CentriWebA solar CRM tracks each prospect through a long decision, keeps the quote, the rebate assumptions and the site details beside the contact, and carries the customer through install and into years of aftercare. Solar is sold slowly, priced to the property and delivered on a schedule that other people influence, so a CRM that was built for quick transactions will leave gaps.
This article is for owners and sales managers of residential and small commercial solar companies. It covers what to record, what to automate, and what to leave to people. For the general decision about whether you need a CRM at all, see our guide to choosing a CRM for a small business in Australia.
Why solar is different from most sales
Most home-service jobs are bought within days. Solar is not. The householder compares several quotes, asks a partner, studies the electricity bill, waits for a better month, and sometimes starts over after a neighbour’s story. That produces three problems a CRM has to handle.
- The sale runs for weeks or months. Without a system, follow-up depends on whoever remembers.
- The quote is specific and changes. System size, panel and inverter choice, battery options and incentives all move. Which version did the customer see?
- The sale ends in a schedule, not a signature. After the deposit comes site checks, approvals, equipment arrival and the install itself.
What a solar CRM should record
The fields matter more than the features. Set these up as proper fields, not notes, so they can be searched and reported on.
| Group | What to capture |
|---|---|
| Lead | Source, date, who owns it, how soon you first replied |
| Property | Address, roof type and orientation, phase, switchboard notes, photos of the bill, whether they own or rent |
| Goals | Reduce the bill, add a battery, power an electric vehicle, sell the house soon |
| Quote | Version, system size, price, date sent, expiry date, finance option, the rebate or incentive assumption you used |
| Decision | Who else decides, what they are comparing, the concern they raised last |
| Delivery | Deposit received, approvals sent and returned, equipment ordered, install date, commissioning date |
| Aftercare | Warranty dates, monitoring set-up, service reminders, review requested, referrals |
The “who else decides” field is the one most teams skip. A quote sent to one partner and never discussed with the other is a quote that stalls. Writing down who else needs to be convinced tells your salesperson what the next conversation is.
Rebates and incentives: store the assumption, not the promise
Rebates affect what the customer pays, so they sit at the centre of the quote. They also change. The Clean Energy Regulator explains on its small-scale renewable energy scheme page that system owners have the right to create and sell small-scale technology certificates (STCs), that most assign that right to an agent in exchange for a discount or delayed payment, and that the certificates are issued based on how much power the system is expected to generate until the scheme ends in 2030. State and territory programs have their own rules and may change separately.
What that means for your records: put the incentive assumption, and the date you made it, on every quote version. If the customer comes back four weeks later, your team can see what they were told and check whether it still holds. Do not let a CRM template make a rebate promise on your behalf. Treat the figures as something a qualified person confirms at the time of quoting and again before contract.
Follow-up for a long decision
Solar enquiries do not need a daily chase. They need the right touch at the right moment, recorded so the next person knows what was said. A reasonable shape:
- Same day: an acknowledgement that names the next step and a time.
- After the site assessment or design: the proposal, with a short summary in plain words and a time to talk it through.
- Two or three days later: a phone call to answer questions. People often have one question that is stopping them.
- Around the expiry date: a message about what changes when the price or incentive assumption lapses. Keep it factual.
- A slow check-in: every month or two for a prospect who said “not yet”, for as long as they remain interested and have not asked you to stop.
Our guide on how builders follow up quotes covers the same long-quote problem in construction, and the cadence translates well.
Consent for messages and calls
Emailing and texting prospects are different from phoning them. In Australia, commercial emails and texts are covered by the Spam Act 2003, whose headings include that unsolicited commercial electronic messages must not be sent and that they must contain a functional unsubscribe facility. Phone marketing is a separate matter, and Australia has a Do Not Call Register for it. Record how and when each prospect agreed to be contacted, by what channel, and honour any request to stop. The regulator’s guidance is the place to confirm what applies to your campaigns.
Replies to a quote request and messages about a job the customer has already agreed to are a different category from promotional blasts. Keep the two separate so that service messages are never held up by marketing rules and promotions are never sent without consent.
Install scheduling and the customer in between
After the deposit, the customer goes quiet in your pipeline, but they are watching closely. The weeks between signing and install are where cancellations and bad reviews begin. Build milestones into the CRM so each one triggers a short message to the customer and a task for your team:
- deposit received and what happens next
- approvals lodged and returned
- equipment ordered and expected
- install date confirmed, with a reminder two days before
- install complete, commissioning done and how to read the monitoring
Install scheduling itself usually lives in a job or scheduling tool, because crews, weather and stock decide dates. The CRM should show the date and status to your sales team, so they stop fielding “where is my install” calls by looking it up, and should hold the customer’s preferences, such as phone before arriving.
After the install: where the next sale comes from
A solar customer is a future customer. Batteries, an electric vehicle charger or an extra array can all become relevant, and they will mention friends who are considering solar. Use the CRM to:
- ask for a review once the system is running, not the day after install
- ask for a referral when the customer has seen the first bill
- schedule a service or monitoring check-in near the warranty milestones
- flag customers whose circumstances change, such as a new baby, an electric vehicle or a move
This is the “keep money you already make” end of the business, and these customers already know you. Our guide on customer retention strategies sets out the timing, and our guide to a win-back campaign covers people who went quiet.
Reports a solar owner should be able to run
If the fields above are filled in, a few reports take seconds, and each one points at a decision.
- Enquiries by source, then installs by source. The cheapest source of enquiries is not always the cheapest source of installed systems.
- Open quotes by age. Anything older than your expiry date with no next action is either dead or neglected. Decide which.
- Reasons for losing. Price, a competitor, financing, the roof, timing. A short pick-list makes this possible.
- Days from deposit to install. Long gaps show where approvals or stock hold you up.
If scheduling lives in a separate tool, our guide to CRM versus job management software explains how to split the two jobs.
What to avoid
Three mistakes show up repeatedly.
- Two copies of the customer. If the proposal tool, the CRM and the scheduling tool each hold an address, they will disagree. Decide which one is the source and connect the others.
- A pipeline with twelve stages. Six to eight, each with a clear rule, are easier for a sales team to keep current.
- Automation that speaks for the salesperson on price. Let it send reminders and collect documents. Leave price and incentive explanations to a person.
CentriWeb sets up and looks after CRM systems for trade and installation businesses, connected to your quoting and scheduling tools. If you have three or four enquiries a week and one person who knows every job, a simple spreadsheet with dates may serve for now.