A CRM (customer relationship management system) is where a company keeps all information and history about each customer in one place. In the solar industry the need is stronger than in most sectors: a customer goes through a process that lasts weeks, sometimes months, from the first phone call to project handover, and sales, engineering, field and accounting teams all touch the same customer along the way. When information is scattered, proposals are forgotten, payments slip and the customer has to ask the same question to three different people.
This article explains how to set up a good customer tracking routine for a solar company, what a customer record should contain and which metrics to watch in the sales process.
Why a generic CRM doesn't quite fit a solar company
General-purpose CRM tools are built around contacts, companies, opportunities and tasks. In solar sales, however, the customer record is full of technical information:
- Consumption and billing: monthly consumption, bill amount, tariff type, phase and main fuse.
- Roof or site details: roof type, pitch, orientation, shading, photos.
- Design and proposal: installed capacity, panel count, proposal revisions, the customer's reason for approving or rejecting.
- Permitting and field work: grid application, project approval, installation date, metering and acceptance.
- Payments: deposit, interim payments and remaining balance.
A generic CRM either lacks these fields entirely or holds them as free-text custom fields. More importantly, because design and proposals are prepared in another program, the same information is entered twice, and after a while the two records no longer match.
What a solar customer record should contain
A good solar customer card shows everything about the customer on one screen. We suggest the following structure:
| Section | Content |
|---|---|
| Identity and contact | Name, phone, email, installation address, lead source |
| Site survey | Electrical, roof and consumption details, photos, survey notes |
| Design | Rooftop or ground-mount design, design links shared with the customer |
| Proposals | All revisions, their status, approval or rejection date and reason |
| Contract and payments | Contract, payment plan, payments received, remaining balance |
| Project stages | Current stage, owner, dates |
| Schedule and notes | Planned field jobs, crew, internal notes |
We cover what to check during a site visit in our rooftop site survey checklist, and project stages in our 13-stage project tracking article.
Break your sales pipeline into stages
The sales pipeline is the path by which a lead becomes a customer and a customer becomes an approved project. A simple stage list for solar sales could be:
- New lead: a record arriving from the website form, a phone call, a dealer or a referral.
- First conversation held: the customer's needs, bill and suitability have been discussed.
- Site survey scheduled / completed.
- Proposal sent.
- Negotiation: revisions, discounts or payment terms are being discussed.
- Won / Lost: if lost, always record the reason (price, timing, competitor, financing).
Keep the number of stages small. Too many stages and the team stops updating records. Give each stage transition a clear definition: "proposal sent", for example, should mean the proposal has actually reached the customer.
Follow-up rhythm: respond to leads quickly
A solar enquiry often goes to several companies at once. The company that responds first is usually the one that books the site visit first. To make that happen:
- Leads from your website should land directly in your customer tracking list and be assigned to someone, not sit in an email inbox.
- Set a follow-up date for every proposal you send, and keep a list that shows how many days each pending proposal has been waiting.
- Write a short note on the customer record after every contact, so whoever makes the next call knows where things stand.
We look at ways to collect leads from your website in our article on winning solar customers from your website.
Metrics worth watching
| Metric | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| First response time | How quickly leads are contacted |
| Lead-to-proposal conversion | How many leads reach the proposal stage |
| Proposal-to-contract conversion | Proposal quality and price fit |
| Days pending per proposal | Whether follow-up is slipping |
| Loss reasons | How losses split between price, timing and product |
| Monthly approved volume | Sales volume by currency over time |
Reviewing these once a month helps you tell whether the problem lies in marketing, in the proposal or in follow-up.
Common mistakes
- Tying information to people: if the customer history lives on a sales rep's phone, the customer leaves when the rep does.
- Deleting lost proposals: lost proposals and their reasons are the most valuable data you have for adjusting your pricing.
- Separating sales from operations: the customer record doesn't close when the contract is signed; installation, payments and handover should continue on the same record.
- Leaving payment tracking to accounting: if project stage and payment status aren't visible on the same screen, slips like "installation finished but nobody asked for the payment" happen.
Customer and project tracking in PVAGE
In PVAGE, leads from the website form or entered manually are listed with status tracking and converted to customers in one click. The customer card holds the survey, proposals, design links, contract, payments, 13-stage project tracking, work schedule and notes together. Payments are recorded with receipt number and method, the remaining balance is calculated, and lists can be exported to Excel.
Because the customer record runs on the same data as design and proposals, survey details flow into the design screen, the panel count and bill of materials from the design flow into the proposal, and an approved proposal becomes a contract, a scheduled job and a stock issue without re-entering data. See the customer and project tracking feature page for details.