Interview data
Interview topic
Purchase of a solar thermal panel
Interviewees
Greater 15 people who inquired about solar thermal panel installation offers for warm water generation in 2006 or had panels installed.
Duration of the interviews
20 – 40 min.
Desire for progress hypothesis
Find a solar thermal panel that is suitable for making new home or re-model compliant with the new law.
Idetified desire for progress hypothesis
Raise social staus
Key-insights
Close to nobody was willing to invest several thousands of Euros in a new solar thermal panel without the prospect of a positive ROI; in spite of a mandatory regulation. This let to „creative workarounds“ or technically poor and cheap solutions. However, a some of the interviewees were willing to significantly invest more money than necessary because they oviously were able to realize extravagant gains and raise their social status. It turned out that non-customers and financially less sound customers tried to obtain these gains as well.
Obviously, there had been a surpising willingness to invest if there was a payback in sight and the social status could be improved. These insights had a direct impact on the entiere business model design and value proposition, that subsequently got optimized.