How solar installers get reviews that actually sell the next job
The permission-to-operate ask, the production-data review that converts, exact scripts, and what a healthy review pace looks like for an installer.
- Ask at permission to operate, not at signature
- The second ask is the one that converts
- Two asks per install, and a tally
- Get the link and put it everywhere it costs nothing
- What Google prohibits, and what door crews do wrong
- The bad review is a sales tool if you answer it right
- Mine the reviews you already have
- A 90-day plan
- Frequently asked
A solar review is worth more than a plumbing review and is harder to get. Harder because the customer signs in March and the system does not turn on until June, and by then the excitement has been ground down by three site visits, a utility delay and a permit correction. Worth more because the next homeowner reading it is about to spend five figures with a company they have never heard of.
Across 32,440 solar companies on Google, the median has 18 reviews and 17% have none at all, as the benchmark report shows. 40.7% are under 10. Companies that win the local search results in a real metro are usually past 100, and only 22.7% of solar companies are there. This is not a talent gap. Almost nobody in this trade has a review process, so the one that builds one wins quickly.
Ask at permission to operate, not at signature
The emotional peak in a solar job is not the sale and it is not the install day. It is the day the system is switched on, and then again the day the first low bill arrives. Those are your two asks.
At permission to operate, the project coordinator calls the homeowner to confirm the system is producing. That call ends with one sentence: "One last thing. Reviews are how a local company like ours gets found instead of the door knockers. If you were happy with how this went, I am going to text you the direct link right now, and it takes about a minute."
Then the text goes out before the call ends. Waiting until later means it does not happen.
The second ask is the one that converts
Thirty to forty days after the system is on, the homeowner has a bill in hand. Send one message:
"Hi [name], [coordinator] from [company]. Your system has been running about a month now. If you have your first bill handy and you were happy with us, would you mind leaving a Google review and mentioning your system size and roughly what your bill did? That specific detail is what helps other homeowners in [town] trust a local installer. Here is the link: [link]"
A review that says "8.4 kW in Chandler, my June bill went from $310 to $19" is worth twenty reviews that say "great company." It answers the exact question the next prospect has, it names the town for local search, and it is the sentence an AI assistant will lift when someone asks for a solar installer in your area.
Two asks per install, and a tally
A one-crew company doing eight installs a month should generate five to six reviews a month with this process. That is 65 a year, which takes a company from the 2-review 25th percentile past the 86-review 75th percentile inside a year.
Track it on one sheet: install date, PTO date, ask one sent, ask two sent, review received. If a coordinator ran twelve PTOs and generated one review, they are not asking. If they generated eight, have them show everyone else how they phrase it. Pay a spiff on the ask being sent, never on the review being posted, which keeps you inside Google's rules.
Get the link and put it everywhere it costs nothing
Your review link comes from the Google Business Profile dashboard under the option to ask for reviews. It is a short URL that opens the review box directly. Once you have it:
- Saved text on the coordinator's phone and the sales rep's phone.
- QR code on the final packet you hand over at install, next to the warranty documents.
- Line in the PTO confirmation email, above the signature.
- A card left in the electrical panel area with the QR code, because the homeowner will look at that panel again.
None of those beat the spoken ask. All of them cost nothing and catch the customers who meant to and forgot.
What Google prohibits, and what door crews do wrong
Google's policy bans offering anything of value in exchange for a review, bans review gating (running customers through a satisfaction survey first and only asking the happy ones), and bans reviews from employees, contractors or family. Sales organizations in this industry break all three routinely, which is part of why review counts in solar are so inflated at the top end. Do not copy them. Removed reviews and a suspended profile cost more than they are worth, and a suspension in solar can take a month to appeal.
Asking every customer, every time, is fully permitted. Sending the link is permitted. One reminder is permitted.
The bad review is a sales tool if you answer it right
Every solar company that does volume gets a one-star review about a delay, a roof leak, or a production shortfall. Do not argue, do not mention the interconnection queue, and do not blame the utility even when it was the utility.
Reply inside 24 hours, three sentences, specific and calm: "Mr. Alvarez, your install finished on April 3 and the utility took eleven weeks to grant PTO, which is longer than we told you to expect and that is on us for not communicating it weekly. Our operations manager called you Tuesday. We are crediting the two months of production you lost and we would like to walk your monitoring with you."
Homeowners read the replies more carefully than the reviews. It is the only place on your profile where they can see how you behave when something goes wrong, which is the entire question on a 25-year purchase. Across the dataset 77.5% of solar companies sit at 4.5 stars or better, so the rating itself does not differentiate you. The replies do.
Also watch the floor. 10.8% of companies are below 4.0, and below 4.0 a five-figure buyer will not call at all.
Mine the reviews you already have
Once you have thirty or forty, read them and pull the phrases. The sentences customers use about your crew, your cleanup, your communication, are your ad copy. They will be better than anything a copywriter writes, because they are what buyers already believe about you. Put three of them on the home page with the town name attached, and use one as the primary text in your Meta ads.
A 90-day plan
- Weeks 1 and 2: get the link, write both scripts, add the two ask columns to your project tracker, brief the coordinator.
- Weeks 3 to 6: run ask one on every PTO. Expect about one review per three asks at the start.
- Weeks 7 to 9: add the 30-day production ask. This is where the volume comes from.
- Weeks 10 to 12: back-ask your last 24 months of installed customers, in batches of 20 a week, with a version of the production script. Old customers convert worse but there are a lot of them.
Frequently asked
Should I ask customers who are still waiting on PTO? No. A homeowner sitting in an interconnection queue is the worst possible person to hand a review link to. Wait for the system to be on.
Does review software help? After the manual process works, yes, for the reminder timing and the tally. It will not make a coordinator ask, and the ask is where reviews come from.
What about the review that mentions price? Leave it. A review saying your proposal was $4,000 more than a competitor and worth it is a closing tool. Reply and explain what the difference bought.
If you want the whole process built, scripts, tracker, reminders and reply handling, it is one of the services in the free 14-day trial. Text or call (385) 832-6175. Next, set up the profile those reviews land on with the Google Business Profile guide.