The Customer Is Always Right (Except With Solar)

A fancy burger joint near the SolarQuotes office opened six months ago. It was small and stylish. And just closed down. I wasn’t surprised.

You see, Ned (who manages SolarQuotes’ installer vetting) once went in, asking for no mustard, and was flatly told no. “It disrupts the balance”, they said. “It’s part of the artistry”.

Give me a break. Ned hates mustard.

I respect anyone trying to run a small business. But that was a dumb decision. Food is subjective. You should be allowed to enjoy a burger without having to endure someone else’s opinion about what mustard tastes like.

I was reminded of Ned’s experience during a recent SolarQuotes Vetting Council meeting. We were reviewing new installer applications. One of the questions we always ask is: What brands of panels do you install?

Most answers are sensible.

• “We mostly use Jinko and Trina“. Or,
• “Canadian Solar or  REC, depending on the budget”.

But now and then someone writes:

“Our go-to brands are X and Y, but we’ll install any brand the customer wants.”

Sounds generous. Consumer-friendly. The opposite of the hipster burger joint, right?

Not quite. In this case, I think it’s the customer who’s wrong.

Installers like MC Electrical know a lot more about solar than most customers – even after a session on ChatGPT.

Solar Is More Complicated Than Mustard

Because when it comes to solar, customers usually don’t know enough to make that kind of call. They don’t know what a clamp zone is, or an MPPT window, or that some panels are high-voltage, low-current, like the Canadian Solar panels MC Electrical uses.

Installers like MC don’t just choose a panel (or inverter or battery) based on specs. They pick one they know – physically, electrically, and mechanically. They understand how it mounts. How it strings. Where to run the cables. What the inverter needs. How to claim warranty. Whose mobile to call for customer support on a Friday evening. They’ve tested it in the real world, over years. It’s all muscle memory. That’s what makes an install clean, fast, and safe.

Bring in a rando panel brand because a customer read about it online, and all that goes out the window. The chance of a screw-up – literal or electrical – goes way up. The job takes longer. The support is slower. And if you’re rotating through multiple subcontractors, good luck knowing if they’ve ever touched that brand before.

Same goes for inverters. Worse for batteries. EV chargers? Don’t get me started.

Stick To What You Know

So, offering to install any panel the customer wants is a great attitude, but it raises the odds of a poor outcome.

Want a good system? Stick to what you know. Fewer brands, deeper knowledge, better support. That’s what gives your customers the best chance of getting a system that works flawlessly for 20 years and quick help if it doesn’t.

With burgers, the customer is king. With solar, trust the cook.

Phase Shift is a weekly opinion column by SolarQuotes founder Finn Peacock. Subscribe to SolarQuotes’ free newsletter to get it emailed to your inbox each week along with our other home electrification coverage.