Customer Story
EmPower Solar Cuts Design Time in Half & Eliminates Costly Aurora Subscription with Scanifly's Integrated Platform
Results From Using Scanifly
Company Overview
For over two decades, EmPower Solar has built its reputation as one of New York’s most trusted solar installers. Founded in 2003, the Long Island-based company has distinguished itself in a crowded market through unwavering commitment to quality products, exceptional customer service, and a fully integrated approach that handles everything from initial consultation through long-term maintenance.
“Our philosophy is pretty simple,” explains Zack Lerman, Director of Sales at EmPower Solar. “Good communication with an emphasis on teaching and old-fashioned customer service. We repeatedly hear that other companies took weeks to call people back or didn’t do what they promised. We have a great team that can deliver quality and add value at all stages of a project.”
Serving primarily residential customers across Long Island, New York City, and Westchester County, EmPower Solar has built a referral-driven business model that prioritizes customer satisfaction over rapid expansion. This approach has proven remarkably successful—referrals and word-of-mouth are their largest lead source, a testament to their commitment to excellence.
Company Snapshot:
- Founded: 2003 (22 years in business)
- Primary Market: Residential solar installations
- Service Area: Long Island, NYC, Westchester County
- Differentiator: Fully integrated operations from sales through installation and service
Business Model: Referral-driven growth through exceptional customer experience
The Challenge: Expensive Tools and Disconnected Workflows
Despite EmPower’s success, their design and survey workflow had become a significant operational bottleneck. For years, the team relied on a fragmented approach: Aurora for preliminary designs, Scanifly for drone-based surveys and final designs to avoid change orders and revisions, and manual processes to bridge the gap between sales and engineering teams.
This disconnected system created several challenges:
Costly Software Stack
Aurora’s subscription costs were substantial and continuously increasing, straining the budget for a feature set that didn’t fully meet their needs.
Workflow Inefficiencies
Scanifly’s final drone-based design outputs are consistently 10-30% more accurate, so engineers still had to manually recreate, or ‘true up,’ preliminary designs from Aurora within Scanifly—essentially doing the same work twice in order to avoid change orders or revisions.
Integration Limitations
Aurora promised CRM integration capabilities but provided minimal support for implementation. EmPower had to outsource the integration work to a Salesforce developer—an unexpected and significant expense.
Communication Breakdowns
The fragmented workflow often led to miscommunication between sales and engineering teams about specific panel placement and design preferences, requiring additional meetings and clarifications.
The Solution: Unifying Sales and Operations with Scanifly's Integrated Design Platform
Already using Scanifly for drone-based designs for roughly five years, EmPower Solar’s engineering team recognized an opportunity to simplify their entire workflow by consolidating preliminary design work within the same platform.
“Part of the reason why we started entertaining Scanifly for prelim designs in the first place is that we were already using it for drone flights,” Lerman explains. “There was this strong feeling from our engineering and design department that it would really streamline the process if we had our prelim designs done in Scanifly prior to doing the drone flight.”
The transition delivered immediate benefits across multiple areas:
Seamless Workflow Integration
By conducting preliminary designs directly in Scanifly, engineers can reference the exact panel placement and layout specifications when creating final designs after the drone survey. This eliminated the need to recreate designs from scratch, significantly reducing engineering time. The direct integration to their CRM and proposal tools in Salesforce automatically creates a new Scanifly project and design upon lead generation—effectively eliminating manual data entry and duplicate work. Design files, shade reports, and drone images also flow directly back into Salesforce, providing a single source of truth for design and project data.
Cost Optimization
The switch eliminated Aurora’s expensive subscription while providing equal or superior functionality. “Cost was a very significant driver,” Lerman notes. “Our perspective was that it was very expensive, and it was always increasing in cost.” Moving to Scanifly PrelimDesign for sales immediately reduced their software spend by 53%.
50% Reduction in Design Time
“I think from a time perspective, it cuts the time in half for our design team,” Lerman reports. Engineers no longer need to spend 30 minutes to an hour understanding and recreating preliminary designs, as the specifications are already built into the Scanifly project. The engineering team now has all the data and context they need to finalize the system design right when they’re handed the project.
Improved First-Pass Yield
The centralized workflow has dramatically reduced miscommunication between teams, improving what EmPower Solar calls “first-pass yield”—the likelihood that projects move through the pipeline without requiring revisions or additional clarification.
Superior Support and Implementation
Unlike past experiences with Aurora, Scanifly provided comprehensive support for their CRM integration. “We had a lot of support from Scanifly in getting it set up,” Lerman emphasizes. Although much of the groundwork had been laid from their first attempt to build a Salesforce integration, Scanifly offers integration guidance for all customers, whether it’s a custom project like EmPower’s or something more plug-and-play that can be set up without coding using a tool like Zapier.
Stress Free Team Training
The transition proved remarkably smooth for the sales team. “Thankfully, the training was relatively simple and straightforward,” Lerman recalls. “Additionally, the support our team got from Scanifly in going through that training was excellent.” Not only does Scanifly offer hands-on training and onboarding, all new PrelimDesign users can also access comprehensive, self-guided product tutorials to help get comfortable making the transition to a new design tool, in less than 30 minutes.
Enhanced Design Consistency
“The engineering team’s ability to look specifically at the panel placement in the prelim design is very helpful because it allows us to communicate to the engineering team exactly where we are proposing these panels,” Lerman notes.
The Impact: Technology as a Competitive Advantage
For EmPower Solar, adopting Scanifly’s end-to-end design platform represents more than operational efficiency—it’s a strategic advantage in an increasingly competitive market.
Enabling Sustainable Growth
“In this business, being efficient is king,” Lerman emphasizes. “Solar installation is a very low-margin business in general. It’s very dependent on being able to achieve volume efficiently.”
The time and cost savings from Scanifly’s platform allow EmPower to maintain their quality standards while scaling operations. “Anything that we can do to streamline processes and cut our cost of customer acquisition is imperative,” Lerman explains.
Supporting Quality-First Philosophy
The improved accuracy and consistency align perfectly with EmPower Solar’s commitment to excellence. By eliminating design revisions and miscommunications, the team can focus more energy on customer relationships and delivering an exception service.
Future-Proofing Operations
As the solar industry continues to evolve, EmPower Solar’s integrated technology stack positions them to adapt quickly to changing market conditions. “Could you ever go back to the old school way?” Lerman was asked. “No, not really,” he responded without hesitation.
Looking Ahead: Building on Integration Success
EmPower Solar continues to optimize their use of Scanifly while exploring new opportunities for growth and efficiency. The success of their preliminary design integration has reinforced their belief in technology investments that directly benefit both operations and their customers.
“We invest in solutions that directly benefit our clients and business while cutting costs in areas that don’t deliver value,” Lerman explains. This philosophy has guided their technology choices and contributed to their sustained success in New York’s competitive solar market.
As the industry faces new challenges and opportunities, EmPower Solar’s commitment to operational excellence and customer service—enabled by the right technology partnerships—positions them for continued growth and success.
“We see technology as an investment in our business that pays dividends for our clients,” Lerman concludes. “By taking the complexity out of the site survey and layout process, we can focus on the electrical infrastructure of the facility and design better solutions.”
EmPower Solar sets the standard in solar. They offer highly-customized solar and battery solutions tailored to specific energy needs – ensuring each customer receives the most efficient and cost-effective system for their home. Their industry-leading warranties, power production guarantee, and dedicated in-house customer support team, provide comprehensive care and service throughout the 25+ year lifespan of a system. Plus, their use of the highest-efficiency solar panels, battery backup systems, EV chargers, and smart panel technology guarantees a system designed for peak performance and reliability. EmPower customers also benefit from access to a team of total electrification experts, a rewarding referral program, and exclusive perks.