MidKnight Solar Turns After-Hours Interest into 24/7 AI-Powered Customer Engagement on AWS
Learn how MidKnight Solar worked with OneData to create an always-available customer journey that educates homeowners, answers questions, shares documents, collects electric bills, and books consultations using Amazon Connect and Apple Messages for Business.
Benefits
Resolved approximately 85% of customer conversations through self-service
Enabled 24/7 solar education and customer engagement
Reduced average handle time by approximately 26%
Improved first-contact resolution by 13 percentage points
Introduced end-to-end customer journey analytics
About the Customer
MidKnight Solar is a Florida-based residential solar energy company that helps homeowners understand and adopt renewable energy solutions.
The company educates prospective customers about solar power, system components, and smart-home technology. It then guides interested homeowners through document review, electric-bill submission, and consultation booking.
For MidKnight Solar, education is an important part of the sales journey. Homeowners need clear and accessible information before they can confidently decide whether solar is suitable for their property, energy usage, and long-term goals.
Overview
A homeowner may begin researching solar after dinner, during the weekend, or whenever an unusually high electricity bill arrives.
MidKnight Solar’s original phone-and-email process could not always meet customers at those moments. Its lean team handled inquiries during available business hours, but prospective customers sometimes had to wait to receive information or schedule a consultation.
The company had no existing contact center, automated self-service, structured routing, or centralized customer journey analytics.
Instead of building a conventional call center and adding automation later, MidKnight Solar chose to begin with an AI-first engagement model.
OneData created a greenfield customer engagement platform using Amazon Connect and Apple Messages for Business. The platform gives homeowners an always-available place to learn about solar, complete routine actions, and connect with a representative when personal guidance is required.
The solution entered production in May 2025, with OneData continuing to operate it as the managed service provider.
Overview
A homeowner may begin researching solar after dinner, during the weekend, or whenever an unusually high electricity bill arrives.
MidKnight Solar’s original phone-and-email process could not always meet customers at those moments. Its lean team handled inquiries during available business hours, but prospective customers sometimes had to wait to receive information or schedule a consultation.
The company had no existing contact center, automated self-service, structured routing, or centralized customer journey analytics.
Instead of building a conventional call center and adding automation later, MidKnight Solar chose to begin with an AI-first engagement model.
OneData created a greenfield customer engagement platform using Amazon Connect and Apple Messages for Business. The platform gives homeowners an always-available place to learn about solar, complete routine actions, and connect with a representative when personal guidance is required.
The solution entered production in May 2025, with OneData continuing to operate it as the managed service provider.
Opportunity | Making Every Moment of Solar Interest Actionable
Interest in solar energy can appear at any time, but the next step is not always clear.
A homeowner may want to understand the function of a solar component. Another may be ready to upload an electric bill. Someone else may simply want to know when a consultant is available.
Previously, each of these requests depended on a phone call or email response from the MidKnight Solar team.
This created small but important breaks in the customer journey. A homeowner could show genuine interest but still need to wait before receiving a document, asking the next question, or confirming an appointment.
Consultation scheduling was particularly dependent on manual coordination. Customers and representatives might exchange several calls or emails before finding a convenient time.
MidKnight Solar also had no consistent way to see how people moved through the solar education process. It could not easily identify which information customers requested, which actions they completed, where they stopped, or what caused them to seek human assistance.
Simply adding a chatbot would not solve these problems. The customer experience needed to connect information, document exchange, data collection, scheduling, and human escalation within one continuous conversation.
MidKnight Solar saw an opportunity to turn periods of customer interest into immediate progress—whether a representative was available or not.
Solution | Creating a Guided Solar Journey Through Messaging and AI
OneData designed the platform around the questions and actions that commonly occur before a homeowner speaks with a solar consultant.
Apple Messages for Business became the primary digital entry point. Amazon Connect manages the customer interaction, while Amazon Q in Connect, Amazon Lex V2, and AWS Lambda coordinate knowledge-based assistance and transactional self-service.
The experience is built to help customers move forward, not merely exchange messages.
Starting the Journey in a Familiar Messaging Channel
Apple Messages for Business allows homeowners to contact MidKnight Solar through a familiar messaging experience.
Customers do not need to wait on a telephone line or navigate a traditional support portal. They can begin a conversation, review information, make selections, and return to the interaction as their solar research progresses.
This gives MidKnight Solar a digital presence that remains available beyond normal business hours.
Separating Questions from Actions
The platform uses two conversational systems, each designed for a different purpose.
Amazon Q in Connect supports knowledge-based conversations. It answers questions using approved MidKnight Solar content and helps homeowners understand solar products, components, and the adoption process.
Amazon Lex V2 supports transactional journeys. It guides customers through defined actions such as selecting an appointment, requesting a document, or uploading an electric bill.
AWS Lambda manages the interaction between these systems and maintains the conversation state. This allows the platform to recognize whether a homeowner wants information, needs to complete an action, or would benefit from speaking with a representative.
Designing Six Paths to Resolution
OneData organized the self-service experience around six common customer intentions:
- Schedule a solar consultation
- Receive a relevant document
- Upload an electric bill
- Learn about solar components
- Book a telephone conversation
- Access or submit reviews
Each journey is designed around an outcome rather than a generic conversation.
A homeowner exploring solar can begin with education. Someone who has already completed their research can move directly to bill submission or consultation booking.
Approximately 85% of customer conversations are resolved through these self-service journeys without requiring an agent.
Removing the Delay from Consultation Booking
The scheduling journey connects with Google Calendar to retrieve real-time availability.
Customers can view open consultation times and confirm an appointment within the messaging conversation. They do not need to wait for a representative to check a calendar or exchange multiple messages to coordinate a suitable time.
This turns customer interest into a confirmed next step while the homeowner is still actively engaged.
Moving Documents Within the Same Conversation
Homeowners often need educational material before deciding to proceed. MidKnight Solar may also need an electric bill to better understand the customer’s energy usage.
Amazon CloudFront supports secure document delivery, allowing the platform to provide relevant materials during the conversation.
Customers can also upload their electric bills as part of a guided journey. This keeps document exchange connected to the original interaction instead of moving the customer into a separate process.
Bringing in a Human at the Right Moment
The platform is designed to automate routine journeys without preventing access to human support.
When a conversation requires personal guidance, the customer can be transferred to a MidKnight Solar representative with the existing context preserved.
Amazon Q in Connect assists the agent by presenting approved information relevant to the live conversation. The representative can respond without leaving the interaction to search across separate documents and knowledge sources.
This combination of automation and contextual agent assistance reduced average handle time by approximately 26% and improved first-contact resolution by 13 percentage points.
Understanding the Journey, Not Just the Final Inquiry
Before this implementation, MidKnight Solar had no unified view of how customers progressed from initial interest to action.
OneData created an analytics pipeline using Amazon Kinesis and Amazon Athena, with Microsoft Power BI presenting customer journey insights.
The dashboards show how customers interact with the guided experience, including their selections, completed journeys, and escalation points.
Amazon Connect Contact Lens adds conversational and sentiment data, helping MidKnight Solar understand not only what customers do, but also how interactions unfold.
This visibility allows the company to identify friction, improve the self-service experience, and make better-informed engagement decisions.
Keeping AI Transparent and Customer-Led
The platform clearly identifies when customers are interacting with an automated system.
Responses are grounded in approved MidKnight Solar knowledge, reducing the risk of unsupported answers. Personally identifiable information is protected throughout the workflow, and customers can access human assistance whenever needed.
These controls allow MidKnight Solar to increase availability without making the experience feel closed, misleading, or entirely dependent on automation.
Outcome | Turning Solar Research into Guided Customer Action
MidKnight Solar now supports homeowners from the first question to the next meaningful step—even when interest begins outside business hours.
Approximately 85% of conversations are completed through six self-service journeys
Homeowners can access solar information and complete routine actions 24/7
Amazon Q in Connect helped reduce average handle time by approximately 26%
First-contact resolution improved by 13 percentage points
Customer journey analytics now show how homeowners move through education, self-service, scheduling, and agent escalation
The platform does more than answer solar questions. It helps customers progress.
A homeowner can learn about a component, receive supporting information, upload an electric bill, and reserve a consultation without waiting for a representative to coordinate each action.
When the conversation calls for human expertise, the customer reaches an agent with the earlier context preserved and the agent receives relevant knowledge assistance.
By designing the experience around how homeowners actually research solar, MidKnight Solar created an engagement model that remains available when curiosity begins and helps turn that interest into a clear next step.
Build a more secure and cost-efficient
AWS environment
Partner with OneData to optimize your cloud infrastructure, reduce costs, and
strengthen security—without compromising performance.
