BenFromSignatureSolar
Solar Addict
*35
Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
same can be said for almost any MFR. people rarely come to a forum like this crowing about how everything works perfect or they got great service they always come for a sympathetic ear to talk to... or ideas on how to fix the issues they have.
I use only top tier products and even that has bit me in the backside with what happened to magnum, so signature solar has some growing pains? whoopity doopty
10 goes across everywhere from Florida on…. … I have seen exits that said “to Austin”,but I am thinking you get my drift…
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SilverbackMP
Solar Addict
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2022
- Messages
- 928
The beginning of this post reminds me of that infamous Billy Madison quote:
"At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
"At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
Adam De Lay
Solar Wizard
SignatureSolarJames
Try Solar, the Grid will always take you back
When is the holy crusade of the immaculate heart starting? Hopefully, we have a hoard of non-S2 customers show up here, and see that the vast majority of people are really happy with us and that we are the coolest gang in the industry. I can even give an affiliate cut to the organizer so he can be called a shill on this forum next month buy the guy getting ready to launch the next crusade
I do give credit that you folks seem to pay attention to those that complain about you on the Forum here. Considering most places these days a person is lucky to get an automated answering service, off shore script readers or no way to contact at all after purchase.
I might consider being a customer of SS but I am too cheap. I provide my own after sales service.
timselectric
If I can do it, you can do it.
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2022
- Messages
- 18,609
O'Doyle Rules!
O'Doyle Rules!
O'Doyle Rules!
O'Doyle Rules!
O'Doyle Rules!
stienman
Mostly Harmless
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2021
- Messages
- 476
Signature solar did me an absolute solid when the growatt inverter I bought from them died - paid for return shipping, gave me the option of a replacement or upgrade for the cost difference (I chose upgrade since these particular units weren't stackable and I was already planning on an upgrade 'eventually').
Had I the money I would definitely buy one of the new EG4 - not only because it's better than what I have, but because it's a SS branded product they can actually FULLY support it. Their hands are tied to a degree with Growatt and other manufacturer's units, and the reality is that not only does SS have a good price on the gro-watt units, they provide STELLAR support for them compared to every other growatt distributor I've dealt with. And all this with their hands tied behind their back because growatt just isn't an easy or supportive company to deal with. The only reason growatt has a toe-hold at all is their pricing, and companies like SS that make up for the poor support.
And SS goes above and beyond where growatt fails miserably.
More to the OP's point about how many "bad" reports there are:
Per buzzfile Signature Solar has a revenue of around $12.6 million per year. If we assume (with absolutely no foundation, but it's just an example) that 25% of their business is inverters, and that the majority of those are low cost inverters, then they're selling over 2,000 inverters every year. That's over 7 inverters every business day. If an inverter lasts 5 years, then they have 10k inverter customers.
Go ahead and count how many "bad" reports there are on this forum about them.
Now divide that by 10,000.
Go ahead and turn it into a percentage, because it'll make the number bigger and you'll feel better about bad mouthing them.
It'll still be less than 0.5%. Now we have to accept that only a fraction of their customers visit this forum, but it's pretty common for a disgruntled customer to vent their frustration in as many places as they can for products of this cost range. Note, for instance, how many complainants are not forum regulars, but relatively new accounts. Note also that many only post once - I do know that SS not only participates in this forum, but responds to complaints posted here quickly - privately - but quickly, and very few people seem to have a problem that drags on forever. Some never follow up here even when other's ask them - I suspect (but of course don't know) that some came here just to get SS attention, got it, and had their problem resolved.
Still not convinced they are a reasonable company? Online sales return rate in the US is about 20%. I'm sure they have numbers higher than 0.5%, but it's pretty clear that compared to their revenue, there are very few complaints here.
They are supporting over 10k customers with just over 100 employees. The fact that they aren't growing at a high rate suggests - to me, at least - that they aren't just hiring warm bodies off the streets, but individuals who will actually help them and their customers. They certainly have the revenue to have a 500 person company if they didn't care about quality, but my interactions with them suggest they do care, and are hiring competent people.
And they're still able to sell and support these products at a low cost.
You can continue to white knight for others, and bash a company many of us are happy with with unfounded and unreasonable charges, but this forum thrives on honesty, and you're just not going to get very far without hard evidence.
No, I'm not a shill. The only interaction I've had with them is as a customer and purchasing a few inverters and other items from them. I looked at my google reviews recently and realized I only post when I have a negative experience - as a warning to others - but that good companies are getting harder and harder to find, and deserve both feedback and good reviews. So this is me trying to rectify that.
Had I the money I would definitely buy one of the new EG4 - not only because it's better than what I have, but because it's a SS branded product they can actually FULLY support it. Their hands are tied to a degree with Growatt and other manufacturer's units, and the reality is that not only does SS have a good price on the gro-watt units, they provide STELLAR support for them compared to every other growatt distributor I've dealt with. And all this with their hands tied behind their back because growatt just isn't an easy or supportive company to deal with. The only reason growatt has a toe-hold at all is their pricing, and companies like SS that make up for the poor support.
And SS goes above and beyond where growatt fails miserably.
More to the OP's point about how many "bad" reports there are:
Per buzzfile Signature Solar has a revenue of around $12.6 million per year. If we assume (with absolutely no foundation, but it's just an example) that 25% of their business is inverters, and that the majority of those are low cost inverters, then they're selling over 2,000 inverters every year. That's over 7 inverters every business day. If an inverter lasts 5 years, then they have 10k inverter customers.
Go ahead and count how many "bad" reports there are on this forum about them.
Now divide that by 10,000.
Go ahead and turn it into a percentage, because it'll make the number bigger and you'll feel better about bad mouthing them.
It'll still be less than 0.5%. Now we have to accept that only a fraction of their customers visit this forum, but it's pretty common for a disgruntled customer to vent their frustration in as many places as they can for products of this cost range. Note, for instance, how many complainants are not forum regulars, but relatively new accounts. Note also that many only post once - I do know that SS not only participates in this forum, but responds to complaints posted here quickly - privately - but quickly, and very few people seem to have a problem that drags on forever. Some never follow up here even when other's ask them - I suspect (but of course don't know) that some came here just to get SS attention, got it, and had their problem resolved.
Still not convinced they are a reasonable company? Online sales return rate in the US is about 20%. I'm sure they have numbers higher than 0.5%, but it's pretty clear that compared to their revenue, there are very few complaints here.
They are supporting over 10k customers with just over 100 employees. The fact that they aren't growing at a high rate suggests - to me, at least - that they aren't just hiring warm bodies off the streets, but individuals who will actually help them and their customers. They certainly have the revenue to have a 500 person company if they didn't care about quality, but my interactions with them suggest they do care, and are hiring competent people.
And they're still able to sell and support these products at a low cost.
You can continue to white knight for others, and bash a company many of us are happy with with unfounded and unreasonable charges, but this forum thrives on honesty, and you're just not going to get very far without hard evidence.
No, I'm not a shill. The only interaction I've had with them is as a customer and purchasing a few inverters and other items from them. I looked at my google reviews recently and realized I only post when I have a negative experience - as a warning to others - but that good companies are getting harder and harder to find, and deserve both feedback and good reviews. So this is me trying to rectify that.
SignatureSolarJames
Try Solar, the Grid will always take you back
buzzfile is off by a factor of 10.
We have served over 50,000, people, stay here to keep humble even if it is a bunch of crusading retirees who haven't bought from us some days. What we believe is that if any of our actual customers thought we were insane as we have scaled up we need to listen and learn so we make the smartest company. almost 200 jobs in a rural Texas town so far
MrM1
I'm Here, But I'm Not All There
Same ... My Experience Here
Which leads to hosting providers not liking you, ending up on blacklists, and all the other headaches that come with it.
That was a rough few weeks. They even shut down the forum for an hour. I did everything right, I was working on the forum and requesting multiple smtp servers to support the forum and all were denied. And when I found one that allowed us to, it was going to cost a few thousand dollars a month. Luckily that is not the case because we made changes to email settings and many members also changed their settings. Now it is manageable.
I also had to do individual requests to be removed from black lists. Usually it was easy but one slipped by and the forum shut down because of it. Not fun.
The depends on the providers. I specialize in high traffic sites and provide custom webserver software which can handle a ton of connections simultaneously with very little memory usage. Its a niche market but its profitable for me and my customers.
I'm very picky about who I host which means I don't have to fool with a ton of small sites and people who don't know what they are doing or what they really want which makes my life easier and allows for more time devoted to the customers I choose to host. This allows for a smaller work force on my side but a happy customer base too
FilterGuy
Solar Engineering Consultant - EG4 and Consumers
My take is that Will cares deeply about being an honest, transparent reviewer and that drives his actions accordingly. It is hard not to take the undeserved criticism seriously when it strikes at something he cares deeply about. Conversely, if he was the type that didn't care about what is said about him... he probably won't be the type that cared deeply about being honest. They are two sides of the same coin.
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The depends on the providers. I specialize in high traffic sites and provide custom webserver software which can handle a ton of connections simultaneously with very little memory usage. Its a niche market but its profitable for me and my customers.
I'm very picky about who I host which means I don't have to fool with a ton of small sites and people who don't know what they are doing or what they really want which makes my life easier and allows for more time devoted to the customers I choose to host. This allows for a smaller work force on my side but a happy customer base too
Sure. I have a few dedicated servers where I can do pretty much as I please. One is for testing purposes, runs a honeypot, etc. for security research. But doing something like that and having the flexibility for high traffic means you start paying for it as well - and if you do high traffic email, you just know part of your job is going to be keeping it off of blacklists.
Oh I still have to deal with blacklist but since they only effect emails and not the sites themselves the customer that causes the blacklist issue usually learns fast to avoid it in the future.
I still have the fun job of getting them unbanned but I make sure they realize what they did wrong and if they refuse to do anything about it they find another host or I move their email services to a server I have labeled "The Basement".
You don't want to end up having your emails routed thru the basement. But at least it doesn't effect the ones that behave and the bad actors get to try to do email sending while being on a blacklist.
I still think we need a new mechanism as a standard to handle morons that use the report as spam when they actually ASKED for the emails to be sent to them via subscribing to a thread somewhere.
I have no idea what we need but we need something to handle that.
Plum Crazy Rob
Solar Enthusiast
Anybody have a reasonable estimate of Sol Ark annual revenues?? Curious.
Don't think buzzfile or Manta or the like probably is too current there either
Don't think buzzfile or Manta or the like probably is too current there either
EastTexCowboy
Solar Wizard
Hey! Don't be knocking us retirees. I just bought a rack of batteries from you in March!buzzfile is off by a factor of 10.
We have served over 50,000, people, stay here to keep humble even if it is a bunch of crusading retirees who haven't bought from us some days. What we believe is that if any of our actual customers thought we were insane as we have scaled up we need to listen and learn so we make the smartest company. almost 200 jobs in a rural Texas town so far
?
Im curious on that too. After seeing them mentioned so often on here I went and priced them. OUCH.
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