Heating up sales with a digital platform: new energy services in only a few clicks

How we helped to scale up the sales of heat pumps, photovoltaic and mobility charging stations energy services through a modern digital platform

Our Client, a leading Swiss energy production and distribution company, which is also active in the supply of new green energy services, launched an initiative to digitalize their processes. This digitalization journey targets the private household's market, beginning with the heat pump service offering process. The main goal was to renew this process and then extend it to other energy services such as installing photovoltaic panels or charging stations for electric vehicles.  

After the first round of interviews with the technical sales team, it became clear that the current process was not suitable for their needs:

• Suitable to small sales volumes only
• Redundant in the data collection and input steps
• Manually managed appointments and quote requests

Addressing these challenges would enable our Client to achieve their new sales objectives.

Designing and specifying the new solution

We began an analysis and conception phase (Blueprint) to define on a new digital process together with the technical sales team. The main target was to harmonize the process among all sales representatives, reduce redundancy in data and empower their end customers, while reducing the time spent on administrative tasks. We followed a user-centric approach: we started by defining the personas and their user journeys within the new solution. Based on the outcome, we created visuals and a target architecture for a brand-new ecosystem of digital solutions, as well as technical and functional specifications, on which we regularly iterated with the Client's team. The key was to center the sales process around a lightweight, quickly configured, and effective sales tool (CRM software). We benchmarked existing CRM tools to provide a recommendation for the best solution for the Client to store end customer's relevant information and automate administrative tasks such as updating opportunities or sending emails when a customer requests a quote or when an appointment has been booked. 

Implementing the solution

Once the Blueprint has been delivered, we started a 3-month development phase to implement the website and its backend. In parallel, we worked hand in hand with the Client to configure the sales tool, the heating calculator, and the appointment tool. As per usual, we worked following an Agile methodology, the Client to slightly adapt the solution according to the latest requirements … and international news. Indeed, as the development was carried out while the global pandemic was on the rise, we had to revise some of the steps in the process, notably the on-site appointments, to adapt them to the current situation. The solution was successfully launched early April 2020 and has enabled the generation of 3'500 quotes in one year.

Continuously improving

After a few months of operation, based on the collected feedback and data, a new Agile stream was launched to improve and extend the application ecosystem through multiple increments with the help of a digital expert, a designer and a development team. This new stream was divided into three main axes:

• Improvement of the initial solution's user experience and its sales tool handling, and addition of new tools to the ecosystem supporting the marketing aspect of the process.
• Addition of a new heat pump product. The new product was integrated to the website and the new offer type was created in the offer generation tool. Additionally, backend elements were refactored to ensure the sustainability of the solution.
• Process replication and adjustment for photovoltaic panels. Existing components of the quote and offer generator were leveraged to efficiently integrate a new solar module. This allowed us to complete the new website's design, specifications, and development in under 2 months, as well as refactor the backend to harmonize data.

In less than a year, the Client was able to considerably improve their existing solution, while adding a new subproduct and launching a brand-new website to handle photovoltaic panels installation requests. In addition, the robustness of the existing implementation was also greatly improved, leading to a huge added value for the long-term sustainability of the solution.

Iterative journey

• Analysis of the internal sales processes to gather data from all stakeholders CRM tool benchmark and recommendation based on usability and configuration effort
• Identification of employee and customer pain points during the sales process following a user centric approach
• Creation of the interactive design of the new digital solution focusing on improving customer experience and time-to-market
• Definition of the technical elements needed for the implementation of the new solution
• Delivery of the new digital solution and the full development plan for its implementation Iterative improvement of the solution and implementation of a new offering through a prolonged Agile development project

Generate a quote

We integrated an external calculator to generate heat pumps quotes and offer. By answering a set of questions about their house and energy consumption, end customers receive a quote in less than 3 minutes. The resulting page displays all relevant information such as the total investment, the estimated monthly cost and the ecological footprint of each heat pump type, and allows the user to schedule an appointment.

Schedule an appointment in 3 clicks 

Once a quote is generated, end customers can schedule a phone call with a technical sales representative. Each salesperson is assigned to a specific geographical area to optimize travel time when an onsite visit is required. 

When a visit or a call is booked, all appointment information is sent to the sales tool and the associated opportunity will automatically be updated. In addition, the salesperson's agenda is automatically updated with the newly booked appointment.

Receive an offer

After the onsite visit or the phone call, the technical sales team has all the information needed to generate an offer. They use the expert version of the calculator to add components and create the offer PDF. Once ready, the offer will be sent to the sales tool via the backend, allowing the salesperson to send it to the customer. In parallel, all cost information can be found on the website.