The RHI customer journey with Stiebel Eltron

The domestic RHI is new to all of us. Many of you have worked on projects with us before, but we have all yet to work on projects that have this extra element. Whilst it brings us all great opportunity it obviously also brings us all some extra complexity and additional customer questions and expectations. In this article, I just wanted to take a bit of time to run through what the journey to the RHI looks like when you work with Stiebel Eltron – both to help you understand the added value we have worked into our process for you, and to see the steps involved.

So let us assume that we have been approached by a customer who has high heating fuel bills and wants to try and save some money and reduce their carbon footprint with a new heating system.

Step 1: direct your effort on the right projects

Before anything else, come to us for a free of charge feasibility check and suggested approach. To do this, we just need an idea of the size and age of the building and ideally a history of energy bills. With this information we can give a ballpark indication of installation costs, potential savings and likely payback from the RHI. We can guide you on which technologies are going to be your best choices and thus also provide some indication of the likely space requirements and the visual impact of any installation. All this helps to set a customer’s expectations early in the design process before the cost and effort involved in the more formal stages that follow and ensures that you can weed out any projects that have a low potential for success early in the process.

Stage 2: get quickly to a complete and profitable quote

If a project has shown itself to have the potential to progress then it is time to commission the Green Deal Assessment (which tells you how much heat a property consumes), Energy Performance Certificate (which confirms that the property has sufficient insulation for the technologies you wish to apply) and Heat Loss Calculation (which allows exactly the correct size equipment to be selected for the property. These three documents are provided as chargeable services by specialist consultants. When you provide us with these 3 documents we can then produced a detailed specification which includes a full equipment list and hydraulic and electrical diagrams. This service is free of charge.

Step 3: close the deal

With our specification it is easy for you to produce a detailed and complete installation cost for the end customer and get the final go-ahead to begin the project. To help you close the deal we will also model an ROI for the customer based on your quote, so that your client knows how quickly their investment will be repaid. Our record of the best customer service in the market is also a key point to help you bring customers on board - which brings me to....

Step 4: offer the best customer service

Key to making the most of the RHI is obviously having happy customers who will recommend you and help generate new business. We support you in this by offering a free commissioning service – visiting every new installation at the point of handover to ensure that all the settings are optimal. And as an added bonus we are currently offering a free exended warranty for qualifying RHI installations by Stiebel Eltron partners – 2 years parts and labour guarantee certificate with an additional 5 years free parts