Software To Improve The Customer Experience

Software and sun panels are possibly no longer the maximum thrilling parts of cleantech for most people. However, a few improvements are occurring inside the area, particularly close to the software.

We met up with SunPower’s Jake Wachman at this 12 months Solar Power International Show in Anaheim, California, to talk approximately how he’s leading the price to make it less complicated for clients to learn about solar while not having to provide out telephone numbers, emails, or selling youngsters off into indentured servitude.

For starters, Jake shared that he believes software is the important thing to unlocking the capacity of sun and that SunPower is committed to leading that fee.”We need to be known for the highest efficiency panels, the nice solution for our patron, and additionally, the perfect enjoy which, in a whole lot of cases, is without a doubt desirable software program,” Jake shared. “We have dozens of humans on our software groups which can be committed to solving these types of issues,” and that SunPower is, in reality, making a push to establish a software program group that may compete with the top experts in Silicon Valley.

Zero-Commitment Solar Assessment Tool

Across the net, sun lead technology has devolved into masses of statistics entry fields that work to eke out patron touch facts to pass along to solar installers of their vicinity. The problem with that model is that many customers want to peer what size solar gadget they could want for their home or to see what it’d value while not worrying about getting dozens of complying with up calls about it for the subsequent three years.

SunPower has apparently either been skimming thru my e-mail junk mail field or has heard from their personal clients because they went off and built a lovely sun evaluation device for residential clients. Their tool is unique in that it does now not ask for all types of patron statistics up the front to get started. It actually does need to cope with to apprehend wherein the machine might be mounted on the planet, local electricity prices, and so on; however, that may be a bare minimum to calculate sun requirements.
The person can take in information approximately the belongings and crunch that thru SunPower’s calculator to determine what size machine they could want. The device also subtly suggests that one of SunPower’s strengths as their enterprise leading efficiencies result in a miles smaller sized system.

Using my old home as the guinea pig, I located that with SunPower panels; I could have only wished 13 panels for our home plus one car instead of the 17 LG and Kyocera panels we had on our roof. Granted, my panels were older and, consequently, older tech, but SunPower maintains to lead in panel performance.

At the end of the procedure, users can input their statistics if they need to learn extra, however flipping that equation around is clean, and the device works as a substitute nicely. It’s no longer so complicated that customers won’t be capable of recognizing it without a degree in electrical engineering; however, at the same time, it’s miles strong sufficient to add cost.

Sol, The Intelligent Assistant

SunPower’s dedication to software program solutions also manifests itself in some unique solutions like its new digital assistant, Sol. Sol is a system gaining knowledge of-powered digital assist, but IBM’s Watson underpins that. In layman’s phrases, it’s a help tech that you may chat with, and it clearly comes up with shrewd answers.

I located Sol to be useful in a handful of queries and provide rich content like video in its responses. Giving visitors alternatives for the way they want to take in the facts via written responses and video makes the device more purposeful for more humans.

Sol is precise. It becomes built in-residence completely at SunPower, which shows how the corporation is asking two steps ahead at approaches technology can remedy troubles and improve clients’ scenario. Developing the device in-residence lets SunPower add in hooks that provide customers a break out if they need to contact an income individual, want to talk to a customer support representative, or opt to ship an e-mail to a real person.

I envision clients new to solar getting a lot of fee from Sol employing simply being able to take a seat there and ask all of the ‘dumb questions that they might be too embarrassed to ask an actual person. The answers, films, and content material that Sol spits out are useful, and if they aren’t slicing it, people can choose to talk to a person about it.

Looking To The Future

In speaking with Jake, he had something that he desired to mention; however couldn’t speak approximately but, so I’m keen to pay attention to what they need to proportion with us in the next weeks or months. Nevertheless, there are huge opportunities on the patron side to make the method for signing up for a solar system even easier, with a shorter time from order to install.

On the hardware facet, the integration between the solar device, a domestic electricity storage device, and the utilities is increasingly more an art than technological know-how and, as such, represents one in every of the biggest opportunities in the sun.