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Solar · 5 months

Lifting billable rate 29 points with four IVR questions

An installer network buying solar calls across six states was paying for a large share of renters and low-bill households. Four qualification questions changed the economics.

Results

29 ptsBillable rate lift
26% lowerCost per install
6States covered
The challenge

What was actually broken

Consultative solar calls run five minutes or more, so unqualified callers were expensive twice — once in media cost, once in consultant time. Renters and households with low utility bills accounted for a substantial share of connected calls.

Client: A residential solar installer network

The approach

What changed, specifically

Listed in the order the changes were made. The sequence mattered as much as the changes.

01Added homeownership and roof-ownership gates ahead of transfer
02Screened on utility territory and average monthly bill threshold
03Mapped installer coverage to caller ZIP so out-of-area calls never connected
04Rebalanced payouts upward on the qualified inventory to hold publisher supply
The outcome

What it moved

Billable rate rose 29 percentage points. Raising payouts on the remaining qualified inventory kept publisher supply stable, and cost per completed install fell 26% net of the higher per-call price.

Paying more per call and less per install felt backwards until we saw the consultant hours we got back.
Renée AlcottHead of Demand Generation
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