Jamie Duncan, Head of Customer Operations at Payaca, shares what separates thriving renewable energy businesses from those that stall out. Structured onboarding, AI tools like Agent Dave, and a willingness to embrace change.
Jamie Duncan
Switching CRM when your processes are spread across spreadsheets, email, and disconnected tools is a big move. Get it right and you unlock a step change in how your business operates. Get it wrong and your team reverts to old habits within weeks.
Jamie Duncan, Head of Customer Operations at Payaca, has onboarded dozens of solar, heat pump, battery, and EV charger installation businesses. He has a clear view of what separates the companies that scale from those that stall.
The most common mistake businesses make when switching to a new platform is trying to recreate exactly what they had before. If your current process involves five spreadsheets and a shared email inbox, simply digitising that mess does not fix anything.
Payaca's onboarding starts differently. Jamie and his team spend the first session understanding what makes each business successful — their sales flow, their installation process, what their customers expect. The goal is to identify what is working and amplify it, while cutting out the non-value-add activities that have built up over time.
We're not just setting up software. We're looking at what makes you great and building the system around that. We've seen what works across dozens of renewable energy businesses — we bring that knowledge to every onboarding.
Payaca's onboarding follows a structured process designed for speed to value. Most businesses are live within 3-4 weeks.
Session 1: Discovery. A deep dive into your business. How do you sell? How do you schedule? What does your customer journey look like? What compliance requirements do you deal with? This is not a software demo — it is a conversation about your operations.
Session 2: Configuration design. The team translates your processes into Payaca's pipelines, automations, templates, and custom fields. This is where Jamie's cross-customer knowledge is most valuable — he has seen what works and what does not across the renewable energy sector.
Sessions 3-4: Build and test. Your Payaca account is configured. Your team tests it against real scenarios. Forms, proposals, scheduling, invoicing — everything gets validated against your day-to-day operations before you go live.
Post go-live: Weekly check-ins. Optional 30-minute sessions in the weeks after launch to address questions, refine workflows, and ensure adoption sticks across the team.
Every successful Payaca implementation has one thing in common: a dedicated internal champion.
This is not about seniority. It is about having someone who understands the software deeply enough to answer questions, spot opportunities, and push the team forward. In smaller businesses it is often the owner or operations manager. In larger ones it might be a tech-forward office coordinator or project manager.
The champion serves two audiences. For the office team, they are the go-to for "how do I do this in Payaca?" For the field team, they translate why the new process matters and how it makes their day easier.
Without a champion, adoption tends to fragment. Some team members engage, others quietly revert to their old spreadsheets. With a champion, the whole business moves together.
In a fast-moving market — new regulations, shifting incentive schemes, evolving customer expectations — the instinct is to hire more people. Jamie's advice is different: focus on improving capability first.
The businesses that scale best through Payaca are the ones that use the platform to reduce admin burden rather than just redistribute it. Automations handle quote follow-ups and appointment reminders. The customer portal eliminates phone calls about project status. Digital forms replace paper checklists on site.
The result is that your existing team can handle more volume without burning out. When you do hire, they are productive faster because the systems and processes are already in place.
The recent launch of Agent Dave has had a measurable impact on how quickly teams get value from Payaca. Early results have been strong.
Tasks that previously required support tickets or training sessions — setting up automations, building document templates, querying pipeline data — can now be done through a conversation with Dave. He scans your account, understands your configuration, and takes action.
One area where Dave has been particularly impactful is live document templates. These are branded forms that field teams fill in on site, with customer data auto-populated and signatures captured digitally. They are critical for compliance and audit readiness. Previously, setting these up required careful manual configuration. Now, teams describe what they need and Dave builds it.
Agent Dave is available to all Payaca customers. Ask him to set up an automation, build a template, or analyse your pipeline — he will do the work, not just answer a question.
Payaca ships updates regularly. Staying on top of new features is part of getting ongoing value from the platform. Jamie's team uses multiple channels to keep customers informed:
The quarterly reviews are particularly valuable for growing businesses. What worked when you were doing 15 installs a month might need adjusting at 40. Jamie's team has the cross-customer perspective to spot those inflection points early.
The renewable energy businesses that get the most from Payaca share three traits: they are willing to adapt their processes, they have an internal champion driving adoption, and they stay engaged as the platform evolves.
If you are evaluating CRM options for your installation business, or stuck on a platform that is not delivering, the onboarding process is where the difference is made.
Want to see how Payaca would work for your business? Book a demo and Jamie's team will walk you through the onboarding process.
See how Payaca helps clean tech installers save time and grow their business.
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