Synergy Conservation Solutions

Just like many here, a person came to our door (ignoring our «No Soliciting» sign, but that seems to be the norm) and talked to me about the possibilities of solar. He was extremely personable and polite, and we’d already been interested in converting over, so I talked with him to get more information. I said I was concerned about the state of our roof (no known issues, but our house is older and I’d want an expert opinion), and he said that the company was also a roofing company. Okay, sure. Would I be interested in getting someone out for an estimate? Yeah, why not.
Then I wind up on the phone with the appointment person. Here’s where I get far less pleasant an experience. I also get the «your wife has to be present» line. This sets off warning bells in my head. I said that my wife’s schedule fluctuates so I’m not certain if she’d be able to attend, and since this is just for an estimate why should she need to be there? I get talked around a bit, but we still schedule the appointment for a Saturday. I get told that I can call and reschedule if necessary.
Saturday comes and goes. No one calls, no one shows up. I decide at this point I’m better off.
Today, three days after the appointment, I’m getting phone calls from the company. Really? Is it an apology? No, it’s actually nothing because they don’t bother to leave a message. If you can’t even be bothered to say what you’re calling about when you call then I’m pretty sure you’re unreliable enough as a company to let you near my roof or electrical system. I just decided to check here to see if anyone has anything good to say about them and, other than a suspect review at the very top, no, it looks like a universal distrust all the way around.
Number has now been blocked on my phone. Next time someone comes to the door, I’ll be prepared to ask them to move along.

Same story as everyone else — once they get your number, it is a non stop phone spam even when asking to not be called. They have called us 30 times.
Karma’s a bitch — I hope this company enjoys their 1.5 star Unilocal rating.

Same story as everyone else — they came to my door, gave me a long pitch, refused to give an estimate unless my wife could be present. I agreed to an appointment because it seemed like the only way to get the guy to go away, then called to cancel it and had to go through the same thing again. I told them I would absolutely not do it if they insisted on my wife being present, and if that was their policy they should stop calling me. Have had five or six calls since from them since then; took the first two and told them to stop calling me, and now I just ignore their number.

Got the cold call this morning, nice lad with pages of folders. Told him I had done my homework on solar and it is not a reasonable option for my situation and sightlines, but told him I was shopping for a new roof and he said they do roofs, insulation … everything. Why not — made appointment for a roofing look-​see. He is gone 3 minutes and follow-​up call insists my wife be at the appointment, to which I replied that was not necessary unless contracts were to be signed which they will not be on any first appointment/​estimate. She tried to get me to change the time or day so my wife could be there. So I told her I was in the habit of being a customer of companies that wanted to do things for me — not the other way around.
This stinks like other «must sign today» outfits so I said my way or no way. She hung up. Then I checked Unilocal — I am not alone.
PS Better Business Bureau is not of any use checking companies — I had to sue one and the State pulled his license — yet BBB still has him A+.

For the love of all that is good, STOP CALLING ME. I told you months ago I’m not interested, but the calls WON’T STOP. Sorry to do this in public, but I’m just not into you, and the more you call, the less I want you back. I’m sorry, but it’s over. I wish you all the best.

So, I agreed to an appointment with Synergy because the door to door guy was pleasant and seemed fairly knowledgeable. I made it clear that my wife would NOT be there, and that there was no possible way that I was going to agree to any deal on the first visit. He said when the salesman gets there, just tell him that your wife couldn’t make it. When the salesman did arrive for the appointment, I didn’t even let him in the door. I did some homework, and I checked on Unilocal.I told him «you have five reviews and ALL of them are one star, and some of those said they would give negative stars if they could». He said he had never heard of Unilocal and came back with the better business bureau thing. I told him I was going to go with the words of actual customers, and he left. Now, magically, a five star review appears dated in Nov. of 2011 but at the top of the list (they’re posted chronologically, newest at the top). So apparantly, the other five posters have no idea what they’re talking about. Wow, this company just gets worse and worse. The five star review is a blatant sales pitch and obviously written by someone close to the company. This company is terrible, even based on the low bar set by other companies I’ve talked to in the solar industry.

While I can’t rate the actual product that Synergy offers, I can tell you that their sales approach is not good. The first guy who knocked on the door promised an easy, quick estimate from an expert — no pressure, estimate good for a year, etc. We scheduled the estimate. Today was the estimate, where the sales guy, who seemed like a nice enough person, was in our home for almost 1.5 HOURS, completely ignoring our clear signals to move the conversation along quickly. He then put on the hard-​pressure sale to make a decision today even though I had stated clearly from the beginning that we would not be making a decision today. His comments like «well, you sure are wasting a lot of money on your electricity bills, I don’t understand why you would want to keep doing that…» were not helpful. The estimate he left was hand-​written on a piece of binder paper. No signature, no company letterhead/​logo or usual contractor estimate form. The conversation could have been a productive 20 minutes, with a legitimate, professional estimate and I would have kept them in mind if/​when we choose to do solar. Need a better sales approach Synergy!

WAY WAY overpriced. Hard sell, commissioned sales. My brother did a very careful search and got essentially the same system for about half the price we paid. If you don’t mind paying 30−40% more than you need to — the actual installation and final system was fine — but i know there are much better deals available from other companies. My advice is to just say ‘no thanks’ when they come knocking.

I also had a salesperson come to my door. He actually did a decent job in getting me to think twice however the estimates of savings that he showed me were for homes that must have had all-​electric furnaces, water heaters, etc. because the «gas» portion of their bill was essentially zero… thus the savings from going solar and the offset in your utility bill to cover the installation costs were not really representative.
That said, my alarm bells started going off as soon as they refused to schedule a consultation appt without my wife home. I’ve never run into that before so I said, «Thanks but nevermind.»
I agree with one of the other reviewers that the reason they want both people home is that they want to do a hard sales pitch and close the deal right there. Now why would I want to set myself up for that? No thanks.

i was ready to get solar and had a good working knowledge when Daniel Finley came by for an appointment to discuss solar. He knew his business, and after some friendly negotiating, we agreed on a deal for 12 panels. A planner came out a few days later, and a week after that, i had a roof full of cells generating electricity. The installation teams backgrounds were as roofers, which was good. the work all looks top notch to me. Still waiting for my connection with Enphase and my new PG&E meter, but perfectly happy with the work so far and the watts are flowing. City of Pleasanton ok’d the installation with no huhu.
The Unilocal record for this company is confusing. If you look at the Filtered reviews (a link lower down on this page) there are a number of legitimate sounding good reviews there. Perhaps some hard working Unilocal staffer could take a look at this issue and clean it up.

I am worried that Unilocal doesn’t post my reviews for this company. I have already tried to post 2 reviews for my grandma, who had a radient barrier project installed through this company. However all I see is 1 star reviews? Surely we aren’t the only ones that had a great experience? She was completely satisfied with the whole process.

Well, im adding to the story. They say that there is no money up front on these contracts. They say that your house is a good one for the huge discount given to houses that get signs and do a testamonial. But when the salesman came to the appointment, none of this turns out to be true. I asked at the beginning of the conversation, what a minimal system costs, and he would not say. Should have asked him to leave then. A little later, i realized that they were not trustworthy, and walked him to the front door. Im done with these door to door companies.

My family can now rest easy and save some money! We signed up for a Solar System with Synergy Conservation Solutions. After reading the other post’s listed here, I was really hesistant but I seriosuly disagree!
This company was great to work with and they are accredited by the Better Business Bureau with an «A» status rating!!!
Check out the following link:
Granted it is your basic door-​to-​door sales people approaching you, but our guy did a great job and made us feel completely comfortable.
Yes, Solar Panels is a lot of money but think about it in the long run all the money you will be saving on heating your water, the stove, running your typical electrical appliances. Installation was a breeze and service was great, no issues here.
Get this, they can even help you save on water if you have big lawns with a new waterless lawn service. We will definitely look into this next time!

People need to know what is going on recently with this company’s sales tactics and it is not good. They have people going door-​to-​door offering a promotional rate to have your house be a demonstration site for their solar systems. If you accept their piece of paper describing the promotion (not their offer, just the piece of paper), they send out a salesman who does a classic high pressure sales pitch and literally expects you to sign a contract that day while he is still there! Our sales guy had a number of disturbing behaviors too numerous to count that all by themselves stopped us from accepting his offer. Then we soon realized he had been schooled in the tactic of the «Thing that Wouldn’t Leave» approach to landing a deal. He also offered us a low ball price «that would not be there tomorrow», a classic tactic that furthers their intention of preventing you from getting a competitive bid because you won’t have time to do it.
Solar salespeople typically double as system size estimators and so they acquire electrical energy usage from you to determine the right number of panels, inverters etc. Our guy had an unbelievable credibility problem when he was way off on the low side of the number of panels we would need. This came across as a way for them to appear cost competitive and for their offer to seem very attractive if you did not already know his system size estimate was low. (We knew our system size exactly from previous bids). Our sales guy also would not give us a written estimate on company letterhead nor online like our competing bidders did and do. Instead he worked fast and loose with a pencil on copy paper like we all did before the invention of word processors.
Anyway who in their right mind is going to agree to a $ 12,000 to $ 30,000 commitment of money without doing due diligence, getting competitive bids, reviewing the company’s rating etc. especially in the era of the internet?
The solar panel manufacturing industry is in a shakedown right now as anyone who reads the news knows. The cost of a system has dropped around 20−30% from just a few years ago thanks to the low cost of production in China. Solar installation companies are also hurting from slower sales, and some are resorting to desperation tactics like the ones from Synergy. My advice to you if Synergy people come to your door is first do not let them in the door. Second, DO NOT LET THEM IN THE DOOR. Third tell them immediately that you already have formal estimates from
competitors and would be glad to have one from them but again do not let them in for this. Have them mail it to you.