Best AI Voice Agents for Solar Installers in India (2026)
The best AI voice agent for a solar installer in India calls each enquiry within seconds, qualifies roof, bill and ownership in the customer's language, and books the site survey into your engineer's calendar. Subsidy-driven enquiry spikes are the reason to buy one, and mistaken subsidy promises are the main risk. Outpero publishes this guide and is one of the options; use the tests below on any vendor.
Where solar phone leads come from in India
A solar installer's pipeline starts with a form, a missed call or a WhatsApp message, and nearly always ends with a phone conversation. Residential rooftop leads come from Meta and Google lead ads, the installer's own website and savings-calculator pages, and JustDial and similar listings. Commercial and industrial leads, for factories, schools, hospitals and cold storages, are more likely to arrive through IndiaMART, referrals and direct enquiries.
Government schemes shape the volume. The PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana, launched by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) in February 2024, aims to put rooftop solar on one crore households. As announced, central financial assistance for residential systems was ₹30,000 per kW for the first 2 kW and ₹18,000 per kW for the third kW, capped at ₹78,000 for systems of 3 kW and above. Households apply through the national portal and choose a registered vendor, and subsidy is paid after the DISCOM inspects and commissions the system.
Treat those figures as a snapshot rather than a promise. Scheme terms can be revised, state governments add their own incentives, and PM Surya Ghar covers residential rooftops only, not commercial buildings. Farmers' solar pumps fall under a separate scheme, PM-KUSUM, with state-level rules. A voice agent should never quote subsidy amounts as a guarantee.
What the schemes do reliably is create bursts. A news item, a state announcement or a festive-season ad push can bring hundreds of enquiries in a weekend, most of them from households that will compare three or four installers before deciding. The installer who calls back first, answers clearly and offers a survey slot is in the running; the one who calls on Tuesday is not.
Why the phone call is the bottleneck
Solar enquiries are expensive to qualify by hand. The first call needs the monthly electricity bill, the sanctioned load, the roof type and area, whether the caller owns the roof, shading, the DISCOM and the state. Half the enquiries turn out to be tenants, apartment residents without roof rights, or people who only wanted to know about subsidy.
Every unqualified site visit has a real cost: an engineer's time, fuel and a half-day slot. A voice agent that filters on the phone protects the field team's calendar as much as it speeds up the response.
What to demand from a solar voice agent
- —Instant callback on every channel you advertise on. Ask how a Meta lead, a Google lead form, a website form and a missed call each trigger a call, and time each one.
- —Qualification fields you define: roof ownership, roof type, area, monthly bill, sanctioned load, DISCOM, state, residential or commercial, and buying timeline. They should appear as fields in the dashboard, not buried in a transcript.
- —Guardrails on subsidy. The agent should explain that subsidy is under the MNRE scheme, give no guaranteed amount, and say the installer's team will confirm eligibility. Test it by pushing for an exact number.
- —Site-survey booking into a real calendar, live on the call, with a WhatsApp confirmation that carries the address and time.
- —Regional-language fluency. Households in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra will talk about their bill in their own language and say 'net metering' and 'kW' in English.
- —Handoff to an engineer. Commercial enquiries and technical questions should reach a person.
- —Follow-up on quotations. Quotes go quiet for weeks, so the vendor should support a campaign that calls those customers back with a different message.
Gujarat and Rajasthan are large solar markets. Outpero speaks Hindi and English, and Gujarati is not among its languages, so if a large share of your callers use it, choose a vendor with that language on its list.
One more thing to ask every vendor is what happens after the call. In solar, the value is in the record: a surveyor opening the dashboard on Saturday morning should see the roof type, bill, sanctioned load, the customer's stated timeline and a one-line summary, with the recording a click away. If the output is a long transcript that someone must read, the time saving disappears.
A test script and scoring table
A Tamil opening for a rooftop enquiry, with English mixed in the way a caller would, looks like this.
வணக்கம், நான் [company]-இன் AI assistant. நீங்கள் solar rooftop பற்றி enquiry செய்தீர்கள். உங்கள் monthly current bill எவ்வளவு வரும்?
Want to hear this working, not just read about it?
| Test call | What the caller says | A good agent |
|---|---|---|
| Tenant | I live on rent, can I install? | Asks about roof rights and the owner's consent, logs the answer and does not book a survey that will fail |
| Subsidy trap | How much exactly will I get back? | Refers to the MNRE scheme, gives no guarantee, offers the team's confirmation |
| Apartment | I live on the fourth floor of a society | Explains that society-level systems need the RWA, and routes the lead accordingly |
| Language switch | Starts in Telugu, switches to English for 'net metering' | Follows without restarting |
| Reschedule | Call me after 7 in the evening | Schedules and keeps the callback |
| Hot lead | I want to book the survey this Saturday | Checks the calendar, books the slot and sends the WhatsApp confirmation |
| Commercial | I run a cold storage with a 40 kW load | Captures details and hands over to a human engineer |
Worked arithmetic: a month of enquiries
Assume an installer receives 600 enquiries a month in a busy season. For the arithmetic, 80 percent pick up (480 conversations) and a qualification call averages 3.5 minutes. These are assumptions, not benchmarks.
| Line item | Working | Monthly cost (excl. 18% GST) |
|---|---|---|
| Talk time on Outpero Standard | 480 calls x 3.5 min = 1,680 min x ₹5 | ₹8,400 |
| Dedicated +91 number with 1 channel | Flat monthly | ₹649 |
| Total | ₹8,400 + ₹649 | ₹9,049 |
| Per connected enquiry | ₹9,049 / 480 | about ₹18.85 |
| Per survey booked if 25% of connected enquiries book | ₹9,049 / 120 | about ₹75.41 |
Including 18 percent GST, the month comes to ₹10,677.82. A human telecaller on the ₹18,000 reference salary works one shift and one call at a time, so the same 600 enquiries are called across several days and the evening and Sunday ones wait until Monday.
Now the field-team saving. Suppose a survey visit costs ₹600 in an engineer's time and fuel, and 200 visits a month are booked without phone screening. If 30 percent fail on basics such as rented premises or a shaded roof, 60 wasted visits cost ₹36,000. Even if a voice agent catches only half of them, the saving is ₹18,000, about twice the monthly bill above. These figures are illustrative; use your own visit cost and failure rate.
Peak season and channels
A channel is one call at a time on your number. The number includes one channel, and each extra channel is ₹649 a month, added or removed in any month. If a weekend ad push brings 60 enquiries in two hours, a 3.5-minute qualification call each means 210 call-minutes, or about 1.75 channels busy at once. Three channels cover that comfortably, which is two extra at ₹1,298 a month, switched off again when the season ends.
How the main options compare
Vendor facts come from public pages checked on 14 October 2026. Outpero sells one of these products, so verify current terms directly.
| Approach | What you get | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Human telecallers | Judgement, empathy, local relationships; ₹15,000 to ₹25,000 a month each | One call at a time, one shift, uneven language coverage, slow on spikes |
| Telephony suite with dialer (Ozonetel, Exotel) | Predictive, power or preview dialers, routing, human-agent tooling; both also offer AI voice agents | AI voice pricing is not published on either site; sales-led onboarding |
| Outpero | Standard ₹5 or Premium ₹6.8 per connected minute, no setup fee, seven languages, self-serve | No Gujarati or Bengali; no human-agent seats or full contact-centre suite |
| Ringg AI | ₹6 per connected minute, number ₹499/month, claims 20+ languages, visual workflow builder | A monthly minimum applies and its amount is not stated; languages are not named |
| SquadStack | Indicatively ₹2 to ₹5 a minute, nine languages including Gujarati, a forward-deployed engineer | One-time setup cost, about two weeks of setup, then a four to eight week pilot |
Where Outpero fits
Outpero calls a new solar enquiry within about 30 seconds, speaks Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam or Indian English, and switches to English when the caller does. It asks the qualification questions you set, books the survey into your calendar, sends the address and slot on WhatsApp, and transfers the call to your team when an engineer should take it. Every call has a recording, transcript, summary and the fields you asked for.
Leads arrive from Meta lead ads, Google Ads lead forms, website forms, CRMs, or IndiaMART and JustDial through Zapier, Make or a webhook. The same agent can answer inbound calls on your business number after hours, remember returning callers, and run a bulk campaign on quotations that went quiet. For a large installer with high volumes, custom rates and setup help are available.
Compliance and honesty rules for solar calls
- —TRAI telemarketing rules (TCCCPR 2018): use a DLT-registered line, screen against DND for outreach, and respect calling hours. Outpero's line is DLT-registered and bulk campaigns screen against DND.
- —DPDP Act 2023: electricity bills, addresses and roof photographs are personal data. Collect what the survey needs, say why, and honour deletion requests.
- —Subsidy statements: describe the scheme in general terms and let your team confirm eligibility. Misleading claims about savings or subsidy expose the installer, not the software.
- —Scam awareness: fake subsidy calls are a known nuisance. Have the agent say who is calling and that it is an AI, and never ask for OTPs, bank details or payment on the call.
Frequently asked questions
Can an AI voice agent qualify solar leads in regional languages?
+
Yes, in the languages a vendor supports. Outpero handles Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam and Indian English, and follows a caller who slips into English for terms like net metering. Gujarati is not on its list, so test carefully if many of your callers speak it.
How much does AI calling cost for a solar company?
+
Outpero charges ₹5 per connected minute on Standard or ₹6.8 on Premium, with no setup fee, plus ₹649 a month for a number with one channel. Qualifying 480 connected enquiries at 3.5 minutes each costs about ₹9,049 a month before 18 percent GST.
Should the agent explain the PM Surya Ghar subsidy?
+
It can describe the scheme in general terms and say that eligibility is confirmed by your team, but it should never promise an amount. Subsidy terms are set by MNRE and can change, so your script should point to the official portal and leave the final confirmation to a person.
Can it book site surveys automatically?
+
Yes. Outpero can read your calendar and book a real survey slot during the call, then send the address and time over WhatsApp. Your engineers see the booking without any manual step, and you can add a reminder call the day before to reduce no-shows.
What happens when enquiries spike after a subsidy announcement?
+
Concurrency is sold as channels, where one channel is one call at a time. Your number includes one, and extra channels are ₹649 each a month, added or removed monthly. Size channels for your busiest hour, and remove the extras once the spike passes.
Is AI calling suitable for commercial and industrial solar leads?
+
As a first filter, yes. The agent can capture load, location and decision-maker details, then transfer the call or hand a note to an engineer. Large commercial deals need a human relationship, so use the agent for speed and qualification rather than the negotiation itself.
The Outpero team builds AI voice agents for Indian businesses, in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam and English. Figures are from Outpero's own product unless another source is named.