How to Automate Solar Enquiry Follow-Up in Southeast Queensland
Most SE Queensland solar businesses are running their follow-up on good intentions. Someone on the team is supposed to call back new leads within the day. Quotes are supposed to go out with a follow-up 3 days later. Someone is supposed to ask the happy customer to leave a Google review.
In practice, the crew is on jobs, the admin has eight other tasks, and the follow-up that was supposed to happen on Tuesday hasn’t happened by Friday. The lead that enquired Monday calls a competitor on Wednesday. The quote that went out 10 days ago is now a lost job — not because the price was wrong, but because no one followed up.
This is a systems problem, not a people problem. The fix is automation: a structured sequence that follows up every solar enquiry, every quote, and every completed install without requiring manual action from your team. This guide explains the framework and how to build it.
Step 1: AI SMS Within 5 Minutes of Every Form Submission
The first touchpoint in solar enquiry follow-up is also the most time-sensitive. Research shows that conversion risk rises 10x when a lead waits more than 5 minutes for a response (Harvard Business Review). Solar buyers submit to multiple installers simultaneously and hire whoever responds first in the majority of cases.
A human-driven callback cannot reliably achieve a 5-minute response rate across every enquiry type, at every hour of the day. An automated AI SMS can.
What the Step 1 automation looks like:
When a homeowner submits a solar enquiry — via your website form, a Google Ads landing page, or a third-party comparison site — the automation triggers an immediate SMS response within 5 minutes. The message:
- Acknowledges the enquiry by name
- Confirms the system size or service they enquired about
- Provides a direct booking link to schedule a site assessment
- Gives a realistic timeline for the next step
The SMS is personalised using the form data — not a generic “thanks for your enquiry” that reads like every other automated response. The homeowner receives it while still in purchase mode, before they’ve moved on to the next installer on their list.
This is the gate. Every lead that gets a 5-minute response enters the follow-up sequence. Every lead that doesn’t is already at a 10x conversion disadvantage.
Step 2: Day 3 Case Study SMS
By Day 3, the homeowner has either booked a site assessment (good) or gone quiet after the initial response (common). The Day 3 touchpoint keeps the conversation active for the leads that haven’t booked yet.
What the Step 2 automation looks like:
An automated SMS goes out at Day 3 with a short solar case study relevant to the homeowner’s suburb or system size. For example, a homeowner in Redcliffe who enquired about a 10kW system receives a brief summary of a comparable install — system size, output results, estimated savings, and a link to the full case study or Google review.
The purpose of the Day 3 message is social proof at the point when the homeowner is actively comparing quotes. Receiving a credible, specific case study from a local install while comparing three quotes reinforces trust without being a hard sales push.
The SMS includes a follow-up booking link for homeowners who didn’t book from the Step 1 message.
Step 3: Day 7 Personalised Email With Quote Summary
By Day 7, the homeowner has likely received all their quotes and is in the final comparison stage. This is the decision window. The Day 7 touchpoint is more detailed than the SMS messages — an email that reinforces the value of your specific proposal.
What the Step 3 automation looks like:
A personalised email goes out at Day 7 that references the homeowner by name, summarises the key points of their quote (system size, estimated generation, payback period, rebate eligibility), and addresses the most common objections SE QLD solar buyers raise at the comparison stage.
Common objections include: “How do I know the system will perform as quoted?” “Is the warranty actually worth anything?” “What happens if I need service in 3 years?” The Day 7 email answers these directly — not with marketing copy, but with specific, factual responses that demonstrate expertise.
The email closes with a clear call to action: confirm the installation slot to secure the current pricing and rebate eligibility before the build schedule fills.
Step 4: Day 14 Final Offer SMS
The 14-day mark is the end of most solar buyers’ active decision window. A homeowner who hasn’t signed by Day 14 is either committed to another installer, still undecided, or has deprioritised the decision.
What the Step 4 automation looks like:
A final SMS goes out at Day 14 with a direct and clear message: the installation schedule for the upcoming quarter is filling up, and you’d like to confirm whether they’re still interested in proceeding. The message includes a booking link and a direct phone number for anyone who wants to speak before deciding.
The Day 14 SMS recovers a meaningful proportion of leads that went quiet between Day 7 and Day 14. Some are homeowners who received three quotes, found yours most credible, and simply needed one more prompt to commit. Some are leads who were waiting for a specific date to align with their cash flow. The Day 14 message gives them the prompt.
Industry data shows 60%+ of quotes convert after follow-up (Fergus 2024). The 14-day sequence maximises the coverage of that conversion opportunity.
Step 5: Retargeting Ads to Website Visitors Who Haven’t Booked
Not every potential customer submits an enquiry form on the first visit. Many browse the website, check the project gallery, read a case study, and leave without converting. They’re interested but not yet ready to enquire.
What the Step 5 automation looks like:
Retargeting campaigns on Google and Meta show ads to SE QLD homeowners who visited your solar website but didn’t submit an enquiry form. The ads reference what they viewed — if they looked at the battery storage page, the retargeting ad speaks to battery storage. If they spent time on the residential solar page, the ad shows a project example from their suburb cluster.
Retargeting keeps your business visible during the research phase, which for solar can run 2 to 6 weeks before the first enquiry is submitted. The homeowner who sees your retargeting ads three times during their research window is more likely to submit their first form to you than to a business they saw once and forgot.
Step 6: Post-Install Review Request Sequence
The final automation in the solar follow-up framework runs after installation is complete. Google reviews are the primary trust signal for SE QLD solar buyers comparing installers. A business with 120 recent reviews is in a fundamentally different position to one with 15.
What the Step 6 automation looks like:
Three days after the installation is marked complete in our platform, an automated SMS goes to the customer asking them to leave a Google review. The message includes a direct link to your Google Business review form — no instructions to find the profile, no extra steps. One tap from the SMS opens the review form.
Five days later, if no review has been left, a second SMS goes out. Across most solar businesses using this sequence, the two-message review request generates a 40-60% review rate from completed installs.
For a business completing 15 installs per month, that’s 6-9 new Google reviews per month from the automated sequence alone. At that rate, the review count compounds quickly and becomes a durable competitive advantage.
Key Criteria: Choosing the Right Automation Platform
SE QLD solar businesses evaluating follow-up automation should assess platforms against these criteria:
Integration with your lead sources. The automation needs to connect directly to your enquiry forms, Google Ads landing pages, and any comparison site forms you use. Manual data entry defeats the purpose.
SMS personalisation. Generic bulk SMS doesn’t achieve the response rates that personalised, contextual messages do. The platform needs to use form data to personalise every message — name, system size, suburb, enquiry type.
Multi-channel capability. The sequence above uses SMS, email, and retargeting ads. These need to work in a coordinated way, not as separate disconnected tools.
Pipeline visibility. The team needs to see every lead’s status — where they are in the sequence, whether they’ve booked, whether they’ve gone quiet, whether the quote is open or closed.
Ease of handing off to a human. Automation handles the sequence, but some leads will have questions that require a human conversation. The platform needs to flag these leads and hand them to the team clearly, without the homeowner feeling like they’ve been in an automated loop.
Why Click2Revenue Excels at Building This Framework
Click2Revenue builds and configures the full 6-step solar follow-up automation framework using our platform (our client management platform) as the client management system (CRM) and automation backbone, combined with AI voice and SMS receptionist technology for 24/7 lead capture.
Specific advantages:
- Pre-built solar sequences — the Day 1, 3, 7, and 14 sequences are built from the outcomes of 110+ SE QLD businesses, not built from scratch for each new client
- AI receptionist integration — 24/7 call capture with 5-minute SMS response, covering every missed call regardless of time of day
- SE QLD market knowledge — the Noosa Heads team knows the local solar market, the suburb patterns, and the buyer objections specific to Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast, and the Gold Coast
- Full-stack under one retainer — AI receptionist, automated sequence, Google Ads, Meta Ads, retargeting, and AI search optimisation (GEO/AEO) content managed as one integrated system
- Named account lead — one person who knows your pipeline, not a support ticket system
- 2-week go-live — the system is configured and running within 2 weeks, not 6
- No lock-in contract — month-to-month after the 90-day build phase
Click2Revenue has tracked more than $70 million in client revenue across 110+ service businesses. For solar installers specifically, the 6-step framework closes the gap between the leads that enquire and the revenue that converts.
The Framework Works Because It Matches How SE QLD Solar Buyers Decide
SE QLD solar buyers are informed, comparison-oriented, and working to a 1 to 3 week decision window. The 6-step framework is built for exactly that buyer: fast initial response, social proof at the comparison stage, detail at the decision stage, a final prompt before the window closes, and review capture after the install.
Running this manually requires a disciplined team and consistent execution across every lead. Running it automatically means it works at 7pm on a Friday as well as it does at 9am on a Monday — and your team only needs to be involved when a lead is ready for a human conversation.
Book your free audit at click2revenue.com or call / WhatsApp Craig from our AU team directly on +61 424 985 687.