AIAI Call Intelligence

Solar and renewables

Half the call is finding out whether you can even help them.

Solar, heat pumps, insulation and EV chargers. The enquiry volume is enormous and grant-driven, and a large share of it is people who are not eligible, don't own the property, or have a roof that faces the wrong way. Qualification is the job.

01

Your funnel narrows before it starts.

In most trades a lead is a person who might buy. In renewables a lead is a person who might be eligible — and eligibility depends on tenure, property type, roof orientation and shading, existing EPC rating, and in scheme-funded work, benefits status. A large share of enquiries fail on one of those before anyone discusses money.

That makes the phone room a filter as much as a sales function, and it makes wasted survey visits the expensive failure. A surveyor sent to a north-facing roof under heavy shade is a cost that a two-minute conversation should have prevented.

02

How leads actually arrive

Grant eligibility check funnels"Check if you qualify" ads producing enormous volume at very low intent, and a lot of tenants.
Energy comparison and switching sitesPeople already thinking about bills, so warmer than a cold form.
Lead vendors specialising in scheme workSold on eligibility claims that need re-checking rather than trusting.
Meta ads on energy price newsVolume spikes within days of a cap announcement, then decays.
Installer and trade referralsLow volume, high conversion, usually already half-sold.
03

What goes wrong today

Ineligible enquiries reach a surveyor

Tenure and roof suitability are answerable on the phone in ninety seconds. When they aren't asked, the cost shows up as a survey visit that could never have become a sale.

Spikes arrive faster than the floor can dial

An energy price announcement produces a week of volume at three times the normal rate. Leads that arrive on the peak day get rung last, by which point the news cycle has moved on and so has the homeowner.

Nobody records why an enquiry failed

"Not eligible" is four different problems — tenant, wrong roof, wrong EPC, wrong benefits status — and only one of them is permanent. Without the reason recorded, the ones that would qualify next year are lost with the ones that never will.

The free-solar objection is answered differently by everyone

Grant-funded advertising has made homeowners suspicious, reasonably so. If four agents explain the funding four ways, the trust problem gets worse rather than better.

04

What the product does about it

Qualification questions on screen, in order, before the outcome saves

Custom fields on the lead record hold tenure, roof aspect, EPC and scheme eligibility, and the outcome list can insist they're answered before an appointment can be booked.

Spike volume gets dialled in the order it arrived

The queue puts fresh leads at the front automatically, so a five-fold volume week doesn't turn into a five-day backlog worked newest-last.

Ineligible reasons counted, not just recorded

Your own outcome list means "tenant", "roof unsuitable" and "EPC too low" are separate outcomes, and the reports count them separately — which tells you which lead source is selling you people you cannot help.

One answer to the funding question

Script sections and objection answers sit on screen at the moment the customer asks, so the explanation of how the scheme funding works is the same from every agent.

05

Where compliance sits

The calling rules here are the general ones — PECR, TPS, Ofcom on abandoned calls, UK GDPR — and we've documented those from the regulators' own material.

Scheme eligibility criteria, certification requirements such as MCS, and what an installer may claim about funding are set by the scheme operators and change regularly. Current figures are on gov.uk rather than here, so nothing on this page goes out of date.

Verified from the source

Government home energy schemes and their current eligibility criteria are published by the government, not by us — including which grants are open and what they are worth.

GOV.UK — energy grants and schemes

This is not legal or regulatory advice. Your obligations under the rules that apply to you are yours to determine. What we can describe accurately is the calling rules that apply regardless of sector — PECR, TPS and CTPS, Ofcom's limits on abandoned calls, and UK GDPR — which we have researched from the regulators' own material and written up in full.

Read the UK calling compliance guide →
06

A worked example

Illustrative figures for a scheme-funded installer, not a customer's real numbers.

Leads600 a montheligibility-check funnels at £14
Spend£8,400
Contacted38%228 conversations
Pass eligibility41%93 — the rest fail on tenure, roof or EPC
Survey booked62%58 surveys
Sat74%43
Sold34%15 installs at £9,500 average
Cost per sale£560

The lever here isn't the close — it's the 59% who fail eligibility. Finding them on the phone instead of at the survey is worth more than any improvement in the sales conversation.

Work it through with your own numbers →

Questions from this sector

How do I stop paying for leads who don't own their property?

Ask on the call and record it as its own outcome, then compare that outcome rate by lead source. A funnel producing 30% tenants is not the same product as one producing 5%, even at the same price per lead.

How should we handle a spike after an energy price announcement?

Make sure fresh leads go to the front of the queue automatically rather than being worked in whatever order a spreadsheet was sorted. A spike is only a problem if the newest leads end up last.

Can Dialspace tell me whether a customer qualifies for a grant?

No. It holds the answers your agents record and can insist they're captured before an appointment is booked, but eligibility is determined by the scheme rules and by you — not by the software.

See it on your own leads.

Half an hour with someone who has run a floor. Bring a lead source and a question.

Book a demo