Lazy and greedy management = exploited workers, misled customer - Recensione dipendente - Dipendente anonimo presso Blue Raven Solar

Everywhere you look, this company cuts corners, and YOU pay for it. Sketchy Leads: A closer's job is to sell the project to a homeowner. But it's 100% commission so you don't get paid unless you do. This gives the company 0 incentive to setup quality appointments, because if you run 10 and close 1 (10%), its no different to them than you running 1 and closing 1 (100%). It's your time and gas money lost, not theirs. So, how can we expect quality appointments? They used to have minimum qualifiers to setup an appointment. If your home didnt make sense for Solar - not enough space, poor sun, low bill, etc. - then the appointment would not be setup. Essentially, you are trusting the company to not waste your time by setting appts you cant or shouldnt in good conscience sell. I have been here for several years, and every year, these minimums get lowered or removed, sending you to more and more unsellable appts. Most recently, 2 have changed: First, we no longer require a utility bill to create an estimate. We use square footage. So if you just bought or built a home, instead of waiting a few months to know your usage, we try and convince you we can calculate that off square footage. Aside from this being unethical, an incorrect system size can also hurt the customer, because there is only one tax credit (26% rebate) allowed per home. By waiting for usage, we can tell people how many panels they would need - say, 10. If we get them 11 and they dont end up needing that much, they are stuck paying for the extra with no buy backs. If we get them 9, they end up needing to purchase another a year later, without the rebate. Baseless estimates from square footage mean we DONT know the usage so our estimate will be wrong 100% of the time. So even if we can mislead them enough to commit to a system they dont know they'll need, if they need to tweak later, they will pay substantially more than they would have by doing it right in the first place. Second, there is no more minimum bill requirement, but there IS a minimum number of panels we can install - 8. So, if you only need 6 panels, it is our job to convince you that you actually need 8. That means instead of showing you a $30/mo system to replace your $30/mo utility bill, we now show you a $50/mo system providing 180% of your needs and try to convince you its necessary instead of informing you that "you don't have a big enough bill for Solar to make sense for you." Backend Issues: You are the only one whose pay is tied to the project. Everyone else is hourly or salary (a LOT of minimum wagers who don't know what they're doing.) That means, if at any point someone screws up the process AFTER you have done your part and signed them up, then the client cancels and everyone but you still gets paid. The backend problems are endless, and management is NEVER proactive, ALWAYS reactive. They are too shortsighted to prevent issues from happening, or solve them in a timely manner. Reporting the problems usually goes nowhere. It is not unusual for a problem to consistently repeat itself for weeks or months before someone high up enough actually decides to do something about it. Remember, as a closer, your pay is at risk until the project is complete. Any negative changes or issues that a customer sees is cause for them to cancel ("you guys already messed up, why would we work with you?"). You are not just a salesman. You are a Project Manager. Much of your time will be spent fixing other peoples' problems so you don't lose your pay, or even telling them how to do their jobs because they are incompetent or poorly trained. Every step in the process (Analysis, Design, Site Survey, Final Design, and the communication of all this to the client) is dealt with by a different person. If one person screws up, the client suffers for it, and you lose your deal. On big projects, the company will make concessions to the client so as not to forfeit all the money already spent. I had a project screwed up in Design so bad that we showed up to install and couldn't fit all the panels. The client was furious and I was told that because concessions had to be made, my commission would be cut. The company could have eaten the cost in good faith toward me, but instead they chose to keep the project and not pay me, who had nothing to do with the problem. This is the respect you will get from management. Turnover: Solar business booms in the summer, and wilts in the winter. This means many more people are needed in all depts for the summer. Every year, business suffers in the winter and people quit. Every year, business picks up again in the summer BEFORE new people are hired. Even though they know there is a seasonal upswing coming, they don't proactively hire. They wait until we are systemically understaffed, THEN they hire, which means another month or so before those people become competent enough to do their jobs well. Turnover is massive. With poor pay (lowest in the industry), high workloads, and faulty resources, people quit or burnout constantly. Maybe 1 in 3 Closers make it a year. Maybe 20% of the proposals department lasts a year. Because you are a number, and there are plenty of desperate teens willing to take anything they can get to replace you. This means the people in these departments in charge of handling your project, often do so poorly, which costs you your pay. Pricing: We are usually 20% higher than our competition. We show them low interest rates but don't show them the 25-35% "Dealer Fee" that goes to the financier. Most of our competitors don't have this fee. So when they get other quotes for the same system and APR but see the overall cost as 20% less, you have to explain that, and you lose the deal. False Advertising: if you are clicking ads on Facebook, you are likely to run across a Solar ad with the TESLA name and logo, and the words FREE. When you put in your info, you get a call from Blue Raven. If you are dumb enough to not realize we aren't Tesla, we probably won't correct you. We'll setup an appointment. When the Closer shows up, the customer will often think you are Tesla and offering free Solar. This is, of course, a lie. You might think, "how do I establish trust and sell my product if the client has already been misled into thinking it is free and we are Tesla?" Good question. Team managers are left strategizing with Closers on how to talk around this rather than stop the false advertising. We've used these ads for over a year now. They used to claim they knew it was unethical and were working to get rid of them. Not anymore. They pay pennies for these scammer leads that hoover up personal info, then pass it on to Closers knowing if they don't sell it, it hasn't cost the company anything, just the Closers' time and gas. Internal Software: They made a new CRM tool last year and named it Albatross. This is the system you use for everything. They didn't do workflow analysis before they built it though, so they built it without a ton of functionality and everyone hates it. As they slowly realize how terrible it is, they release patches/updates. We have now had over 50. Most changes you aren't notified of, let alone approve of. They use software tools on the backend for all calculations and form-filling, and it is constantly malfunctioning, providing you with incorrect info for the client, or messing up paperwork which will later have to be changed with the customers' approval (might cancel). Projects will often stall for weeks in a queue that no one is checking, leaving you making excuses for the delay. Clients emails often go unanswered and holdups often aren't discovered until weeks later - often by you. Do not work for these people. This company is run by frat boys with the principle "If the client agrees to it, they must be OK with it" or "if they're asking too many questions, this isn't for them anyway." It is a burn and turn, don't ask don't tell organization that is not above misleading people, mistreating its' employees, and inevitably replacing you with another optimistic sucker when you quit.