Initially, I would like to thank the Canal Solar, to address an important topic that is often viewed in a simplistic, non-strategic way. The objective of this text is to raise more questions than answers, since the central idea is to investigate the strategic positioning of each company, and therefore there is no single answer. To this end, I ask the following questions:
- What is your company's position regarding the way it treats customers?
- What does it mean to sell a photovoltaic system to the people who are part of your team?
- What does it mean to sell a photovoltaic system to employees who are part of your team? Is it just about providing the end customer with energy savings through panels and inverters?
- What is your company's vision related to the question above?
I ask these questions because, in my view, we are not selling panels and inverters, but rather delivering an experience to the customer. So, what is your “target”? Do you sell low price or value? To rephrase, do you “deliver value” or simply “deliver low price”? I reiterate, both the low price strategy and the value delivery strategy are strategies that each company must evaluate to understand its positioning in the market.
Each company has its own strategic vision. However, we need to make it clear that when we deliver the lowest price, we are not delivering many things that would be intangible to our customer, if we were delivering value. I reiterate, this choice is up to any company. Have you ever heard of NPS (Net Promoter Score)?
NPS is a way of measuring how satisfied your customers are and understanding whether they would recommend your company to third parties, in addition to clearly showing whether a customer who has already purchased a product in the past, considering the experience they have already had, would purchase any new product again. product in the future. In other words, NPS aims to measure how loyal and fans your customers are of your company.
Drawing a parallel with NPS, we clearly know through all the strategic biannual studies of the photovoltaic market that what sells the most is referrals and what generates the most referrals are satisfied customers, that is, a high NPS. I suggested evaluating metrics that will allow your company to escape the direct price competition and start focusing on customer experience and the vision of fans. With this, there is no doubt that in the medium/long term your company will endure, always adapting and improving over time.
Of course, low prices and strategies can also be copied, but the human being, the people and the cultural way in which you deliver value to your end customer are unique facts. I ask, what is your customer's journey with your company? Do you treat it as a purchase and sale only, or do you look at the experience side and make them identify the benefits and value that you deliver?
How do you react to the problems your customers bring up throughout the pre- and post-sales journey? Do you make lemonade out of lemons, or do you ignore it, ignore it, and think that “time will solve it”?
What commitment do you have to your customer’s shopping experience? What is your supplier's commitment to you and your customer? Does he put himself in his place with the customer, or does he only think about selling, invoicing and delivering?
Do you have a handshake partnership with your supplier or simply a buying and selling partnership? What is the level of competition with your competitors? Do you and they deliver exactly the same product? How can you deliver value and not just the same product?
It doesn't matter if you sell the exact same product, how do you create a competitive advantage that only you can deliver? How to create this intangible vision of value in the customer's mind, making them think about the value delivered and not the low price?
Look, I don't want to provide answers, but rather more and more questions, which are what will make each company question itself and understand its vision, strategy and positioning in the market and with end customers. I bring up all these questions because we are seeing increasingly fierce competition in the photovoltaic market, and when there is a lot of competition, the strategy and vision of being different must speak louder.
This is because in the long term, companies that change and react not only with a five-year plan, but with a five-year plan and rapid actions, rapid reviews and abrupt changes, are the ones that survive this VUCA world – volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. We must always have resilience to deal with this volatility, flexibility to deal with uncertainty, multidisciplinarity to deal with complexity and courage to deal with ambiguity.
Let's look at the last year and everything we've been through. The pandemic brought us several lessons that, if we did not adapt, many companies would no longer exist. Adaptation is intrinsic and must be part of any long-term planning.
Finally, I suggest that integrators who read this article answer all of the questions above together with their teams and think about how to stand out and do things differently. Often, small things, no matter how simple, will make all the difference. And as a final message, I reiterate: do not treat your customer's journey as a purchase and sale, but rather, deliver a “Wow” vision and a “Unique Experience”, transform your customer's experience into a war arsenal for your sales.
