Rooftop solar leads: a follow-up routine from enquiry to site survey to order

A homeowner fills in a rooftop solar form after seeing an ad. Within the hour two or three installers have called, and one of them has a survey booked for Saturday morning. The others call back the next day and hear “we already have someone coming”. Solar lead follow-up starts as a race, then turns into a long wait: after the survey and the proposal, the family takes weeks to compare quotes, check the subsidy and arrange a loan, and the installer who keeps calling at the right moments is the one who gets the order.

This is a routine for both halves: the fast first call that books the survey, and the slower follow-up through the proposal, the subsidy and the net meter. It suits rooftop installers and EPC teams selling to homes, housing societies and small businesses.

Why solar leads need their own routine

• They are shared. A homeowner who fills in a form on a marketplace or answers an ad often hears from several installers. The first one to book a survey sets the benchmark.
• The decision is a group one. A spouse, a parent who pays the electricity bill, or a housing society committee all have a say, and the person who enquired is rarely the only one deciding.
• Paperwork outside your control slows it down. In India, many buyers wait on the PM Surya Ghar subsidy application, a solar loan and the DISCOM’s net metering approval, each with its own timeline.
• The proposal is a large purchase. A family will usually compare at least one other quote and ask the same questions twice.

The first call: the roof, the bill and a survey slot

The first call has one job: book a site survey. Everything else can wait for the visit. Keep it to a few minutes and ask only what decides whether a survey makes sense.

1. Open with their enquiry: “Hi, this is [name] from [company]. You asked about solar for your home yesterday. Do you have two minutes for a few questions about the roof and your electricity bill?”
2. What kind of property is it: a house, a flat in a housing society, a shop or office, a factory, a farm?
3. What kind of roof: flat concrete, sloped, metal sheet, or ground space instead?
4. Roughly what is the monthly electricity bill? This sizes the system and tells you how much the customer stands to save.
5. Is the roof theirs to use, and who else decides? In a housing society this question decides your whole timeline.
6. Are they planning to apply for the subsidy or take a loan? Note it now; it shapes the proposal.
7. Book the survey: a date, a time, who will be home, and how the surveyor gets onto the roof. Ask them to send a recent electricity bill on WhatsApp before the visit.

If the call ends without a survey date, end it with a dated callback instead (“I will call you on Thursday at six when your husband is home”). An open-ended “let me know” is how a solar lead disappears. The telecalling script templates include a rooftop solar opener you can adapt.

Before and during the site survey

A booked survey that nobody turns up for costs a surveyor half a morning. Two small habits cut no-shows.

• Confirm the booking straight after the call with a WhatsApp message: the date, the time window, the surveyor’s name and what they will need (roof access, a recent bill).
• Call the day before. It takes a minute, catches changes of plan and reminds the family that someone is coming.

At the property, the surveyor records what they found while it is fresh: roof condition, usable area, shading from trees, water tanks or neighbouring buildings, where the inverter and meter would go, and anything that changes the price. A survey whose notes live in a notebook in the surveyor’s van is a survey the caller cannot follow up properly.

The proposal: send it the same day

Interest is highest straight after the survey. A proposal that arrives a week later competes with quotes the family already has. Aim to send it the same day, with the system size, the price including GST, any discount, and what the price includes: panels, inverter, structure, installation, the net metering application if you handle it.

Then book the next call for the day the family has said they will decide, and say so on the call: “I will send it this evening and call you on Sunday afternoon to go through it together.” A proposal followed by silence is usually read as a lack of interest on your side.

Subsidy, loan and net metering: a dated follow-up for each step

Many rooftop deals in India stall after the customer has agreed in principle. The subsidy application on the PM Surya Ghar national portal, a solar loan and the DISCOM’s net metering approval each take time, and the customer waits on each one. Nobody chases, and the job drifts for months.

1. Keep these leads in their own stage, separate from fresh proposals, so you can see how many are waiting and on what.
2. Record where each step stands in fields on the lead: subsidy applied or not, loan status, net metering status, the customer’s DISCOM.
3. Give every step a dated follow-up. When the customer says the bank will reply in ten days, the next call is on day ten.
4. Call with news, even small news. A two-minute update keeps the job yours while the paperwork moves.

A follow-up cadence from enquiry to order

In India, TRAI’s September 2026 amendment limits calls based on an enquiry to seven days from a written or digital enquiry, which puts even more weight on the first week. TRAI rules for telecalling explains the rule and its limits. For timing in general, see The first hour and the next day.

Where solar deals stall, and what to change

Running this routine in LumaKol

A workspace that chooses Solar & renewable energy at sign-up, or applies that industry pipeline template later, starts with this routine built in:

• Stages: New enquiry, Contacted, Site survey, Proposal sent, Finance & paperwork, then Order confirmed or Lost.
• Fields: Property, Roof, Monthly electricity bill, System size (kW) and Subsidy or incentive. Add your own for net metering status or the DISCOM.
• Call outcomes such as Site survey booked, which moves the lead to Site survey with a follow-up the next day, and Send proposal on WhatsApp, which sets a follow-up for the next day. No answer sets a retry in four hours; Busy in one.
• An opening script that asks about the roof and the electricity bill, shown to the caller while they call.

Enquiries can arrive from Google Ads lead forms, hosted lead forms behind a QR code on flyers and site boards, your website, IndiaMART, JustDial and TradeIndia, or a CSV or Excel import, and each source can share its leads between callers. An automation rule on “A new lead is not called in time” can pass an uncalled enquiry to the next caller and alert a manager. Surveyors check in and out at the property with a note on the roof and shading, and the day’s surveys open as a route in Google Maps. The quote goes out as a link with GST and any discount, shows you when it was opened, and lets the customer accept it and pay the advance by UPI to your own UPI ID.

LumaKol keeps the reminders for subsidy, loan and net metering steps; it does not file those applications. The solar CRM page shows the whole setup.