Challenges

• Build a customer and prospect database for SolarXchange, an initiative that allows householders to benefit from renewable energy at zero cost by providing solar photovoltaic (PV) systems free of charge to 2,500 homes in East Anglia
• Automate, integrate, and streamline the management of prospective customer inquiries, home suitability surveys, installations, system monitoring, contractual management, follow up, trouble shooting, and ongoing operations and maintenance of solar PV systems
• Launch SolarXchange initiative in a few weeks, without the need for upfront investment in technology, implementation, or consultancy, and minimize ongoing operating costs
• Add new data fields and functionality in line with growing and changing needs, such as revised eligibility criteria or additional customer details
• Extend SolarXchange to 10,000 homes in the United Kingdom by the end of 2012
• Keep carbon dioxide emissions of the hardware and software used to manage SolarXchange as low as possible by using energy efficient data centers, in keeping with the low carbon philosophy of the business

Solutions

• Implemented Oracle CRM On Demand to gain comprehensive, prepackaged customer relationship management (CRM) database and industry-leading customer management processes at an affordable per-user price, hosted at Oracle’s Austin data center where 25% of power comes from green sources
• Benefited from the expertise of Oracle Partner BPI On Demand and its award-winning Accelerate Solution to configure Oracle CRM On Demand’s flexible contact center, customer survey, telemarketing, and project management functionality to the specific needs of Solar Xchange, with no up-front consultancy fee
• Completed set-up and go live in three weeks with no up-front investment, a process that would have normally taken three months and cost US$80,000 to US$160,000 with an on-premise solution and without BPI On Demand’s Accelerate Solution
• Provided a floating team of 14 contact center agents with Web-based access to Oracle CRM On Demand, enabling them to enter prospective householder details and ascertain type and orientation of property, including pitch of roof, legal ownership, and other details necessary to identify homes that qualify for the scheme
• Benefited from BPI On Demand’s Managed CRM Services to update the customer survey with more questions as required and add new function fields and eligibility criteria remotely, often making new features available immediately or within 30 minutes of the request
• Optimized scheduling of site visits using BPI On Demand’s clustering configuration and integration with Google Maps, which operates as a supported extension to Oracle CRM On Demand
• Used Oracle CRM On Demand’s pre-integrated, workflow-routed applications to process customer questionnaires rapidly and complete most installations within four weeks of the inquiry
• Captured 200 prospects in the first month on the Solar Xchange database and completed four installations by the end of the second month
• Ensured ability to support an increasing number of installations, targeted at 50 to100 per week during August and September 2011
  Gained powerful analytics in Oracle CRM On Demand to enable future identification, profiling, and segmentation of households to determine likely suitability for nationwide rollout of Solar Xchange
• Began to evaluate use of mobile devices and tablet PCs to enable field-based surveyors, engineers, and installation teams to access appointments and update job status in real-time
   

Why Oracle

ESCO NRG Limited chose Oracle On Demand over competing hosted CRM products for its market leadership and configurable applications that can be adapted and scaled to its changing needs.

“We believe that Oracle CRM On Demand offers substantially better value than comparable software-as-a-service solutions,” said ESCO NRG Limited’s Chief Executive Officer Steven Rademaker. “Its modern, power-efficient data center, driven partially from renewable energy sources, complements our own commitment to using green energy and decarbonizing our operations.”

Partner

Oracle Gold Partner BPI On Demand configured the tools and processes in Oracle CRM On Demand to the specific needs of ESCO NRG and Solar Xchange.

“BPI On Demand is unique in offering a fully configured go-to-market solution without upfront costs. The group’s ongoing consultancy and end-to-end support enables us to continuously improve customer service while cutting overhead,” Rademaker said.