Start With Qualification, Not the Pitch
An intake script is a qualification checklist wearing a conversational script, not a sales pitch. Before a word about your company gets said, confirm the same criteria a real lead vendor already prices around: bill size, roof shade exposure, and credit band. RGR Marketing sells its solar leads filterable by exactly those three fields, which is the clearest evidence this research found that they are the actual working qualification bar in this category, not a nice-to-have.
Homeownership and decision-maker status matter just as much: confirm the person on the phone actually owns the home and can say yes, not just that they filled out a form.
Ask About Financing Path Early
This is the question a solar intake script needs that most other home-services scripts do not. Third-party-ownership financing (lease or PPA) is projected to reach 65% of reps' books in 2026, up from 44% in 2025, with the share of reps selling zero TPO dropping from 9% to 1%. An intake script that only asks "are you interested in going solar" and defaults every appointment to a loan-buyer pitch is routing most of its bookings to the wrong conversation.
Ask directly: is the homeowner set on owning the system outright, open to a lease or PPA, or undecided. Route the appointment, and brief the rep, based on the answer. A homeowner who is clearly TPO-leaning does not need an ownership-equity pitch, and one who wants to own outright does not need a lease pitch that assumes they will not mind giving that up.
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Book a Solar CallBy Segment: Installers, Sales Orgs/Dealers, and EPCs
| Segment | What "qualified" means to them | Intake priority |
|---|---|---|
| Vertically integrated installer | A supplement to in-house/referral volume, not a replacement | Confirm the appointment does not duplicate an existing in-house lead source |
| Sales org / dealer | An appointment that clears the redline after the commission stack takes its cut | Confirm bill size and financing openness up front; this segment is the most margin-squeezed of the three |
| EPC | A higher-intent, exclusive appointment that keeps an install crew utilized | Confirm homeownership and decision-maker status tightly; EPCs typically want fewer, better-qualified sits, not volume |
Segment buying behavior sourced from Wood Mackenzie, IntegrateSun, and Solalt (see Sources).
California Needs a Different Script, Not a Generic One
NEM 3.0 (the Net Billing Tariff) cut California solar export credits by roughly 75% starting April 2023, the NEM 2.0 grandfathering window closed April 15, 2026, and a CA Court of Appeals upheld NEM 3.0 in March 2026 against legal challenge. A California intake script built around a pre-NEM3 "you'll offset your bill" pitch is describing economics that no longer apply to a new system. Battery storage has functionally shifted from optional to required for CA system economics as a result, so a California-specific intake needs to ask about battery interest and TPO openness directly, not assume the same script that works in Texas or Florida.
The Compliance Line: Disclose the Cancellation Right, Do Not Bury It
Cancellation rights vary by state, and a script needs to state the applicable one plainly rather than let it surface only in fine print later. Texas requires a 5-business-day cancellation right under SB 1036 (effective June 20, 2025), applying to cash, loan, lease, and PPA deals, and explicitly targeting door-to-door and high-pressure sales. Georgia gives a 30-business-day cancellation right on solar sales over $10,000 or leases longer than 120 months. California's Home Solicitation Sales Act gives a 3-day right, extended to 5 days if the buyer is 65 or older.
This is not a legal footnote to skip past. D2D solar sales carry documented trust problems: Grist's investigative reporting on shady door-to-door tactics and Titan Solar Power's collapse, linked in coverage to commission-driven sales staff making exaggerated claims, are both part of the public record this category is already working against. A script that proactively states the cancellation window, rather than hoping the homeowner does not ask, is a small thing that reads as honest in a market documented for the opposite.
What Every Script Needs Regardless of Segment
- Explicit agreement to a specific date and time, not a vague "someone will follow up."
- Service area confirmation against your actual footprint.
- A documented record of what was said and agreed to, including the cancellation-right disclosure. That record is also what makes a call defensible under consent rules, and it is the paper trail behind receipts-backed billing if you are buying appointments from an outside vendor.
What this means for you
- Bill size, shade exposure, and credit band are the qualification bar the market already runs on. Confirm all three before financing questions, not after.
- Ask about cash, loan, or TPO openness during intake, not after booking. TPO is projected to reach 65% of reps' books in 2026.
- California scripts need NEM 3.0-aware, battery-and-TPO framing specifically. State cancellation rights (TX 5 days, GA 30 days, CA 3 to 5 days) should be disclosed plainly, not buried.
Sources
The external data in this guide draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.
- RGR Marketing, buy solar leads (filterable by bill size, shade, credit band)
- Aurora Solar, TPO solar financing trends 2026
- gosolo.io, 2026 Solar Trends Report
- CA Energy Savings, NEM 3.0 explained
- Prevost Law Firm, Texas Senate Bill 1036
- Georgia Attorney General, door-to-door sales consumer protection
- CPUC, California Solar Consumer Protection Guide
- Grist, inside the shady world of door-to-door solar sales
- solarcc.com, ultimate guide to solar company bankruptcies (Titan Solar Power)