Rooftop solar: when the market is booming but customers don't dare to choose

A brand is not the logo printed on a quote. A brand is how a household feels when they look at an installer and ask themselves: “Can I trust them?”

For rooftop solar, that question often has no clear answer. And that is exactly the problem.

A big market, little trust

By the end of 2023, Vietnam had more than 103,000 rooftop solar systems installed, with total capacity exceeding 9,500 MW, according to the Electricity and Renewable Energy Authority.

That number sounds huge. But in practice, most households are still struggling to find their way.

They know solar power is the trend. They hear neighbors say they've saved on electricity bills. They see ads everywhere. But when it's time to choose a specific provider, they don't know where to start.

The reason is not a lack of information. The reason is that the information is too similar.

Every company says the same thing: high-efficiency panels, genuine inverters, a 25-year warranty, a professional technical team. None of it is wrong. But no one stands out.

When technical language creates distance

The solar power industry grew out of an engineering community. The way people in it speak is the way engineers speak to engineers.

Peak power, temperature coefficient, degradation rate, string inverter or micro-inverter, on-grid or off-grid. These concepts are entirely correct and technically important.

But the person deciding to spend 60 to 120 million VND on a rooftop system is not an engineer. They are a homeowner worried about three things:

• Once it's installed, does it really cut your electricity bill, and by how much?
• If something goes wrong, who is responsible and how will it be fixed?
• Will this company still exist in 5 years?

Not a single quotation answers those three questions in the language of the person asking.

A brand is not what you say about yourself. It is how others feel when they think of you.

Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap

Three brand pain points specific to this industry

After years of observing industries with complex buying decisions, Sinh Vũ has noticed three recurring pain points in the residential solar sector.

First: they can't tell reputable providers from opportunistic ones. Market growth has brought a wave of new providers, many of which lack the capacity for long-term warranty service.

But from the outside, they all look the same, because their language and imagery are too similar.

Second: every consultation starts from zero. Without accumulated brand assets, there is no accumulated trust.

Every new customer arrives equally skeptical, and the sales team has to spend a lot of time persuading instead of explaining the product.

Third: silence after installation. Once the system is installed, customers have no reason to remember the brand, tell their neighbors, or refer anyone else.

Yet this is an industry where word-of-mouth (referrals) can account for most new orders if nurtured properly.

A approachable brand doesn't mean giving up expertise

A common misconception: to feel close to everyday customers, you have to simplify so much that the expert content disappears.

Not so.

Approachable means putting the right things in the right place. Expertise is still needed, but it belongs where customers actively seek it out, not in the first greeting.

This means that before customers read the inverter specifications, they have already decided whether to trust the provider, based on how it presents itself, its photos of real projects, and the way it talks about itself.

What an approachable brand in this industry looks like in practice:

• The name and positioning line speak to what customers care about, not what engineers are proud of.
• Real project photos with specific names and locations, not renders from a catalogue.
• Describe the post-installation process: who to call when something goes wrong, and who carries out periodic checks.
• Consistent language from the Facebook page to the quotation, the technician's shirt and the invoice.

Consistency is something few manage to achieve

According to a 2019 survey by Marq (formerly Lucidpress), organizations that maintain a consistent brand reported revenue roughly 23% higher than the industry average, based on self-reported responses from the participating businesses.

In the solar industry, consistency matters especially because the buying cycle is long.

A customer may first encounter the brand through a social media ad, then visit the website, then meet a technician who comes to survey the roof, then receive a quotation, then call back with more questions a few weeks later.

If every touchpoint looks and sounds different, customers sense an unprofessional business, no matter how good the technical work is.

Starting point in reality

Sinh Vũ has no one-size-fits-all formula for every business. But there is a sensible order in which to begin.

First, define exactly who you serve. A middle-class household in a large city is different from a factory owner in a provincial area. The way you speak, the imagery, and the channels you use are all different.

Next: identify the question your customers fear most, then answer it directly in all your communication materials. Don't leave customers to find the answer from your competitors.

Then: make every touchpoint look like it comes from the same place. Colors, fonts, the way installations are photographed, the tone of voice in post-installation follow-up messages.

It doesn't need to be perfect from the start, but it needs to be consistent.

Finally: nurture the customers who have already had their system installed. They are your best source of natural referrals.

A periodic check-in message, a short report on the electricity generated that month: these are things most companies in the industry don't do.

The rooftop solar market still has many years of growth ahead. But most companies will compete on price until the margins are gone.

The players that build trust early will be the ones that never need to join that fight.