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Adapt messages to your primary target audience’s needs
Adapt your business model to fit your external environment
Aim for early wins that give the program experience and showcase upgrades as a way to attract customers
Ask customers about their program experience and for feedback on how your program can improve—and listen to their responses
Communicate with audiences at least three times; once is not enough
Conduct one-on-one outreach where people gather and help them take action right away
Connect home performance professionals to trainings focused on the skills that employers want and the community needs
Consider a diversity of funding and revenue sources and make selections based on local opportunities when planning for long-term program sustainability
Consider tiered financing or rebates to encourage deeper upgrades
Contractors are your sales team – educate and empower them with the skills to sell home energy upgrades
Design a program that provides value for contractors and considers their seasonal business cycles
Design your financing activities to enable long-term sustainability
Develop data collection and evaluation plans in conjunction with program design
Develop partnerships based on an alignment of goals, strong collaboration, and consistent communication
Develop routine reports or dashboards to help monitor the collected data
Directly install measures during the assessment
Engage media to garner attention and credibility
Engage with potential lending partners early, and make a clear business case for their involvement
Establish a clear system and process for ensuring quality work
Establish collaborative partnerships with contractors and communicate with them early and often
Establish data sharing relationships as early as possible
Follow through with customers
Foster “word of mouth” communication from satisfied customers
Good news is addictive – spread news about program accomplishments widely and often
Have clear rules and systems for identifying and remedying contractor problems
Help contractors enter the home performance market by lowering barriers to entry
Help contractors understand the program’s financing options and benefits, so they can communicate to homeowners
Hire staff with financing skills and knowledge
Incentivize the action you want your customer to take
Invest in information and communications technology
Keep program participation simple for your contractors
Keep the program simple for your customers
Language matters – use words that resonate with your target audience
Leverage financial sector marketing channels
Leverage the many complementary benefits of energy efficiency programs to broaden your organization’s reach and partnership opportunities
Maintain a sufficient workforce from program launch into program maturity
Make sure there are enough customers in your target market to meet your goals and attract partners
Make upgrade benefits visible by showcasing completed projects and actual results
Make upgrade options clear and concise for customers
Measure and evaluate performance at key points in the process
Motivate action through financial incentives and time-limited offers
Offer customers a range of upgrade paths, including single measures and staging upgrades over time
Offer homeowners multiple types of assessments
Partner with organizations or individuals that customers already trust
Promote existing loan products when possible before developing new ones
Promote financing as part of energy efficiency sales transactions
Provide adequate time for data system development and testing
Provide customers with a single point of contact to help them through the upgrade process
Provide information to help customers pick the right contractor
Provide materials and training to ensure data quality, consistency, and accuracy
Recognize customers who make improvements
Recognize and reward good contractor performance
Set realistic expectations for launching and scaling up your program
Speak about financing in ways that resonate with homeowners
Streamline the financing process with easy loan applications and quick approvals
Tap into secondary market investors to provide lending capital
Use compatible formats for data sharing and reporting, and work with partners to implement standard data exchange protocols
When partnering with lenders through a request for proposal (RFP), establish a clear process and remain flexible
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