Office location: 1218 Spring Street, Riverside CA, 92507
08/07/2018
Anonymous
I would not recommend Semper Solaris for solar as their customer service is horrible. The salesman will say anything but once you sign that contract they stop treating you like a valued customer. Be careful about trusting/reading reviews, especially on social media, as they will delete anything negative then block users from posting their experience with the company. Company is actively removing negative information about their company to make them seem better than they actually are.<br />I went with Semper based on their online reviews almost all of which were positive. As a veteran and family of vets, I liked the idea of a company that works with military/ex-military although this just seems to be a marketing ploy as they didn't work well with this vet. They heavily advertise as military/veteran oriented but their company values and work ethic are far from anything taught in the military.<br />The salesman was nice and worked with me in getting the system setup and designed. Once I signed the contract, the communication from Semper basically stopped. I was assigned a project manager that would not respond to anything. I asked a question regarding placement of panels that differed from the original layout provided (panels are set under a tree so they get shade for a few extra hours a day). The project manager never responded. After not hearing back I contacted the salesman regarding the change. She stated that she reviewed it with the engineers and the placement wouldn't change the output of the system (this was a lie as the output from those panels are about 20% less than similarly positioned panels)<br />The project moved slowly from there with my only contact being an occasional generic email from a random person at Semper that wasn't specific to my project.<br />At this point I sent complaint regarding the lack of communication to their headquarters staff. <br />After my complaint to HQ I finally received a call to inform me when they were going to be installing (not to schedule a time that worked for me, they just told me when they were coming). Based on the timing and the attitude I got from the representative, I believe I only got this call because of the complaint. Otherwise my project might still be sitting around waiting for someone to work on it.<br />Install went okay and the crew got most everything done the first day. One tech did come out the following day to finish up. He wasn't able to get the system activated and said he would have to come out the next day. He never showed up or called. I called customer service to follow up and the representative said they would find out what was going on and call me back. They never did. Tried to call the project manager but I was never given her contact information. Got hold of a rep via email and she called me back. Relayed the information to her and she said she would look into it and call me back. She never did call back and the tech never showed up.<br />After a few days of not hearing back from anyone I finally got a call from someone that said the issue was likely as bad invertor and that they would have a tech out to check everything and that they would be bringing a spare invertor. Tech showed up and did not bring the replacement inverter (I guess they don't communicate internally either). He did return and got the invertor installed and the system working.<br />That wasn't the end of my horrible ordeal with Semper. The final stage was setting up system monitoring. Spent the next 2 weeks trying to get the information so I could set this up. I even had the manager of the local branch in the emails but no one ever responded. After receiving no response I was able to get a number for the monitoring department. The tech informed me that there was an issue with the internet signal. I informed them that this was an issue with my ISP and that I had a call in to them. He then informed me that they would send a tech out. I asked why they needed to send a tech when the issue was on my end. When the tech showed up I told him that the issue was with my ISP not them and that I wasn't sure why he was there. He was able to get the monitoring setup for my system. <br />For the cost of solar you would think that the company would try and work with their customer and try to communicate with them. I guess once the contract is signed they know they can't back out so they just ignore their customers and work at your own pace. As most solar companies offer panels from the same manufactures the only real difference is customer service. You are also stuck with the same company for 25 years since they cover the warranties. Everyone should do their research and find a company that ACTUALLY want's your business and won't just ignore you once they have your money. Semper's prices were higher than most competitors and I was hoping this would reflect in better service which they most defiantly do not give.