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Signature solar horrible customer service

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chuck1972

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Joined
Nov 3, 2022
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3
My experience with signature solar . I purchased 4 eg4 6500 ex's and 6 eg4 48 100ah batteries plus the rack. the sales and delivery went smooth for the most part.
after starting them up. upside down battery address. tried calling spent hour on hold with that dreaded message figured the address thing with no help. then came code 61 no help from them left the battery in use mode no problem. finally, was able to get through to speak to someone. to ask about the discrepancy in battery charging mode. nice guy but he could not tell me much. next came the mppt side of things was told to update firmware. did update then the display on one of the inverters died. First tech said he was going to email me he never did. then called back got a lady this time she emailed we sent her the picture of the display .no correspondence .my
wife called and spoke with a person still nothing.i am a service manager at a local mechanical/electrical contractor. if i worked like this i would not have a job
and my people would be laid off.
 
chuck1972 said:
.i am a service manager at a local mechanical/electrical contractor. if i worked like this i would not have a job
and my people would be laid off.
Click to expand...
It's irritating, I get it. Still may I offer that you are making an odd comparison?

You are in a mature industry with a (very) protected manufacture-distributor-contractor arrangement. EG: if someone wants to install or work on thier own HVAC they'd have a hard time finding and buying it and they'd better have some serious skills.

You've bought and installed a $1,200 inverter from what is essentially a start up company that is importing products directly from Chinese manufactures. You chose that inverter over a $6,000 or more inverter that you could have purchased from a dozen different online suppliers that have been around for a decade or more. Did you really think that you weren't making a trade to get that low price?
 
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Glossy marketing on the interwebs persuades many people to be parted from their hard-earned cash. Common sense is not as stylish as it used to be.
 
I bought mine just assuming I was on my own when I did. Which was kind of the whole point of DIY solar. If I wanted a zero headache option, I'd have paid an installer to put in a different system.

On your specific issue. Leave the batteries in USE mode is my advice once you get the screen issue addressed. Make sure the inverters and batteries are on current firmware. I don't see any advantage of using the EG4 mode honestly. I think it would have been better if EG4 had simply focused on USE mode and deleted all the others.

If you are going to use EG4 mode, make sure you only set EG4 mode on the master inverter unit. The other units must be set to USE.

On response times, I've never waited more than a day for a return email. Given these are all DIY applications with zero consistency on installation parameters, I find this adequate support. We're not million dollar installers buying from an OEM. I'm sure if you did want to install SS products exclusively they would provide you priority tech support.
 
I think your best tech support will be right here.
seems to be a lot of posts about issues with those inverters, but I think many have seemed to be solved ?
anyway, glad I went with the lv6548 mpp units. 9 months so far, zero issues...knock on wood
I do wish mine could take over 250v though like eg4
 
chuck1972 said:
My experience with signature solar . I purchased 4 eg4 6500 ex's and 6 eg4 48 100ah batteries plus the rack. the sales and delivery went smooth for the most part.
after starting them up. upside down battery address. tried calling spent hour on hold with that dreaded message figured the address thing with no help. then came code 61 no help from them left the battery in use mode no problem. finally, was able to get through to speak to someone. to ask about the discrepancy in battery charging mode. nice guy but he could not tell me much. next came the mppt side of things was told to update firmware. did update then the display on one of the inverters died. First tech said he was going to email me he never did. then called back got a lady this time she emailed we sent her the picture of the display .no correspondence .my
wife called and spoke with a person still nothing.i am a service manager at a local mechanical/electrical contractor. if i worked like this i would not have a job
and my people would be laid off.
Click to expand...
If you would DM me your email address I will find out why we dropped the ball so many times on this.
 
SpongeboB Sinewave said:
Is it possible that the email just went to a spam folder maybe ?
Click to expand...
It's possible. Hard to say though without being able to walk down all the points of contact we've had so far. What I've seen happen in the past is someone will pull the email out of the main inbox into their personal, then they lose it. I'm working on a way to prevent that from happening, but we have humans in the building so there is always a way to break the system.
 
BenFromSignatureSolar said:
If you would DM me your email address I will find out why we dropped the ball so many times on this.
Click to expand...
Maybe check on what happened to Jeff..since the last video he made and I posted you said he'd say that your support was helpful while saying otherwise on the video. Here's his latest video...seems like you lied again. He's still waiting for a call back.

 
I'm kind of mixed on this discussion. I recently purchased an inverter, batteries and rack from Signature Solar and got a great shipping deal and some discounts on the items during their sale. The items were shipped same day and received undamaged within a week. I put the batteries in the rack, hooked everything up and everything seems to be working so far. Despite a few issues with the rack spacing and depth, I got what I paid for so far.

If I were to buy a TV and home theater components from Walmart and had some trouble configuring it all at home, I wouldn't expect an employee at Walmart to solve my issues unless something was received broken. I don't think it is their job to get the HDMI and preferred audio settings configured properly.

Now if the equipment you received isn't working as expected after following the manual (maybe due to poor or missing instructions), then I can see where some technical support would be expected. I understand that their service queue is pretty long, so some patience and understanding will likely help on your journey. In the meantime, there is a lot of great advice and prior experience with various setups, configuration issues, etc. here and on Youtube.

I have come to the realization that DIY solar ain't always easy. Good thing we have Ben here to keep an eye out for potential CS concerns.
 
realpinochet said:
Maybe check on what happened to Jeff..since the last video he made and I posted you said he'd say that your support was helpful while saying otherwise on the video. Here's his latest video...seems like you lied again. He's still waiting for a call back.

Click to expand...
Well he mentioned calling in July and still waiting on a phone call. We have 3 tickets with Jeff since then and have replaced his Growatt inverters. Actually our CSR lead, Rachael, just called him to see what else we might be able to help him with and make sure his batteries are all working fine. Seemed very happy about the way things were working and apologized that someone would be using his videos on a forum in this way and that wasn't his intention. He was understandably concerned because he wasn't updated frequently enough through the repair process of his other inverters, but he has since got them back and not having any issues. Seems to me that @realpinochet is being a tad dramatic, but that is his right. This is an open forum and I'm glad his post gave us the opportunity to follow up with Mr. Motes. I really am more concerned with the OP at this point, I want to make things right for him.
 
BenFromSignatureSolar said:
It's possible. Hard to say though without being able to walk down all the points of contact we've had so far. What I've seen happen in the past is someone will pull the email out of the main inbox into their personal, then they lose it. I'm working on a way to prevent that from happening, but we have humans in the building so there is always a way to break the system.
Click to expand...

emails are made to be lost.

A customer portal, where history of written interactions and files transferred, could be a way to to manage it.
That is a database, where you can do aging, consistency checks, and so on.
Rather than just words in an email, there can be fields to indicate urgency, if the request is for parameters, parts replacement, etc.

As a user of SMA, I have a log-in for support and the history of issues we addressed is preserved there.
I made similar suggestion to them, that we be able to select from drop-down menu what type of support. For instance, if all I'm asking for is replacement of a faulty interface board, that could be turned around quickly without scheduling/allocating limited support.
 
Hedges said:
emails are made to be lost.

A customer portal, where history of written interactions and files transferred, could be a way to to manage it.
That is a database, where you can do aging, consistency checks, and so on.
Rather than just words in an email, there can be fields to indicate urgency, if the request is for parameters, parts replacement, etc.

As a user of SMA, I have a log-in for support and the history of issues we addressed is preserved there.
I made similar suggestion to them, that we be able to select from drop-down menu what type of support. For instance, if all I'm asking for is replacement of a faulty interface board, that could be turned around quickly without scheduling/allocating limited support.
Click to expand...
I agree 100% We're in the process of implementing a true CRM that will be able to track every touch point we've had with a customer since their profile was created. It's a great tool, biggest concern right now is converting our historical data over so we are able to have the reference material we need. We're working off of a ticketing system that our own Developer came up with, but it was implemented when we were handling 25 calls a day and now we're dealing with over 300. So growing pains are catching up with us. We've got a good plan going forward, just taking a little time to get it off the ground properly.
 
Hope you can develop that economically.
From what I've read, a database system costs $3M and up. If your budget is $250k, the salesman will say it can be done for that, but after you pay it won't work and you'll have to buy add-ons until you've spent the $millions.

It seems to me there are a few applications everyone needs, which could be an off-the-shelf application on top of Microsoft Access, or be implemented as a scalable cloud application. But almost all companies are trying to make "[...] as a Service" and get ongoing revenue for a purchase that should be one-and-done.

Yes, need some migration approach. But starting fresh for new new issues, and further work on existing issues, might be the thing to do.
 
first thing we are not buying a turn key system and a lot of us are buying less expensive walmart/harbor freight grade most will work well but something will sheet the bed and we will need help but understand the company’s are dealing with us weekend photon Warriors and all of our different experience levels and that can take a lot of time to help all of us, when you think there doing a poor job try calling the VA or IRS and get answers
 
Do their batteries work well with Victron? I.E. the communication between the BMS and say, Multiplus?
 
BenFromSignatureSolar said:
Well he mentioned calling in July and still waiting on a phone call. We have 3 tickets with Jeff since then and have replaced his Growatt inverters. Actually our CSR lead, Rachael, just called him to see what else we might be able to help him with and make sure his batteries are all working fine. Seemed very happy about the way things were working and apologized that someone would be using his videos on a forum in this way and that wasn't his intention. He was understandably concerned because he wasn't updated frequently enough through the repair process of his other inverters, but he has since got them back and not having any issues. Seems to me that @realpinochet is being a tad dramatic, but that is his right. This is an open forum and I'm glad his post gave us the opportunity to follow up with Mr. Motes. I really am more concerned with the OP at this point, I want to make things right for him.
Click to expand...
No, I'm being factual; it's funny how repeating exactly what he said is somehow dramatic. Serious question, how do you find something that a customer blatantly stated about your company and his / her experiences ...and then repeated dramatic? Irregardless of what his intentions may have been he stated the same message in two different videos and his comments seems to line up with a lot of other people's experiences. Not everybody is wrong Ben. So, your CSR "Just called him" after you saw my post? Exactly!
 
realpinochet said:
No, I'm being factual; it's funny how repeating exactly what he said is somehow dramatic. Serious question, how do you find something that a customer blatantly stated about your company and his / her experiences ...and then repeated dramatic? Irregardless of what his intentions may have been he stated the same message in two different videos and his comments seems to line up with a lot of other people's experiences. Not everybody is wrong Ben. So, your CSR "Just called him" after you saw my post? Exactly!
Click to expand...

First world problems.

Don't buy a Huffy at Walmart and then get mad that the service and performance isn't at the same level as the Specialized you purchased from the local bike shop.
 
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