I don't know much about Brio Energy, but I do know that their salesman, Mike S, is terrible and therefore I want nothing to do with Brio Energy.
Mike showed up at 8pm a few Tuesdays ago to meet with my husband and I. Mike started in on his sales pitch. He barely looked at me at beginning of the conversation until he realized, based on my husband's behavior, that I was the primary decision-maker in the family. At that point, he focused on me. He had a power point presentation that he flipped through. The frustrating thing to me was that what he was talking about often didn't match what was on the screen. He also didn't allow us time to read what was on the screen because he continued talking without giving any pauses to read. I took a few pictures of the power point so I could refer back to it later.
One slide of the presentation stated the type of panel that would be used on the house. The slide advertised a German-made solar panel and explained all the benefits of that particular panel. However, when Mike was showing us the specs for our home, the type of panel he had listed wasn't the German-made panel that had been advertised in his presentation. I asked him why that was, but he didn't really provide an answer.
At one point he stated that our electric bill was about $80 per month. I can only guess that he got that number from the ONE bill I'd shown the guy who scheduled the initial appointment. Before Mike had come to my home, I calculated my average electric bill and found it to be $49. I told him so. He didn't believe me, so I showed him the screenshot I'd taken on my phone. He said, "Well, I can try to work with that" and then continued on in his presentation. Later, when he was showing us why solar would save us money, he said, "Well, since Rocky Mountain Power rates are going up, instead of using your average of $49, let's just use $70 to compare to what you'd be paying in solar". I laughed at this and told him, "No, we should compare it to $49 because that's what I'm currently paying." He then said, "Okay, how about $60." I told him fine, but even then, it was still cheaper than solar power. And instead of taking only 3 years to pay off, he said it'd take 7-8 years. Honestly, we aren't even sure if we'll still be in that home for 7-8 years, so that didn't really persuade us either.
There were several unanswered questions. I already mentioned one. But another one was this. The quote he gave us was for 14 panels. It was obvious we didn't need that maney so we asked about getting fewer panels. He said that he could maybe talked someone into doing only 12 panels. I asked him why there was a minimum amount of panels, why they couldn't give 8 or 10 instead. He couldn't/wouldn't answer this VERY simple question. I was honestly just curious why.
One slide in his presentation stated that the better business bureau gave Brio an A+. Mike pointed this out and said we should base our information on that. However, when I checked the BBB, I found they have a B+, not an A+ as Mike stated.
The most frustrating part of the evening was when we were just about finished. When Mike had first arrived, before we even got started, my husband told Mike, "We aren't the kind of people who make major decisions spontaneously and that we wouldn't make any decisions regarding solar until at least one night's sleep." We wanted to let him know this so he wouldn't try to pressure us to sign anything that night. Well, he was going over our quote and then started listing perks we'd receive if we signed up that day. I wanted to interrupt him to remind him of what my husband had told him earlier, but decided to let him finish his spiel. He finished telling the same-day signing perks and then we reminded him that we needed time to decide. He said, "Well, we can at least have you sign some preliminary paperwork and get the guys scheduled to come out and measure and then you can have time to decide." I asked him, "Will this paperwork cause you to check our credit?" His answer, "Yes". So we told him again, we want time to talk and decide. At that point, his entire demeanor changed. It was as if he were throwing his hands up in the air and saying, "I just wasted my time with you." What he actually said was, "No one EVER calls back later and decides to get it. NO ONE!" My husband and I were both a bit taken back by such a negative reponse. I then asked him if I could have a copy of the spreadsheet that had our quote on it. In reply to my question, he said, "It's all worthless now!" WOW! I could not believe how rude he was being.
In summary, Mike S did not address all of our questions, he gave misleading information, he tried using inaccurate information in order to show that solar power would save us money when it in fact would not and to top it all off, as soon as we told him we needed time to decide, he became a complete jerk. Unfortunately he also works for Vivint Solar (according to him, he works for several solar companies) so even if we were still interested, we wouldn't know where to go that would avoid supporting the business in which he works.