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February 10, 2021 | Tobias Knoblauch

#VCOM today - 6: Interfacing with clients - once in a while or live...24/7/365?

I am sure, you also had such a day already. It is close to lunch and you get a call from one of your customers saying: "Hey, there is an alarm on my plant!!! Why didn't you react?" Super! You know how this is ending up. Frustration on both sides. 

Another example you may experience every year, when contracts have to be extended. You are a professional O&M and the plants are running well. Typically there is no need for continuous communication between you and your customer. For you, that's good. But maybe your customer starts to ask himself: "Why do I pay so much money to my O&M partner? The plant is working well. I don't hear anything from him throughout the year. I am just receiving a yearly report, stating that everything is fine. And I shall really continue to pay 4,50 €/kWp/year?"

You and me, we know that it would be a bad economical decision for the owner to cancel the O&M contract. The plant will most probably have technical issues and will have a lower PR - slowly. So what can we do, to solve this situation? An attempt to find solutions:

1) Transparency and information create trust. Let us serve this human and natural desire. People want to be informed. Maybe a monthly report is not enough. Lets try to give them access to information, they are interested in - an access to the VCOM with the correct user rights can help.

2) Too much, and often the wrong information, is confusing. The result: Uncertainty causes discomfort. Lets try to reduce the amount of information and the complexity to a minimum. 

Now, let us translate these two general statements into practical doing. 

There are several ways to stay in contact with the owner frequently. On the one hand a monthly reporting, this is an industry standard today. On the other hand an access to the monitoring platform with the right user rights. 

Monthly Reporting

You are able to define the monthly reporting templates based on open office documents. This is highly flexible and adaptable to the plant owners interests. The goal should always be, to provide as much information as necessary and as less as possible. 

The following pictures show how a template can be created. The content as well as the look and feel are up to you.

open office template for monthly report

Picture: Open Office Template for a Monthly Report

How do you define which data is extracted from the database and implemented in the report? You can find and copy paste the "links" for specific content via the questionmark in the reporting module.

https://www.meteocontrol.com/fileadmin/Daten/Bilder/4_Unternehmen/7_Blog/2021/LinkedIn_TKN/_6/1612938436921_1.png

Picture: Links for creating open office report templates 

Once you have created a template, you can generate reports at the click of a button. You even have the option to fully automate the sending of reports. Just use the send option and select the recipients - the reports will be sent to the selected recipients in the defined cycle. 

 

screenshot: part of a monthly report

Picture: Part of a monthly report

VCOM Investors Access

We already noticed, that a monthly report may not be enough. With an investor access, you have the possibility to let your customer access information all the time - 24/7/365. We are all used to have access to information whenever we want to have access. The access for investors has many advantages. 

  • Information is alaways available and always up to date. Who would like to see a weather forecast from yesterday? Live and always on is the new normal. 
  • Transparency and the right information create trust. 
  • The O&M will receive less calls from the owner, since most questions are answered by the tool.
  • The O&M (if using the VCOM in a "white label" format) is creating a closer relationship to the owner of the plant. 
  • The O&M can inform the owner about incidents immediately. This increases the perceived value of the O&M service.

There is just one thing you should take good care of, when setting up an access for the owner. Try, if possible, to limit the access rights. The customer should not be interested in single alarms and failures. In the best case, the owner trusts you. This takes time and needs transparency. An open communication and a consultive approach help a lot to create such a relationship. In the beginning, you as the O&M have to give something, without knowing if you get something back. Most of the time the investment in time and communication pays off longterm. 

screenshot: VCOM Investors View

Picture: VCOM Investors View

#Nerdtalk: User Groups

You, as the administrator of the VCOM, can set up new VCOM accounts. When setting up a new VCOM account, you can decide which user group you link to this account. 

The VCOM provides 6 levels of user rights for different types of users.

screenshot: user groups overview

Picture: User Groups

If this is not enough, or if you would like to adapt the user levels, you have the possibility to do this in a VCOM Premium framework agreement. With this, you have the complete flexibility and the ability to adjust the investor access rights for different customers to their expectations. A typical use case, which often helps to improve the relationship between you and the owner of the plant. You can exactly give them what they expect. 

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