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Angela Burke and Julie King are experienced leaders who built installation, customer service, and operations and maintenance teams at multiple solar companies from scratch.
In this fifth episode of our six-part Beyond O&M: The Future of Solar series, the two women share lessons learned about the scalability of service teams and why it is a critical component to any solar company’s expansion plans.
Angela was a long-serving core team member at Namaste Solar before joining Pivot Energy to help build its service operations. She now directs Pivot's operations and management (O&M). During her time at the two Colorado-based Certified B Corporations (B Corp), Angela's teams have designed, built and managed more than 15,000 projects.
Angela said the differentiating factor of a B Corp is a genuine triple bottom line. "Profit is one of those three because we need to keep the lights on. But we hold people and the planet as equal stakeholders, and the company is equally responsible for all three of those pieces," she explained.
Julie is CEO of Harmon Electric, one of Arizona's oldest solar installation companies. Julie explains how she and her husband transformed her father's legacy electrical contracting business into one of the state's most recognized solar installation and service organizations.
In 2005, she said she and her husband were at a crossroads in their business. Her parents were looking for an out after running their electric business for some 30 years. "One day on the drive home, I said to my husband, 'Hey, do you want to take over an electrical business?' We both laughed but then talked to my dad about it. Two weeks later, we were sitting there learning about the business, and it just blossomed from there," she said.
Julie and Angela are linked by their shared commitment to customer experience (CX) excellence — and the way they deliver it. Harmon and Pivot Energy are two of a growing array of businesses that rely on Omnidian to provide the best service to their customers.
Julie said aligning with businesses with the same values and culture is essential. "The service department wants to make the customer happy and do the right thing for everybody involved, and that's not always the easiest or the cheapest thing," she said.
When Harmon's partners align with the company's goals and mission, the two parties can collectively focus on customer happiness. "If we're at odds with each other, it doesn't work as a partnership," Julie said.
Harmon keeps a step ahead of problems with Omnidian's proactive monitoring. Julie explained that it opens the door to conversation about potential issues "before the customer is angry."
Angela reflected that Pivot spent a lot of time researching the right service partner to take particular time-intensive tasks off her plate and free her to work on team strategy.
"Through that process, we found a small pool of providers checking the right boxes for us," she said. "As we narrowed it down, we found only one match for cultural and values alignment. We were thrilled to see that the same kind of culture of care, transparency, and commitment to Triple Bottom Line B Corp practices was all living true with Omnidian, and we're very pleased to partner with it."
Angela said there is an assumption in the solar industry that O&M is nothing more than a cost center. But she thinks companies have the opportunity to shift that paradigm and prove and show that there's a value added to each project with a carefully constructed O&M plan and well-executed work.
She's enthused about going beyond O&M at a B Corp, where a values-aligned team supports her. "It's a little scary, sometimes a little overwhelming, perhaps. But I have support for taking a different approach to building out this team," she said.
"Omnidian, one of the key partners supporting our O&M team, completes active monitoring with customized, well-built (artificial intelligence) AI capabilities. That allows us to dispatch more intelligently to sites when we have corrective or reactive issues," Angela said.
Want to hear more? Tune into the whole podcast to learn more about best practices, war stories, and how a Promise Keepers performance guarantee catalyzes solar business growth.
We're bringing you all six parts of this series in partnership with Omnidian.
You can check out the series and the experts who comprise it at: www.mysuncast.com/futureofsolar.
You'll find more resources and learn about SunCast's guests, recommendations, book links, and more than 512 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com.
And, you can learn more about partnering with SunCast here.
RESOURCES:
Connect with Angela Burke on LinkedIn.
Follow Pivot Energy on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and its website.
Connect with Julie King on LinkedIn.
Follow Harmon Electric on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and its website.
Follow Omnidian on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and check out its website.
You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on Twitter, LinkedIn or by email.
ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:
Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.
Nico is an Investor, Executive Coach, and 16-year veteran of the solar industry, having led development in the US and Latin America for global companies like Trina Solar and Conergy.
You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.
If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.