possible. The perception of a lack of accessibility can lead to reduced social acceptability of a company. It can consequently pose multiple types of risks such as the reputational risks associated with discriminatory behaviour (in cases where public transport infrastructure cannot be used by disabled, handicapped or at-risk personnel due to the unavailability of lifts and ramps). A lack of accessibility also inevitably translates to less usability of an asset (for example train stations and airports with better connectivity are preferred by customers), impacting its revenues.

_{Hassan, H. (2019). Malaysia set to take over four highways and tweak road charges to reduce voter angst. New Straits Times, Accessed on 11 July 2022.}

_{Maulana, R. (2019). Toll road: Trans-java toll road tariff dilemma. Accessed on 11 July 2022.}

_{WEF (2021). Renewables were the world’s cheapest source of energy in 2020, new report shows. Accessed on 11 July 2022.}