Simply Solar's Journey from Sales to Install with Aurora AI and Plan Sets
Maximizing Speed & Accuracy with Plan Sets and Aurora AI
Simply Solar can get plan sets 7x faster with Aurora Solar compared to other providers
Previous Process
Aurora AI
Dramatically reduced design time for salespeople, from 15 minutes to just 15 seconds, a 60x improvement
Simply Solar can get plan sets 7x faster with Aurora Solar compared to other providers
Previous Process
Aurora AI
Dramatically reduced design time for salespeople, from 15 minutes to just 15 seconds, a 60x improvement
Introduction
In the ever-evolving realm of renewable energy, Simply Solar has stood as a beacon of innovation for over two decades. With a relentless dedication to excellence and a passion for sustainable solutions, Simply Solar has carved a niche as a leading provider of custom solar systems in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. As the demand for solar energy continues to surge, Simply Solar embarked on a transformative journey with Aurora, an end-to-end solution poised to enhance their operations. This case study illuminates Simply Solar's evolution, showcasing the challenges they faced, the solutions they implemented, and the remarkable outcomes they achieved.
About Simply Solar
With a rich legacy spanning 20 years, Simply Solar has amassed unparalleled industry experience in designing, installing, and maintaining bespoke solar systems. Simply Solar prides itself on leveraging in-house expertise, ensuring every project is executed with precision and quality. Committed to customer satisfaction, Simply Solar's mission is to make the transition to solar energy seamless and rewarding, offering the highest-quality products and services backed by the Simply Solar Guarantee — a testament to their unwavering commitment to excellence.
Sean Green, Chief Technology Officer at Simply Solar, spearheads the company's technological advancements, overseeing business operations, system integrations, and automation initiatives. Reflecting on Simply Solar's partnership with Aurora, which began in 2016, Sean underscores the transformative impact of Aurora's platform.
"Aurora has revolutionized our operations, streamlining workflows, and enhancing efficiency across the board," he says. "From sales to design and installation, Aurora has been instrumental in driving our success."
The Challenges
Simply Solar encountered many challenges across their operations, prompting them to seek solutions through a strategic partnership with Aurora. These challenges included:
- Inefficient sales processes: Manual tasks and lack of integration in proposal generation led to delays and inaccuracies.
- Complex design workflows: Designing custom solar systems was time-consuming and challenging due to the lack of advanced tools and technologies.
- Plan set creation bottleneck: Previous providers failed to deliver accurate and timely plan sets, causing project delays and inefficiencies.
- Inefficient handoff between sales, design, plan sets, and installation stages: Lack of seamless coordination and integration between different project stages led to errors and delays in project execution.
These challenges hindered Simply Solar's operational efficiency and growth, prompting them to seek comprehensive solutions through their partnership with Aurora.
Aurora AI's evolution has been remarkable. What once required CAD expertise is now accessible to our entire team, empowering newer sales reps to create stunning system designs
Sean Green, CTO of Simply Solar
Solutions
Sales Enhancement and Workflow Streamlining Simply Solar recognized the need for a comprehensive solution to address challenges in sales processes and workflow efficiency, prompting their adoption of Aurora's platform. With Aurora's intuitive interface and powerful AI features, the sales team experienced newfound efficiency in the proposal process. The seamless integration of Aurora's Sales Mode and financing options streamlined sales processes, reducing errors and enhancing record-keeping. Aurora's AI-driven design capabilities revolutionized system design, drastically reducing design time from minutes to seconds. Sales personnel can now swiftly generate accurate designs, empowering them to focus more on client engagement and solution tailoring. The integration of financing options further streamlined administrative tasks, ensuring a cohesive sales experience and reducing the chance of human error.
Design Optimization and Efficiency Aurora's AI capabilities, particularly the AutoDesigner and AutoStringer features, proved transformative in simplifying Simply Solar’s solar design processes. These features drastically reduced design time and optimized system designs, ensuring accuracy and efficiency from the initial stages. The AI-driven obstruction feature identifies potential obstructions upfront, eliminating the need for routine, tedious work and enabling faster decision-making. AutoStringer enhances design accuracy by connecting inverters and optimizers to placed panels, improving production estimates and ensuring hardware compatibility. By automating complex design tasks, Aurora enhanced design accuracy and efficiency, contributing to improved project outcomes and customer satisfaction.
Plan Sets and Project Lifecycle Management Plan set creation emerged as a critical bottleneck for Simply Solar, but Aurora's Plan Sets Service revolutionized this aspect of their operations. The streamlined process ensured accurate and repeatable plan sets in record time, while also improving project lifecycle management. By maintaining data continuity and seamless handoffs between sales, design, and installation phases, Simply Solar mitigated errors and enhanced project efficiency. The end-to-end solution offered by Aurora reduced complexity, minimized project timelines, and improved customer satisfaction by ensuring that installations matched customers' expectations from the outset.
Results and Key Metrics
Salespeople can design a system 60x faster with Aurora AI
Simply Solar receives Plan Sets within 24 hours from Aurora Solar, a process that can take a week (or longer) with other 3rd party providers
With Aurora AI, 1 designer can accomplish the workload of 2-3 individuals
Simply Solar’s adoption of Aurora has yielded remarkable improvements across key metrics, resulting in streamlined processes, reduced time, and increased efficiency throughout their operations. One significant area of improvement lies in project timelines, where reductions were noted in sales-to-permit time and overall project length. Particularly noteworthy is the substantial enhancement in the accuracy of designs, which has led to fewer errors and revisions internally, thus streamlining project management efficiency.
Benefits of Plan Sets:
- Simply Solar can get plan sets from Aurora within 24-to-48 hours, compared to a week-long process — or even longer — with other providers.
- Improved scalability, allowing Simply Solar to handle increased demand during peak periods where volume increased by 5-to-10 times.
- Trusted and consistent accuracy in plan set creation, leading to reduced project delays and costs.
Benefits of Aurora AI:
- Dramatically reduced design time for salespeople, from 15 minutes to just 15 seconds.
- Significantly shortened initial design time for experienced 3D designers, from 3-to-5 minutes to 15 seconds.
- Enhanced efficiency and accuracy in various tasks, contributing to streamlined workflows and improved project management.
Time Saved & Scalability:
- Aurora's platform augments Simply Solar's existing design team, empowering one designer to accomplish the workload of 2-to-3 individuals, resulting in cost savings and enhanced economies of scale.
- Improved data continuity and compliance throughout the entire process, facilitating streamlined operations and better decision-making.
- Elimination of duplicate data entry by leveraging Aurora’s Sync API in Simply Solar’s Salesforce instance.
Overall, the implementation of Aurora has not only streamlined Simply Solar's operations but has also provided a foundation for greater data continuity throughout their entire process. From sales enhancement to design optimization and plan set streamlining, Aurora has proven to be a catalyst for efficiency, enabling Simply Solar to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving solar industry with unparalleled agility and precision.
Conclusion
Simply Solar's journey with Aurora serves as a testament to the power of collaboration and innovation in the solar industry. By embracing Aurora's comprehensive solutions throughout their project lifecycle, from sales to installation, Simply Solar has redefined their workflow, achieving remarkable efficiencies and delivering exceptional experiences to homeowners. Through their proactive approach to addressing challenges and leveraging Aurora's tools, Simply Solar has emerged as a leader in the solar energy landscape, driving positive change and setting new standards for excellence. As the world increasingly turns towards renewable energy solutions, Simply Solar stands at the forefront, demonstrating the transformative impact of commitment, ingenuity, and partnership in building a brighter, more sustainable future for all.