SHEDDING LIGHT ON A 360 VIEW OF THE CUSTOMER

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1 WRITTEN BY: JOHN CARROLL, CEO FEBRUARY The Service Council All rights reserved.

2 Page 2 of 8 Sungevity is the nation s fastest growing residential solar company that designs, installs, and finances its solar electric systems. Headquartered in Berkeley, California, the company currently serves homeowners in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. Its mission is to make solar installation more accessible and affordable to the community by providing education about solar energy, an online iquote process that eliminates the hassle of home visits, and various lease options to remove any financial burden for customers. Sungevity has a unique approach to help consumers go solar: interested parties can learn about solar energy and get a free, personalized iquote for a lease on a system within 24 hours all online before any payment is required. The company uses satellite images and aerial photography to assess the homeowner s roof remotely, and accurately determines the home's solar energy potential. Unlike most traditional solar companies (i.e., those that need to physically come to the house to provide a quote) Sungevity and its network of Preferred Installers save consumers both time and money by bringing this process entirely online. Historically, the single greatest barrier to the widespread adoption of residential solar power has been the high upfront cost of getting a system installed on the homeowner s roof. Approximately 90% of the lifetime cost of a home solar system resulted from payments for panels and installation. To offset the burden of this initial investment, Sungevity created its Solar Lease, which allows consumers to go solar without having to foot the upfront cost. For no money down, the company will design and install a system customized for each home, and then lease the panels for a low monthly rate. This model has been very successful in enabling consumers to get started on a solar energy program that will ultimately save them a great deal of money over an extended period of time. Service Management Challenges for a Growing Company in an Expanding Market With its innovative practices generating record growth, Sungevity quickly realized it needed field service operations that could scale. It also needed tools that were easily used by their own technicians and by their partner network, as partner technicians

3 Page 3 of 8 often perform installations and provide service for many of their customers. Among the greatest challenges faced by the company were the following: Undocumented business processes Unavailable data Departmentalized (i.e., siloed) data Cumbersome off-line tools (e.g., Excel spreadsheets were used to manage work orders) Limited scalability of existing management tools Lack of data reporting capabilities Service Management Goals and Objectives Sungevity s challenges were quickly translated into specific goals for the company. Management also recognized that it was dealing in a high growth segment, and that areas including system integration and scalability would represent major issues moving forward. As a result, company management looked specifically for: Salesforce.com-based applications (i.e., its platform of choice), and A Field Service solution with device-agnostic mobile applications (i.e., one that would support a BYOD, or bring your own device, environment) One of management s top goals was also to move to a single platform for service operations, so there would be no future worries regarding integration. Since they were already using the Salesforce.com platform, they preferred a Salesforce.com-based solution. Other service management goals included: Being able to digitize work orders Ability to provide data validation Making it easier for service techs to automate their activities A more lofty and far-reaching goal for the company was to blanket the U.S. and the world with solar energy systems. Panel prices had dropped as much as 60 percent in the previous few years, and were now both less expensive to acquire and easier to install. Finding the right solution, tools and resources to run its service operations would allow it also leverage its presence in an increasingly accommodating (and receptive) global market environment for solar energy-based systems. Initiating the Solution and Vendor Selection Process

4 Page 4 of 8 The first step Sungevity management took to begin the selection process was to establish a team to draft a forward-looking business process plan. Up until that time, most of the company s existing business had been very, very organic. Management moved to hire a six-sigma consultant to provide some initial assistance, and then spent approximately eight months to refine and coordinate its thoughts into a more detailed plan of action. This initial portion of the process culminated in December 2011, resulting in the preparation of a list of tools and resources that would be required focusing mostly on software. By January 2012, Sungevity had selected Salesforce.com as their new CRM vendor, mainly on the basis of its scalability, and the ability to support the company over its long-term anticipated growth. As a result, the company s selection and evaluation team refined its search for a Field Service solution specifically tied to Salesforce.com. However, what they learned fairly early on was that it was one thing to implement Salesforce.com for internal use, only; but an entirely different thing to implement it in support of a global partner network. To address this issue, the team focused first on defining the functionality requirements and return-on-investment (i.e., ROI) for the proposed solution so that it could provide a compelling argument to senior management. To accomplish this, the team dealt with each company executive, one-on-one, face-to-face, to assure that it could convince management of the numerous merits and practical necessity of acquiring such a solution and, ultimately, gaining full management buy-in and support. The team started looking at a number of alternative Field Service Management solution providers, and were quickly able to rule out about five or six vendors whose functionality, it believed, was not yet developed enough to meet its documented needs. For many, the biggest missing piece of the solution was the lack of a mobile workforce application. Cost was generally not a factor but the lack of a suitable mobile application definitely was. A smart phone platform was highly desirable, as much of Sungevity s business is conducted in crawlspaces and attics, and only smart phones can typically be used in such tight spaces laptops and large tablets cannot. After a rigorous selection and evaluation process, ServiceMax was selected as the designated vendor, providing a big win for Sungevity. The ServiceMax solution significantly reduced the time it was taking for Sungevity (and its partners) to perform its service activities, there was more data availability (through Dataforce.com), it provided the mobile applications the company was looking for, and there was total transparency between and among processes companywide, as well as from department to department.

5 Page 5 of 8 The ServiceMax solution came to Sungevity just in time, as in 2011, the company entered into an official partnership with Lowes, the second largest home improvement retailer in the world, with 2011 sales of over US$50 billion, and serving approximately 15 million customers a week at more than 1,745 home improvement stores in the United States, Canada and Mexico. As a result, Sungevity had to make sure that it would be able to launch the solution quickly; get all of its tools and resources in place; and be prepared to scale rapidly to meet the new opportunity. Sungevity went forward with ServiceMax in April 2012; and less than three months later, in July 2012, it launched Salesforce.com companywide and it has continued to expand its use and reliance on the ServiceMax solution ever since. Salesforce.com Sungevity s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform Ability to track customers from sales through installation Reinforcement of the 20-year customer service retention strategy ServiceMax Management of all of Sungevity s Field Service operations Provides an integrated, 360 view of the customer throughout the entire service delivery chain Provides relevant and detailed field service data for both reporting and analytics Principal Outcomes and Expected Returns The principal benefits realized from the implementation of the ServiceMax solution may be summarized as: Unifying scheduling companywide, and across all departments Streamlining partner contact through a partner portal Providing digital, data-validated work orders Extending data accessibility to the field techs through a mobile application Providing end-to-end product tracking and Return Management Authorization (RMA) An early improvement as a result of the ServiceMax deployment was the ability to send out PDF documents for print, sign and return there would be no need for paper-based signatures anymore! Built on the ServiceMax solution, Sungevity created a structured internal and customer approval process that is expected to speed billing and save the company between $15,000 and $20,000 through the use of digital signatures.

6 Page 6 of 8 Second, the company s two largest departments: Project Management, which handles installations; and Customer Service, which handles maintenance and repair work, had previously depended on two separate scheduling tools to manage a single workforce. Routinely, when one department would schedule calls for the workforce, the other department would not have any visibility. As a result, in many cases, the same technician would be scheduled for two calls at the same time due to the lack of transparency. Consolidating all scheduling under a single umbrella was a huge, huge benefit for Sungevity. Third, the company s installation process had been very manual and cumbersome. It historically would start out by first sending the installation partner a text, and then following-up with paper forms. However, with the ServiceMax solution, all information and forms are provided directly through the partner portal again, no paper is required. Further, by using a single site (i.e., the partner portal) all communications regarding installations, maintenance and repair have been streamlined, and there are no more overlapping appointments or double booking. The new system even takes into account field technician personal time, such as dentist appointments, when scheduling a customer call. Finally, Sungevity is now in the process of moving all of its parts, inventory and logistics activities into the system. As a result, its entire field service organization will have real 360 visibility from sales, through shipments, installations, service, parts everything. It used to take between 10 and 15 tools to do all this but everything is now moving onto the ServiceMax solution. In summary, the main outcomes of the ServiceMax implementation focus primarily around: Greater data transparency and accuracy Better service delivery and increased customer satisfaction (which, in turn, drives referrals) Streamlined interactions with its Preferred Installer Contractor Network Ability to attract higher quality Installers (i.e., at better prices per installed Watt) Scalability of the platform Increased capacity to accommodate expected increases in field service calls Ability to keep costs at the lowest possible levels However, customer-focused benefits being realized are the most exciting. Sungevity believes it has jumped the shark with respect to satisfying customers. They have placed ipad-powered kiosks in Lowes retail outlets that enable consumers to obtain an instant quote (i.e., iquote) for a solar energy system that meets their specific and unique requirements. Sungevity kiosks have already been installed at Lowes retail

7 Page 7 of 8 outlets in nine states, and the entire installation is expected to be completed in no more than three to six months. In addition, Sungevity s Net Promoter Score (NPS), while historically high, all but went through the roof as a result of the ServiceMax implementation. In fact, in Q4 2012, the company s NPS, at 74, was higher than that of Trader Joe s, Amazon and even the Apple Store! Company management is now targeting an NPS of 80 moving forward. What s Next? For the future, supported by the ServiceMax solution, Sungevity plans to enhance its customer portal to include a number of additional customer self-support functionalities, including: Quantification of the customer s role in reducing its carbon footprint Summary of savings in overall energy (i.e., electricity) costs and consumption Number of gallons of fuel saved Under its Generate Positive initiative, and with the help of the ServiceMax solution and customer support team, Sungevity has great plans moving forward, including: Expanding the user base equipped with the ServiceMax platform Streamlining internal processes to make the best use of the ServiceMax products Develop parts logistics and RMA processes in ServiceMax Ability to track product and service performance from end-to-end, and over the course of an entire solar energy project a 20-year customer relationship! Together, Sungevity and ServiceMax are truly working in partnership to shed their light over a global customer base.

8 ABOUT THE SERVICE COUNCIL The Service Council is an exclusive community of Services Executives representing global, industry-leading, service-centric businesses. The mission of The Service Council is to provide a platform for innovation sharing, shaping and sharpening; where uncommon service-centric businesses can emulate the strategies deployed by Global Service Leaders. The Service Council presents its annual Smarter Services Executive Symposium in April May. The Symposium provides an invaluable opportunity to meet and network with Services, Customer Experience and Customer Management Executives in an environment conducive to advancing Executive relationships. For more information on The Service Council visit For general inquiries please submit an to info@theservicecouncil.com The Service Council All rights reserved.