Vivint Solar | Community platform
Marketing a digital community of brand advocates through a remote, peer-to-peer connection.
How designing and developing a game-changing platform created the strongest community program in a global industry.
The Vivint Solar Community is open to customers, employees, and brand ambassadors across the nation and around the globe.
Client overview:
Before the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, solar panels were sold almost exclusively through a direct-to-home (D2H) model. Because the Vivint Solar sales model is built on relationship-based selling, we knew referrals had always been a significant source of volume and revenue. Still, the restrictions brought on by a global pandemic seriously blocked our ability to reach customers in their homes. Just 4 months into the pandemic, a Forbes report concluded that online commerce had more than doubled.
Business rationale:
People fall in love with brands, trust them, and believe in their superiority. As experiential brand builders, we constantly search for new and innovative ways to connect with people and build lifelong relationships. Brand-building is about expressing why people should choose our product over any other. It requires a desire to lead, outpace the competition, and give employees the best tools to succeed. Seizing every opportunity to develop brand champions requires identifying the true believers and enabling them with the best possible tools so they can promote and amplify your brand. Community-based platforms can be game-changing in improving customer satisfaction and fostering loyalty through shared experiences and peer-to-peer connections.
The COVID-19 global pandemic limited the solar industry’s ability to sell and install solar via a direct-to-home model for nearly a year.
Primary business objective: Launch an entirely digital, incentive-driven customer referral platform that enables a remote, ‘No-Touch’ lead generation and sales engine process.
Secondary business objective: Launch a community-based, peer-to-peer network where customers and non-customers can connect and become brand advocates.
Solution vision: Solving short-term needs while building the foundation for future growth
Hub and spoke architecture: Accounting for various use cases and their implications on feature sets, content, user interfaces, incentives, etc. It includes customers, sales reps, third-party reps, corporate employees, and ambassadors. Automated delivery becomes an essential feature, given the scope and complexity of the delivery network.
No-touch solar: Connecting personalized, peer-to-peer experiences across a hub-and-spoke platform. The full platform would require lead generation, customer-to-rep-attribution, and digital POS tools. Using this new platform technology, we’re able to create an entirely digital, no-touch solar sales process for everyone, everywhere.
Peer-to-peer challenges: Attribution is critical with any incentive-based platform, and peer-to-peer features can present unique challenges. We solve this complexity with embedded logic, rules of engagement, and automated delivery.
Hub and spoke foundation for peer-to-peer delivery
User experience (UX) design
User journey blueprints
Putting it all together
Welcome to a global community of homeowners
Complete with everything people need to become a brand ambassador and earn rewards for themselves and their friends.
The incentive-based referral platform is a key component of the long-term growth strategy. It offers rewards for brand ambassadors, whether they’re customers, employees, or just believers in clean energy.
Digital lead generation and sales tools for professionals and partners.
Personalized URLs: Everything you need to generate business from afar.
‘No-Touch,’ digital landing pages and personalized URLs give reps the ability to promote their lead generation, regardless of CDS guidelines or local AHJ restrictions.
Digital point-of-sales tools: Connected, engaging, and personalized customer proposals tailored to fit their roof and their budget
Results summary
Referral leads and sales went from unknown (previously conducted through under-the-table incentives) to ~40% of overall volume through direct sales, dealers, and partners.
With peer-to-peer referral rewards, customer-driven lead generation increased more than 10x over a 30-day trial period.
Over 6,000 non-customer / non-employee brand ambassadors joined the Vivint Solar Community before EOY 2020
The referrals technology we built was cited as a ‘driving feature’ of a multi-billion-dollar acquisition of Vivint Solar by their top competitor, Sunrun, in 2020