Building a World Class Solar Experience
While the sales and marketing teams may be more visible to OneRoof Energy customers, it is people like Rikki Farfel and her Process Development team working behind the scenes that help ensure customers receive an excellent experience when engaging with the company.
Process Development sits under the operations team umbrella. Her four person team’s role is to optimize the process from the time a customer signs an agreement through the installation process and wraps up once the solar system is ultimately turned on and working.
Her team also supports other departments across the organization, depending on their needs.
Process Development is a growing team!
Like many teams across OneRoof Energy, Rikki’s team is growing rapidly and she added a new member of her team just last week.
The Process Development team looks for talented people who have experience analyzing complex data or processes. It is also valuable if they have experience working with Visio or other workflow applications. It all boils down to finding people that love to dive into highly complex data and are driven to help OneRoof Energy be a more efficient company.
While having a background in the solar industry is preferred, the department finds there is a wide variety of experience areas that will be valuable. This includes those who have worked in complex industries such as mortgage and insurance. “We’re a lot more fun than insurance though,” she added. To be successful you must be able to thrive in a fast paced environment and be resourceful. There have been many changes in the nearly four years Rikki has been at OneRoof Energy so to be successful you must be able to adapt to those changes.
What’s the future of OneRoof Energy?
Rikki’s goal is very clear. OneRoof Energy must deliver “World Class” customer experience. It’s her goal to help ensure the company is seen as a leader in the solar industry and acknowledged as the company that treats their customers the best. This is especially important since the initial sale of a solar energy system is just the beginning of the customer relationship.
To Rikki, building a world class solar experience for customers is personal. Her parents recently went through an experience with another vendor that wasn’t as focused on the customer experience and unfortunately they came away very dissatisfied with how they were treated. This experience stimulates her drive to do a better job each day for OneRoof Energy customers.
What should customers look for in a Energi Surya company?
She believes that the most important thing is that customers should be comfortable with the people that they interact with at the company. There are a variety of technical issues that can be difficult to understand. This makes it extremely important that the customer feels they can trust not just the company - but the individual people that they talk with during the sales and post sales process. Those company representatives should have the best interest of the customer at heart and be able to explain complex technical issues such as rate increases and theoretical models as well as aesthetics like where and how to place the solar panels.
Customers will be engaging with OneRoof Energy for the next 20 years so that’s really important!
What’s changed since you joined OneRoof Energy?
Rikki joined the company in 2012 as a temporary employee who was attracted by the prospect of working in the solar energy industry. Previously she worked in a law firm preparing to become a paralegal. This gave her excellent experience understanding complex information and managing data. Her first job at OneRoof Energy was data entry for a grant portal. However, Rikki quickly moved into project coordinator followed by project manager roles and currently holds the title of Manager of Process Development.
The opportunity to grow and use her talents in new ways has been a large part of the attraction for her with One Roof Energy and Rikki says that’s what will keep her here for years to come.
One of the biggest changes at OneRoof Energy is that knowledge which was once shared only verbally, is now organized into a huge knowledgebase with reference tools, reporting, and documentation to help provide a better grasp of what’s going on. When Rikki first joined, it felt like everyone was scrambling. Now everything feels much more organized and tools, documentation, and knowledge bases exist to support the company’s growth.
What makes you happy when you think about what you do?
With every solar energy system the company installs, OneRoof Energy is taking dirty energy off the grid, “that’s the biggest piece of excitement for me” she shares.
While not everyone at the company is “in it” because of solar energy, many are. Others love working at OneRoof Energy because it is a young company that is growing fast. For Rikki, both factors help fuel her passion for doing great work.
“Every single day, when you get into the nitty gritty the impact can be lost. If you step back and think about contributing to a cleaner earth - that’s pretty huge.”
