Sales digitalization for collective solar self-consumption

Barter was growing fast, with an innovative business model based on solar communities and EV charging solutions that meant managing a rising volume of leads, feasibility studies, offers, and invoicing processes. The company was working with several transactional systems and manual processes that took up time, made information hard to trace, and created a dependence on low-value administrative tasks.

The challenge was to put in place an integrated information layer connecting its day-to-day systems, automate repetitive tasks (such as reading invoices or sending documentation), industrialize the calculation of complex offers based on multiple variables (economic, financial, operational, and weather-related), and enable more robust analytics for tracking targets. It was also key to make collaboration with its partner network easier, through simple mechanisms for logging business opportunities directly in its sales systems.

To meet this challenge, a set of complementary digital solutions was designed and implemented with a platform mindset:

• Information system. It integrates the various transactional systems Barter uses day to day. This integration layer makes it possible to centralize data and put it to use later, both in the integration flows themselves and in dashboards and other analytics tools, creating a single reliable version of the information.
• Site validation with cadastral data. A tool based on cadastral (land registry) data was developed to automate the validation of a solar plant's location: it assesses the area's potential based on the number of homes and businesses nearby. This helps prioritize locations with the best potential for collective self-consumption and shortens the study and sizing phase.
• Automated invoice reading and invoicing. On the sales side, automated reading of prospective customers' energy bills was implemented using optical character recognition (OCR): the relevant data is extracted and stored directly in the CRM, eliminating manual entry and reducing errors. In addition, the invoicing process was automated, with self-billing invoices generated and sent throughout the sales cycle. Documents are issued automatically as opportunities move through the pipeline or meet certain criteria, ensuring consistency and document traceability.
• Operational and financial dashboards. They make it possible to monitor budget compliance, progress against the targets set by the management committee, and the main sales and operational activity indicators. They offer near-real-time visibility and support data-driven decision-making.
• Offer calculator. A key component of the project: an application built into the sales CRM interface. Through a simple form within the lead record, employees enter a small set of data and a cloud-hosted mathematical model automatically calculates the optimal offer. The model takes into account economic, financial, operational, and weather variables, estimating the offer that can be presented to the customer based on the capacity and estimated output of the plant to be installed on their roof or in their solar community. The system also generates a unique URL that displays the offer to the customer, who can review it and download the document as often as needed.
• Dedicated form for partners. It lets Barter's partner network log potential opportunities easily. Through the form, the contact, the deal, and the associations between them are created automatically in the CRM, with fields filled in from the partner's and the prospective customer's data. The solution reduces friction in capturing opportunities, standardizes the information coming in from third parties, and strengthens the partner channel as a growth lever.

Rolling out this set of solutions has enabled Barter to automate and simplify key internal processes, freeing up the team's time for higher-value tasks such as designing solar communities, supporting customers, and expanding the model.

• The information integration and the dashboards have significantly improved visibility into the business, making it easier to track targets and make data-driven decisions.
• Automating invoice reading and the invoicing process has substantially reduced administrative time and the errors associated with manual handling.
• The offer calculator has shortened sales response times and brought consistency and rigor to proposals, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
• The partner form has professionalized the partner channel, increasing both the number and the quality of the opportunities logged.

Overall, a significant improvement is estimated in operational efficiency, in the customer experience across the entire sales cycle, and in Barter's ability to scale its collective solar self-consumption and sustainable mobility model while maintaining control and service quality.

16th Comunicaciones Hoy Awards

Ganadores en la categoría de Utilities