Annoying Customers

[whinmoor]

I’ve had three survey visits in the past couple of weeks when the customer has managed to schedule my visit to clash with surveyors from other companies.

Today’s customer managed to book both me and another company at exactly the same time. I arrived a couple of minutes early and was looking at the consumer unit when there was a knock at the door from this other guy who was about 10 minutes late. I was quickly ushered into a study (where the customer had conveniently left his quotation from another company on his desk) whilst the other surveyor had about 10 minutes to make his pitch before being kicked out so I could resume my place in the limelight.

A few days ago I was in the middle of a visit when the customer’s phone rang. The surveyor from another company was outside for his turn and it turned out the customer had agreed to a visit anytime that afternoon whilst agreeing 2pm with me. He was allowed to measure up outside and was told to send a quote through by email. Not allowed inside to look at the loft or electrics!

On the third occasion, the customer managed to book me at 10am and another company at 10:30am. The other guy was told to go and sit in his car for a while so I was able to continue my visit. It was apparently the customer’s day off and he planned to have 5 or 6 visits squeezed into that day.

Is it just me, or are customers getting dimmer?

 

[whinmoor]

Ooops - posted in Main Forum by mistake. A few too many on a Friday evening mg_smile:

 

[Worcester]

Nope, they're getting dimmer, or smarter

We are finding that they need a lot more information to help them feel comfortable with the investment these days. Though I do my 'selling' whilst surveying, I get all the points across whilst looking at each element, then sit down for a cuppa at the end and re-cap. The official sales technique is tell them what your going to tell them, tell them and then tell them what you've told them. All the time I'm explaining WHY I'm doing what I'm doing and WHY it is important, so that when the others don;t do it, they know that we / I know our stuff and it isn't spin.

Just picked up a complicated 3.5kWp Rosemary tile (Hookstops - with photo illustrations of WHY) job with BenQ 325's for £8,700 that way

 

[SolarCity]

I think they're just as irritating as they've ever been, it's just that now margins are tighter, it is annoying me more.

Lost out on a job last week which, after I counted up the hours, I worked out I had spent 7 man hours going through her quote and changes to the design.

We lost out to another firm - fair enough - but we always ask for a little feedback on where we lost out so we can improve. Customer flat out refused. Which is a royal **** take if you ask me.

 

[SolarCity]

Noticing a lot of time wasters too.

We had a phone call from a guy called Surinder Chana (remember the name) a few weeks ago. He wanted me to give him a price on commercial system that he was going to install. Somehow he had managed to win the job before he had actually designed it AND received DNO permission.

Anyway, he wanted me to supply labour only - which included design. Luckily, I remembered his name from a few years previous. He had booked a free survey at his home. The first two occasions we visited, he wasn't there. On the second occasion, when we phoned him to ask where he was, he rudely told us he was in a meeting and hung up on us. On the third occasion, we actually did a full survey and quote.

Told us in the end that he wasn't going to go through with an install as he didn't have the money. Checked Google Maps and he has indeed had an install - in the precise layout of the quote that I gave him.

So he has his own firm now. Having wasted an intolerable amount of my time.

If you come across the name, take my advice - hang up the phone.

 

[dansk]

the reason they don't say is because they never had any intention of using you, all they wanted to do was check the installers price.

happens to me all the time. but I'm a lot better at spotting it now.

 

[SolarCity]

It's annoying. If a customer phones us and wants, for example, a consumer unit changed, they act as if I'm helping them out. If I go to quote them for a PV system, they act as if I've knocked on their door out of the blue and tried to sell them something they don't want.

The industry has the reputation of the double glazing industry now. I blame MCS as the enabler and RECC for failing to prevent it.

 

[solarsavings]

I'm afraid we pay wreck to tell everyone that this industry is a pool of sharks. Hardly surprising then that the public believe it.

 

[SolarCity]

RECC do nothing. Firms do as they please. We witnessed it yesterday again. A firm which has been mentioned on the main forum was charging a guy 17k for 4kWp system with Midnight Sun. They reduced the price to 7k when he told them he would cancel. What do you think will happen if the customer reports them to RECC? Less than nothing.

 

[Gavin A]

We have a policy of wiping them off our boards, and dumping their folders in the dead file immediately, then forgetting about them entirely and focussing on the live leads.

I kinda look at it as being their loss tbh, and we've actually had a few customers come back from the dead of their own accord either with that project, or with another project after they've had a poor job done by whichever firm undercut us the first time around.

It's a bit easier to think this way this year as we're getting a steady flow of inquiries, and quite a bit less of this type of stuff as we've not done any lead generation stuff since about April.

 

[SRE]

My opening gambit with all of our surveys these days is - we're not the cheapest so if you're looking just for price then we're probably not the company for you. I follow up explaining about quality of install, panel and inverter combinations that suit the customer's need not ours and most of all I don't buy leads in. We discovered earlier this year that people comparing prices via lead generators just want cheap, they aren't our customers so we don't buy leads.

I stopped a while ago spending hours on PVsol just to lose the job. I make sure it fits and the inverter is compatible and if/when the customer goes ahead do more detailed stuff. I provide a shopping list for our customers, base price for 2 options of panels and inverters, upgrade to Immersun & Solaredge. That way they can make an informed decision.

We're not getting loads of work but our conversion rate is back at 60 - 70% and we're getting a reasonable margin on the work we're doing and our customers appreciate the time we take on their installation.

 

[Marvo]

From a complete outsider's point of view this is the most upbeat thread, with general consensus, I've seen in the Sun Lounge for a good while. Is the market picking up a bit or is it that as businesses you've gone though a new learning curve and just generally got better at operating in a leaner and far less target rich environment?

Either way it's nice to get an underlying optimistic tone for a change.

 

[SRE]

I'm not sure about optimistic - we're not counting on solar as our main business anymore - if we were we'd have gone bust!

 

[whinmoor]

It's going to be a long winter for many and I'd expect to see more companies give up their MCS. I think the PV repair and inverter replacement sideline is going to grow.

Prices seem to be at an all-time low. Customers seem to be expecting £5k rather than £6k now for a budget 4kWp system which doesn't leave much margin as a contingency to cover the winter period. But, panel prices haven't dropped much in the meantime so margins must be wafer-thin.

Saying that, we managed to bag an £8k Panasonic job a couple of days ago so there's still some more discerning customers out there looking for quality kit. This guy requested SMA after I quoted for Power One.

 

[SolarCity]

Prices are low and dropping. Locally, prices have dropped below £5k. We've seen £4.5k inclusive of VAT for 4kWp. As this stuff is now recorded on MCS website, I'm far from optimistic as it will be used one day for Greg Barker to justify removing FITs altogether.

We're using solar as an add on now. Trying to get as much other work as possible and exploring other avenues. Fair play to those of you who can keep going on purely solar work.

 

[Gavin A]

we've taken 34 inquiries for PV in 2 days at a show this weekend, probably hit 50 by the end of today, and already have around 25 active domestic leads on our sales boards and another 20 or so on the commercial boards.

TBH we've been and remain pretty swamped with inquiries, and haven't taken any lead generation since around April. I've just put our core prices up by 5% - we've stopped competing at the very bottom of the market, just tell people if they want dirt cheap systems then we're not for them, but we will do them a very good value very good quality system that will look great and perform well for a very long time. At worst we'll sometimes meet people in the middle.

Only time we'l go really cheap is for trade systems / builders / multiple property owners, or someone we're wanting to trial a new system with.

We went the other way and decided to focus heavily on our core business of high quality solar PV installations, and I'm pretty sure we've turned the corner, with a steady flow of inquiries from referrals, repeat customers, other companies who'll refer to us, small builders, and the occasional stand at a show to boost the numbers up. My staffing levels are now back up to 2011 levels, but with a better balanced team, with a much reduced wage bill - took on a 3 year apprentice full time on JIB wages in September which helps with that.

It's still a bit touch and go financially, the margins are far too tight, hence the price rise, but I'm now fairly confident we can keep things ticking over at least, and hopefully maybe even look towards making back a chunk of the money we lost in 2012 by the end of 2014, which'd be nice.

 

[SolarCity]

Great to hear you're doing well, Gavin. In all honesty, marketing is much more important in PV than most other trades and it is not something that I'm particularly good at. Which is why I think myself and other companies struggle.

 

[SRE]

Marketing is important but you do have to have a receptive audience too - we're seeing hardly any installs in our area at all. Since we cam back from our holiday a couple of weeks ago we've had 5 enquiries, installed 2 of those, I'm just quoting for 1 this morning and I'm waiting for the other 2 to get back to me. One is a possibility the other isn't a brilliant option for the customer and we advised them accordingly so I don't expect to pick that up.

To be honest we don't get the same thrill we used to installing solar pv and having recovered from a desperate winter earlier in the year I'm not keen to throw away bundles of cash on marketing so we're taking the networking & social media approach and appear to be building reputation for decent honest advice about loads of energy stuff, this in turn seems to be generating enough to keep us from cancelling our MCS - but I have to admit it's constantly at the back of my mind that we may not renew next time.

I don't get any pleasure from being asked to put people's problems right - it's often a distress call, we have a roof with multiple leaks to his slate roof that had panels installed with hanger bolts 18 months ago. The whole roof is having to be replaced, you have to be completely disengaged to quote the customer a proper price for re-installing properly, so you end up not getting the original job and making less than you should for re-installing a system - where's the pleasure in that?

I still enjoy the discussion about solar with the customers but waiting 3 months to get the margin back via a vat return isn't a great way to run a business. I can't wait to see what gem the govt comes up with on 4th Dec in the Autumn statement!!

 

[Gavin A]

Great to hear you're doing well, Gavin. In all honesty, marketing is much more important in PV than most other trades and it is not something that I'm particularly good at. Which is why I think myself and other companies struggle.

We've stopped all marketing other than the website, and a few selected shows, as nothing else seemed to have been worth the money.

The key thing is getting the website right at the top of google for anyone searching for solar PV in the areas you want to work, that way the inquiries just trickle in - as long as your website is good enough to attract people, which is a constant struggle, and something I've been neglecting of late, it's well overdue for a full update, though we've done several partial updates.

Plus building relationships with local building firms, architects, green consultants, property agents etc

 

[Gavin A]

I still enjoy the discussion about solar with the customers but waiting 3 months to get the margin back via a vat return isn't a great way to run a business. I can't wait to see what gem the govt comes up with on 4th Dec in the Autumn statement!!

nooooo - you need to register with HMRC for monthly vat rebates. We'd be dead in the water if we had to wait 3 months for the VAT rebates.