Most companies can handle selling a product to someone at least once, but it’s nothing more than luck without a good customer service plan. A Shade Greener, a renewable energy company, believes it’s time for the industry to pay more attention to its customers and give people more opportunity to stay green.

Customer Service is the core of any business. Companies can offer promotions, discounts, special deals and even coupons – but unless stores develop returning customers, they won’t be profitable for long. Businesses rely on customers’ positive experiences, so word of mouth becomes an advertizing agent.

“We knew that as a relatively unknown product in the U.K., there was going to be a need for a dedicated customer service team for customer contact,” said A Shade Green Director Stewart Davies. “Solar [power] in general was still an unknown entity when we first started back in 2009 and there would be a need for ongoing solar awareness program to explain to the public what solar photovoltaics is, and how it can help homeowners to reduce their bills and do their bit for the environment at the same time.”

Working together with Sarah Dyson, Head of Customer Relations, the company has been able to continually improve their customer management system, customer response time and overall experience, but thought they were still having problems.

“Even though we had improved our response time for 98% of Internet inquiries to within 48 hours, we were getting a number of customers asking why they had not been contacted at all,” said Dyson. “We deal with thousands of applications every week and wanted to ensure that every one of the people who had taken the time to contact us got a timely response.”

Dyson said her team eventually determined that customers who had problems weren’t even contacting A Shade Greener. “We were surprised to find that there were still a growing number of emails and calls from members of the public who were asking why they hadn’t been contacted. Our investigations finally revealed that the majority of those customers had actually tried to contact other companies in the same industry,” she said.

The store said they just want others in the same industry to realize the importance of customer service. If customers are unable to get a response, they easily lose interest in installing solar panels or energy efficient products.

“From the public’s perspective, it is often difficult to see why some homes can have free solar and others cannot,” Dyson added. “We would like to see all companies that offer free solar give a clear explanation to those members of the public whose properties are simply not suitable.”