Photovoltaic Solar Project
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There are two ways to get direct support from SMA. One is via phone or email support, and the second means is via a customer support forum. First, I will talk about the direct support. This information is as of May 2008, so I don't know if it gets better or worse after that time. As you may know, SMA is a German company with offices in USA, and they do a large amount of business here. Support is handled in America for equipment sold here. Fortunately, manufacturer support is not something you normally have to worry about since you'll call your installer and they will take care of warranty issues for you. Therefore, it is far more important how your contractor will respond to support issues. You might call SMA for pre-sales support or if you have trouble getting support from your installer. As far as the email and phone support of SMA, it was superb for me. I called twice to the California office to ask some tough pre-sales technical questions. I immediately got to the right person (sorry I know recall the name), whom was knowledgeable and accurate. I almost thought I was talking to an engineer since he quickly had answers to my questions about inverter specifications and communications.
Now to report on my unfortunate experience with the SMA customer support forum. This is a web site where anyone can signup to post questions or comments about SMA products. Technically inclined customers are usually the ones to do this. Most SMA customers are not even going to know about the site or bother to register. This forum is not unlike other forums that you may have joined. You run across other knowledgeable customers whom usually post answers to questions or share knowledge. My main objective was to learn more about details of operating the equipment and getting the most during operation. Thus a forum is as much about sharing information with other customers as it is about getting support from the company. I give credit for having a support forum and allowing other helpful customers to make postings. Forums are a good place for technically savvy owners to discuss ideas and techniques. I started out my solar research by signing up on the forum and posting questions. Things quickly went down hill for me as a result of the information below. That's why I called their support telephone line as an alternative. The SMA Support Forum administrator was censoring postings, deleted some, and was even be a little rude about it ! That's right, he restricted some customer postings on the customer support site! My advice is don't plan on using the online forum. The "support forum" is not run in a matter that I am accustomed to seeing for other manufacturer product forums. If what you post is not what one admin (Jacob Ball) wants to hear, then he tells you to go away and deletes your postings. That is what he did to me and a couple other people. When I joined their forum to post questions, suggestions, and try to help others, I observed very few new customers signing up, and numerous questions go unanswered. Some questions have gone over 2 years without a response. Most questions were answered by other users. Within two weeks of posting messages (about 30 messages)... Surprise! I received a private email from Jacob saying I am posting too much and demanded I stop! Gee, have you ever heard a company tell a customer they don't want to hear from them when they offer suggestions and ask questions? Forum admins typically like lots of posts and don't censor anything. SMA should want people to participate and share ideas. Sadly, the forum admin doesn't understand the whole principle of a user forum. Here is the actual email quote I got... "You are posting way to much, if you have serious questions about you solar install please contact us directly but otherwise no more posting." Interestingly, I had "serious" questions, but he didn't want them. Fyi, comments from two other users said "I like your postings" and "Thanks for your many replies. The solution worked perfectly." More than 70% of my postings were to answer other customer questions about WebBox setup where Jacob was giving wrong information. I think that is what got him angry at me. In March 2008 (one week after a formal complaint), a sales manager sent an email to mention they are looking into the issue. So keep in mind... they will politely and expertly answer questions if you call them, yet the support forum is not an option in my opinion. Like I said elsewhere, my site is like a Clint Eastwood movie.... I post THE GOOD, THE BAD, and THE UGLY. ;-) Update 2010. I noticed that Jacob is no longer the admin of the site and it has gotten somewhat better. To end on a positive note, I think SMA inverters are nicely designed. This is a world class company with state-of-the-art products. I won't penalize a company because of poor judgment of one employee who does not show respect for customers. Copyright©
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