How can Current Connected improve?

[ohsolar]

A way to invest in your company for forum members ?

 

[Randya]

I have ordered from CC and am very happy with the results. Also called in a couple of times and sent in emails. All were answered very quickly.

 

[Alkaline]

You guys should consider ditching SOK and come out with your own line of batteries. YES SHOCK! Its true, SOK direct has bad support and they ban people on there own official forums and at the end say Hey go to Dexter go to Dexter and current connected.

A lot of fishing guys are switching to Epoch batts previously many were using Dakota / Relion and Ionic some started using SOK marine but when problems happen SOK just plays the waiting game and hopes they can figure out the issue on there own or eventually says contact current connected.

I have personally helped at least 4-5 people with the SOK batteries by installing active balancers to help keep them balanced, note these people put on cycles like 50-60 plus and I can tell you the stock BMS does not keep up.

While I still do think they are the best Mid tier battery brand, they are lacking in the support department big time. It reminds me of Renogy all over.

Just my observations, I have never personally owned any SOK product but as an observer I do see currentconnected having to "bail out sok" routinely and I don't see how this is going to be a fruitful relationship long term...

 

[mushhead]

Can you DM me your email address and phone number? Did you double check your spam folder?

EDIT: User DM'd me the email and phone number he tried to contact us from. He emailed us from a mail server hosted as a subdomain of no-ip.org with none of the sender authentications in place (DKIM and DMARC records missing) and ended up in spam folder. We typically check our spam folder at least once a week and this one somehow must have blended in. We get a ton of emails from SEO companies, suppliers trying to get us to buy their products, and just overall junk, so it can be hard to catch everything.

I pulled the CDR records from our phone switch and the international telecom provider and we never received a call from the number provided. Perhaps they made a typo on the number and that's why my records aren't showing anything. Otherwise if the call was from an anonymous or blocked number we can't look it up. Blocked caller ID's don't connect through to our phones either, it plays a message to unblock the caller ID and call again. We do not allow this because we can't track call recordings for quality assurance purposes when there is no caller ID to track the call by.

View attachment 181329

My e-mails to new business contacts always go through this mail server for quality assurance purposes. When a business is unscrupulous and distributes the address, SPAMS the address with a bunch of marketing e-mails that won't immediately get cut off when unsubscribed from, or gets their customer lists "stolen", this allows me to track the source and prevents having to switch to yet another e-mail address.

While I may have called from a blocked number(see reasons above), I did not recieve a message to retry with unblocked number. I was simply directed to a voice mail to leave a message which I did, with a call back number. Perhaps that was overlooked in the pile of voicemail SPAM as well. That speaks to me of an understaffed business which again calls into question the ability to get timely support in the future.

Given the other positive feedback on the forum, and the effort @HighTechLab did into looking into the technical failures, I may leave Current Connected in for conisderation when making future expansions of my battery systems.

 

[wild01]

Why don't you come up anymore as an eg4 distributor? Have you already/ are you going to stop carrying them?

 

[HighTechLab]

Why don't you come up anymore as an eg4 distributor? Have you already/ are you going to stop carrying them?

We are but EG4 has not put us on their site. I keep trying to work toward meeting the requirements but sometimes it feels like the goal line keeps moving. We do however have stuff in stock ready to ship and the warranties are still fully valid.

 

[cs1234]

We are but EG4 has not put us on their site. I keep trying to work toward meeting the requirements but sometimes it feels like the goal line keeps moving. We do however have stuff in stock ready to ship and the warranties are still fully valid.

I'm offended on your behalf. It seems your reputation here on diysolarforum.com should be enough.

 

[HighTechLab]

eh, I'm not loosing any sleep over it at this point. I'm sure it will come in time.

EDIT for clarity: I lost sleep over it at one point and am still a touch salty about it...but at this point I have bigger concerns.

 

[Hedges]

That is probably the problem.

 

[PeterJ 48 North]

No one ever gives us feedback on here...it's a blessing and a curse.

I'm taking the chance to take feedback constructively before it becomes destructive like other vendors on this forum.

Some things we are already working on:

• Hiring and training more technical support staff to spread the load of technical sales & support calls
• Dedicated web developer to improve UI and website experience.
• More complete catalog including Ironridge, Unirac, Tigo, multiple panel options and electrical panels, circuit breakers and wiring components so we can better offer complete solutions not just a majority of the solution.

What do you like and what can we do better?

Hi, new on the forum, so forgive me if I don't have veteran knowledge. From what I've been reading it seems like you folks are doing the best job of all the companies in terms of customer support, warranty and technical resources. Your website doesn't represent that. I appreciate the humility, but feel like you could boast about that on your site. A tab for customer feedback/reviews might be a nice addition. One could also play around with the google algorithm, so your site come up with the same ferocity as Renogy or SunGold seem to have when searching for off grid solar systems

 

[NC_hydro]

I would be thrilled to death if I could get my Schneider XW Pro from CC, damn sure not getting it from SS, probably end up with AltE but hoping some Schneider stuff shows up on CC ??

 

[BrianVeg]

@HighTechLab Here’s one for you. The way Ruixu packages the cables that come with their batteries has an amphenol connector on one end and a ring terminal on the other. This assumes that the user will be connecting the batteries to a bus bar (their rack?). With these cables the user cannot daisy chain the batteries like you would other server rack batteries without a bus bar.

Maybe you could provide the customer with an option to purchase ( or replace the provided) pre-made cables with amphenol connectors on each end?

Dunno - just a thought.

 

[Detritalgeo]

@HighTechLab Here’s one for you. The way Ruixu packages the cables that come with their batteries has an amphenol connector on one end and a ring terminal on the other. This assumes that the user will be connecting the batteries to a bus bar (their rack?). With these cables the user cannot daisy chain the batteries like you would other server rack batteries without a bus bar.

Maybe you could provide the customer with an option to purchase ( or replace the provided) pre-made cables with amphenol connectors on each end?

Dunno - just a thought.

.

@HighTechLab Here’s one for you. The way Ruixu packages the cables that come with their batteries has an amphenol connector on one end and a ring terminal on the other. This assumes that the user will be connecting the batteries to a bus bar (their rack?). With these cables the user cannot daisy chain the batteries like you would other server rack batteries without a bus bar.

Maybe you could provide the customer with an option to purchase ( or replace the provided) pre-made cables with amphenol connectors on each end?

Dunno - just a thought.

Ruixu had the parallel cables on their Australian site for awhile but gone now. They are certainly available from Topband but the safe rating of the stack will be reduced compared to buss bar setup as the parallel cables I saw were the same 3-ish gauge cable.

There is also a modular stack-rack option for the 3U TopBand packs that would make a very compact install with the parallel cables. Not a bad choice if your requirements are around 5kW or less.

 

[HighTechLab]

@HighTechLab Here’s one for you. The way Ruixu packages the cables that come with their batteries has an amphenol connector on one end and a ring terminal on the other. This assumes that the user will be connecting the batteries to a bus bar (their rack?). With these cables the user cannot daisy chain the batteries like you would other server rack batteries without a bus bar.

Maybe you could provide the customer with an option to purchase ( or replace the provided) pre-made cables with amphenol connectors on each end?

Dunno - just a thought.

We are buying Amphenol connectors in bulk and will have custom cable options soon that not only accommodate the Ruixu batteries but also the PowerPro batteries. Now that we have the EG4 PowerPros in stock, we also are going to start offering an option to add a ring terminal to the factory cable assembly (that comes default raw on one end). This makes it more suitable for something like the Sol-Ark, for example. For now it's going to be on a per-request version - but our web developer is designing a custom cable designer for all of these options. I think it will be far better than the mess of cable options we have right now.

 

[BrianVeg]

We are buying Amphenol connectors in bulk and will have custom cable options soon that not only accommodate the Ruixu batteries but also the PowerPro batteries. Now that we have the EG4 PowerPros in stock, we also are going to start offering an option to add a ring terminal to the factory cable assembly (that comes default raw on one end). This makes it more suitable for something like the Sol-Ark, for example. For now it's going to be on a per-request version - but our web developer is designing a custom cable designer for all of these options. I think it will be far better than the mess of cable options we have right now.

Very cool! Thanx.

 

[GregM]

Remove the $200 "docking fee" so would be customers can come and pick up the things you sell for free.

 

[HighTechLab]

Remove the $200 "docking fee" so would be customers can come and pick up the things you sell for free.

Frankly, we try to avoid customers picking up in person as much as possible. We aren't in the best part of town and do our best to fly under the radar. Theft has been an issue a few times already and that has changed our stance on quite a few things.

 

[Hedges]

You need a street-facing appearance for your business.

Honey-dipper/night soil collector, to dissuade night time prowlers.

 

[ChillnGrill]

We are buying Amphenol connectors in bulk and will have custom cable options soon that not only accommodate the Ruixu batteries but also the PowerPro batteries. Now that we have the EG4 PowerPros in stock, we also are going to start offering an option to add a ring terminal to the factory cable assembly (that comes default raw on one end). This makes it more suitable for something like the Sol-Ark, for example. For now it's going to be on a per-request version - but our web developer is designing a custom cable designer for all of these options. I think it will be far better than the mess of cable options we have right now.

How can I go about getting some amphenol connectors for my powerpro?

 

[Sennen]

Just seeing your site for the first time today. Bookmarked for future use. Upon quick inspection, it seems you have about everything to do a pv/storage system. My only critique is knowing before your purchase if something that could be required by code or reviewed by an inspector (switches, fuse panels, batteries) to clearly be labeled as UL Listed or NOT UL Listed to help buyers make decisions.

For instance: I see a bunch of Blue Sea stuff listed, but not their switches (Which are UL Listed) all of the switches on /product-category/wiring-components/dc-switches/ do not have clear indicators of compliance.

It'd also be great if you had a few more tools available (Crimpers, Hydraulic Crimpers, Knockout Tools, etc. i.e. Temco products) as this would allow customers to one-stop-shop and single invoice their purchases if they don't have some of the required tools.

 

[HighTechLab]

Why don't you come up anymore as an eg4 distributor? Have you already/ are you going to stop carrying them?

I'm offended on your behalf. It seems your reputation here on diysolarforum.com should be enough.

??????????????????

 

[wild01]

so I guess the next question would be can you sell the eg4 items for the same prices signature solar gets to advertise them for? or does signature get to undercut all other distributors?

 

[NC_hydro]

so I guess the next question would be can you sell the eg4 items for the same prices signature solar gets to advertise them for? or does signature get to undercut all other distributors?

Check both websites and you will find out?

 

[wild01]

Check both websites and you will find out?

based on his comments on other threads this may not give me my answer. Distributors have to honor minimum advertised prices on products, basically to be a distributor you can't advertise lower than list price. Just trying to figure out if eg4 is allowing ss to use lower advertised prices than other distributors (which would be pretty effed up imo) or if cc is just not willing to take the lower profit margin. (which may be reasonable considering their better customer service)

 

[HighTechLab]

I just checked our EG4 pricing and updated a few - we should either match or be below Signature Solar on pretty much everything. We also actually have stock on PowerPro batteries. 18k's are $100 lower than SS, powerpro accessories a few bucks less. The MAP from EG4 changes rather often and sometimes it can be difficult to track the changes, so my apologies for the higher prices.

The difference between us and our competitors in general is that we don't use sales to bring prices to MAP. We always try our hardest to give the best price possible all the time and avoid using the illusion of a sale to create pressure. Our biggest fear is that people will rush to buy items that may not be a good fit for their application simply because a sale is about to end. This leads to more work when the installer starts hooking things up and realizes they got the wrong parts.

For example, let's say we had a year-end sale that finished at midnight tonight. We may have people rushing to get the price today, when our technical sales team is not in until Tuesday to help them choose the right components. Next thing you know, our team is buried on Tuesday issuing refunds and re-designing systems. We'd rather there not be the stress on customers and get things right the first time around.