Highlights from The state of solar customer service

Working in solar operations is harder than ever.  In fact, when we polled our recent webinar attendees 64% of the installers said that it’s harder to service solar customers today than it was 2 years ago.  Thanks to companies like Uber and Amazon, consumer expectations are super high — and already stressed solar project managers are struggling to keep up with intense communication demands.

That’s why we brought together a group of customer service experts to help lay out what customers actually care about vs what your ops team can skip. 

The special event was moderated by Scott Nguyen, CEO of Bodhi.  Our panelists were:

• Jody Bannister — Head of Customer Experience at A.M. Sun Solar
• Valerie Corey — Project Management Team Lead at StraightUp Solar
• Jacob Matthews — Director of Customer Experience at C3 Presents

Below, you’ll find one key takeaway from each panelist, as well as a full recording of the webinar.

Jody Bannister, A.M. Sun Solar — “Customer service is about being responsive. The customer is initiating contact, then you’re helping them. But customer experience is thinking ahead of time to create an experience that mitigates any of the times they would feel impatient.  You’re really imagining yourself as the customer and figuring out what they would be thinking and feeling at different points in the journey.”

Valerie Corey, StraightUp Solar —   "Setting proper expectations up front is key. It's important to let the customer know what is in our control and what is not — which includes things like inspections and permitting.  If you don't set proper expectations at the beginning, you're dead in the water for the rest of the project."

Jacob Matthews, C3 Presents — “We’ve employed a lot of new technology that used to not exist: Automation, searchable FAQs, answer bots, web widgets, and more. What’s interesting is that the web has progressed so much that we’ve relied less and less on native applications and relied more on a customized web experience because it allows for better communication tools. We want to make it easier for people to communicate the way they want to.

To learn more, watch the recording of the panel below: