Managing Your Reputation with Solar Insure

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Reputation isn’t just a nice-to-have in the competitive solar market, it’s everything. Talk to any company that has experienced a few negative reviews, and they’ll tell you those concerns are brought up every time they approach new prospects. 

In previous articles, we’ve talked about how to properly manage your online reputation, and it’s one thing to manage your reputation and another to proactively prevent issues. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how working with and incorporating Solar Insure warranties into your offering can help mitigate the biggest issues installers face and bolster your reputation. 

Why Your Reputation Matters

It’s not news that we live in an age where consumers are more educated than ever. The average consumer has more options at their fingertips than ever before to learn all about a company’s good and bad aspects. Especially in a construction industry like solar, it’s of the utmost importance that installers do everything they can to nurture their reputation.

When it comes to buying decisions and reviews, the data points in one clear direction:

• 95% of consumers turn to online reviews before making purchasing decisions
• 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
• 44% of homeowners report difficulty in trusting solar providers

Data tells us that online reputation through review sites like Google Reviews and Yelp hold just as much weight as personal recommendations. With continued business closures and bankruptcies burning more consumers every day, solar installers need to be sure they stay ahead of issues.

In my own experience, reputation can even outweigh price. And I’m not alone in that experience; many solar sales reps have heard a customer tell them, “You weren’t the cheapest option, but your reviews swayed me”. 

The Most Common Sources of Complaints

To better understand how a reputation can be improved or upheld, it’s important to know what the most common sources of complaints are for solar businesses. The following information was compiled from data available at the Better Business Bureau, ConsumerAffairs, SolarReviews, Yelp and Google Reviews, and the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL).

The above graph details the most common sources of negative reviews for solar installers. The majority of negative reviews come from the customer experience after installation has occurred. But front-end engagement and experience still make up more than 30% of all negative reviews. 

This is where Solar Insure comes in to mitigate many of the issues on both sides of the installation. 

The Solar Insure Advantage

Installers who have become Solar Insure Certified Providers have gone through a rigorous vetting process to ensure they are of the highest quality in both customer experience and stability. Offering SI-30 warranties along with solar installs helps to close the gaps left by manufacturer warranties and encourages more transparency within the front-end and back-end customer experience.

Pre-Install

By including Solar Insure warranties along with solar quotes, it fosters a more transparent conversation with homeowners by allowing sales reps to discuss the finer details that are often left out of expectation setting. Mainly, that means setting expectations around equipment warranties and failures. For too long, the common vernacular of solar sales reps has been “the equipment is set it and forget it” or “there are no moving parts so maintenance is rare”. 

Inevitably, homeowners who expect that their equipment won’t fail and have these long-term manufacturer warranties feel burned when the equipment fails, and they are hit with a bill for repairs. Homeowners will often feel misled, and as the data suggests, that accounts for 10% of negative reviews.

By incorporating SI-30 Total, SI-30 Solar, or SI-30 Battery into sales conversations, teams can better prepare clients for the realities of solar ownership and also give them peace of mind that when those issues occur, they’re protected from failures and repair costs.

Post-Install

After installation, service and support is a place where having Solar Insure warranties incorporated into a product offering makes a solar installer shine. From the data, 15% of negative reviews stem from warranty issues. While manufacturer warranties are often 25 years on panels and inverters, they don’t cover labor costs. Homeowners may think labor is covered by the installer’s workmanship warranty, but most workmanship warranties only cover improper installation or damage done while on site, not later service.

With Solar Insure warranties, installers are providing long-term peace of mind and can confidently tell their customers that equipment and labor are covered for 30 years by an independent warranty. 

Solar Insure Certified Providers also get access to Daybreak, our monitoring and claims-filing platform, where they can see their entire fleet in one place, simplifying monitoring. Removing some of these common headaches simplifies customer service by getting ahead of many of the most common problems homeowners face.

Protect Your Reputation with Solar Insure

As we can see, having Solar Insure independent warranties backing solar product offerings can help to mitigate more than a third of the most common customer complaints and help to protect a solar installer’s reputation. With a strong reputation, happier customers, and additional profit coming from being paid for service work, Certified Providers put themselves in the best position for success.

Learn more about Solar Insure SI-30 warranties here: https://www.solarinsure.com/our-solutions

Learn how to become a Solar Insure Certified Provider: https://www.solarinsure.com/solar-insure-certified-provider-what-it-means