[RE-wrenches] FW: Notes from Solar CenTex - lack of SolarEdge support has directly contributed to angry customers which has materially harmed my company

Mon Jan 30 07:31:31 PST 2023

Save yourself from SolarEdge. I bet on the wrong horse.

From: scot.arey at solarcentex.com <scot.arey at solarcentex.com> 
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2023 9:30 AM
To: 'Jeff Zissulis' <Jeff.Zi at solaredge.com>; 'jeff.zissulis at solaredge.com'
<jeff.zissulis at solaredge.com>
Cc: 'Andrew Gasper' <andrew.ga at solaredge.com>
Subject: Notes from Solar CenTex - lack of SolarEdge support has directly
contributed to angry customers which has materially harmed my company 
Importance: High

Good morning, Jeff.

There is nothing you can do but I'm closing out the long, winding story of
poor SolarEdge support to its installers. This unanswered email on an even
older issue seemed like the right one to attach this email to.

I previously wrote that SolarEdge, by not providing timely RMA support gets
to have its cake and eat it, too while allowing the installer to take the
brunt of criticism for non-support. SolarEdge gets to keep putting parts in
new product and under-resources its warranty support to installers. I'm sure
Wall Street loves the allocation.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-like-you-solaredgestop-shifting-your-saving
s-my-small-arey

This latest example is this enraged customer and 100% is what I referred to
in this article. A dual SE7600EH setup with a pair of LG Prime16 batteries
has been at half production as the communications board of the follower
inverter failed o/a Dec 7th with the RMA bring approved Dec 8th. I still do
not have comms board and there is NO ETA on when it will arrive.

The customer has trashed me on Facebook. I got a 2-star review on
SolarReviews.com from her. All because SolarEdge can't provide me a
communications card for a SE7600EH.

We asked for a new inverter because we thought that might be quicker and we
had a hunch from another case that the comms card - when it arrives - will
likely not solve the issue. Tech support said that is not possible.

But the damage has been done. Severely. To me. Not SolarEdge.

I'm not trying to call in a favor to shake the parts tree at SolarEdge for
this part. It's too late and the customer has trashed me sufficiently that
I'll save any chits I might have to salvage other cases.

I can't even get a response back from Andrew Gasper on this original email.
Is he even with SolarEdge any longer? If he is not, I have zero idea who my
rep might be.

So here we are coming up at 2-months of a system down for a communications
card that still has not been released from SolarEdge. But don't worry,
SolarEdge has not received one caustic comment but even as I pass along the
chat sessions from  SolarEdge tech support to the hyper-writing customer on
social media, the customer fully lays blame on my team. And I suppose that
is how SolarEdge expected this would go down with your team anticipating
that installers like me would crowd-source RMAs from our own stock. Just as
my LinkedIn article presciently described.

I hope you push this up your side of the company to the COO and CEO. They
need to hear this.

From: scot.arey at solarcentex.com <mailto:scot.arey at solarcentex.com>
<scot.arey at solarcentex.com <mailto:scot.arey at solarcentex.com> > 
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2023 9:07 AM
To: 'Andrew Gasper' <andrew.ga at solaredge.com
<mailto:andrew.ga at solaredge.com> >
Subject: RE: Action Items from 8/23/22

Andrew - are you still with SolarEdge?

From: scot.arey at solarcentex.com <mailto:scot.arey at solarcentex.com>
<scot.arey at solarcentex.com <mailto:scot.arey at solarcentex.com> > 
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2022 4:06 PM
To: 'Andrew Gasper' <andrew.ga at solaredge.com
<mailto:andrew.ga at solaredge.com> >
Subject: RE: Action Items from 8/23/22

Any update on the generator support?

One of my customers - a major electrical contract - has been politely asking
and my non-answer to him is killing me reputation-wise?

Any statement or better, yet a firmware solution?

From: Andrew Gasper <andrew.ga at solaredge.com
<mailto:andrew.ga at solaredge.com> > 
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2022 3:57 PM
To: scot.arey at solarcentex.com <mailto:scot.arey at solarcentex.com> 
Subject: Action Items from 8/23/22

Hi Scot, 

I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me today, and your
candor in sharing your experiences working with SolarEdge. 

I wanted to follow up our call with a list of the action items I am moving
forward with. 

First, I will again pass along your feedback on the hold times for tech
support, and the messaging that was shared with your customer from our
support team. This is valuable feedback for us to receive, and I want to
assure you that we will use any and all feedback you provide to improve
ourselves every day. 

Next, I am going to work to secure a formal statement for you, in writing,
to share with your customers about the generator support status. I know that
this is a very important topic for you, and one that has caused stress both
currently and in the past. When I receive guidance on this request, I will
promptly share with you.

Finally, I will begin looking into the specific RMA timeline and the
potential for securing seed stock for you to use as RMA replacements. In
order to best do this, I recommend that we work together to better
understand your entire fleet, and additionally use the existing cases that
you have open and are waiting for RMA replacements. Please share with me any
specific cases that you would like me to take a closer look at to see if I
am able to escalate any issues. 

I hope again that you found our conversation to be a valuable use of your
time. I look forward to working with you going forward. 

Best regards, 

Andy Gasper

Inside Sales Account Executive

M   +1-510-880-4277

andrew.ga at solaredge.com <mailto:andrew.ga at solaredge.com> 

 <https://www.solaredge.com/> 

 <https://marketing.solaredge.com/sales-elite-sign-up> 

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