There is no verifiable no-show figure for in-home solar sales. The direct-sales world calls it "sit rate," but every number you'll find comes from a vendor with no methodology. What's documented is different: regulators have taken formal action over high-pressure solar selling, and that reputation, not a bad memory, is often why a homeowner quietly stops answering the door.
Last verified: 16 July 2026.
Key Takeaways
- No trade body (SEIA, NREL, or otherwise) publishes a solar "sit rate." Every "78% sit" or "33% close" figure traces to an appointment-setting or CRM vendor blog with no method. Treat all of them as unsourced.
- In July 2024 the Connecticut Attorney General sued Sunrun and two sales partners, alleging deceptive tactics (CT AG, 2024). These are allegations, not proven facts, but they show the reputational climate homeowners react to.
- In healthcare, SMS reminders lifted attendance from 67.8% to 78.6% (Cochrane, 2013). That's an analogue, not solar-sales data.
- A federal cooling-off rule gives buyers three business days to cancel a signed in-home sale (16 CFR Part 429).
- A plain, easy-to-cancel reminder signals you're the transparent operator, which is how you stop being the company people hide from.
Is there a real no-show rate for solar sales?
No. There is no verifiable sit-rate or no-show figure for in-home solar or home-improvement sales. Search and you'll find "78% sit rate" or "33% close," but each one traces back to a solar-CRM or appointment-setting vendor blog with no stated method, no sample, and no primary body behind it. Refuse the whole genre.
This matters because I sell scheduling software, and the honest thing is to hold my own numbers to the same bar. If a figure can't be clicked through to a primary source with a method, it doesn't belong in a decision about your business. So the only numbers in this post are ones you can verify yourself, and none of them is a solar sit rate, because none exists.
The absence itself is the tell. When an industry's own "benchmark" data lives entirely on the blogs of companies selling you dialers and lead lists, that's not a data gap you can fill with a better search. It's a signal about who benefits from the number sounding a certain way.
Prior posts in this series kept running into industries with no no-show data, and solar shares that absence. If you want the general playbook that doesn't depend on any single vertical's numbers, the piece on how to reduce appointment no-shows covers the mechanics. But solar is different from the others, and the difference is the point.
Why do solar consultation no-shows happen?
Often, it's wariness, not forgetfulness. In most trades a missed appointment is a memory lapse. In solar, a homeowner books a "free consultation," then reads something about high-pressure door-to-door selling, gets cold feet, and decides not to answer. That's a cancellation caused by the category's reputation, and that reputation is documented in regulatory filings.
Here's the sourced anchor. On 19 July 2024, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong sued Sunrun, Bright Planet, and Elevate Solar, in a lawsuit alleging deceptive and unlawful sales tactics (CT AG, 2024). The complaint alleges forged signatures, impersonating consumers, installing non-functional systems, failing to obtain permits, and locking people into long-term contracts without consent, alleging violations of Connecticut's Unfair Trade Practices Act and Home Improvement Act.
Read that carefully, because the framing is not optional. These are allegations in a filed lawsuit, not proven findings and not a conviction. The point isn't to attack one company. It's that the whole category now carries a reputation, and the homeowner who ghosts your consultation is reacting to that reputation, not to your calendar.
So the reputational-cause reframe is this: for most businesses a reminder fights forgetting, but in solar it has to fight suspicion. A homeowner who booked in good faith and then read a headline isn't confused about when you're coming. They're deciding whether to let a salesperson into their house. A reminder that ignores that is solving the wrong problem.
That distinction changes what a good reminder even says. This is the in-home sales consultation, not the crew arriving to do the work, which is a different job covered in the guide on home-service no-shows. The tradesperson doing the install has your trust already. The salesperson at the kitchen table is still earning it.
How a reminder text becomes a trust signal
The reminder does double duty in solar. It confirms the time, and it signals what kind of operator you are. A clear, low-pressure text that names who's coming and makes rescheduling or cancelling trivially easy does the opposite of what the category's reputation primes people to expect. In an industry infamous for the 9pm door-knock, being easy to cancel on is how you stop being cancelled on.
That sounds backwards, so sit with it. Telling people exactly how to cancel should, in theory, invite more cancellations. In practice it removes the trapped feeling that makes wary homeowners ghost in the first place. When the door is clearly unlocked, fewer people climb out the window. Counterintuitively, the easy-out text is a sit-rate move, not a leak.
The phrase I keep coming back to: be the company people don't need to hide from. A homeowner ghosts because ghosting feels safer than a confrontation at the door. Give them a friction-free way to say "not today" by text, and you convert a silent no-show into either a kept appointment or a clean reschedule you can actually work.
A good solar reminder is short. It states the date and time, the rep's name, a one-tap reschedule, and a plain opt-out. No "ask about our summer discount." That last restraint isn't only good manners. As we'll see, it's also where the compliance line sits.
What does the evidence on SMS reminders actually show?
The best evidence is from healthcare, not sales. In the 2013 Cochrane review, attendance rose from 67.8% with no reminder to 78.6% with an SMS reminder, a relative risk of 1.14 (95% CI 1.03 to 1.26), rated moderate quality, across 7 trials and 5,841 participants (Cochrane, 2013). Phone calls reached 80.3%, and SMS versus phone was statistically a wash (RR 0.99).
Two caveats have to travel with that number, every time. First, it measures healthcare appointments, not solar sales. There is no study of SMS reminders for sales appointments at all, so applying this figure to a kitchen-table consultation is a labelled extrapolation, not a vertical finding. Second, it's the 2013 Cochrane review, last updated December 2013. Treat it as the direction of an effect, roughly "reminders help attendance," rather than a promise of a specific lift in your funnel.
If you want the effect without a phone call, a scheduled text is the practical middle ground. The setup itself is boring in the best way, and the walkthrough on SMS reminders in Google Calendar covers it. It's also worth knowing that Google Calendar's built-in reminders are email and popup only, which is why an add-on exists at all.
Where's the compliance line for solar reminders?
The line sits between informational and promotional. A reminder for a consultation the homeowner actually booked is informational, not telemarketing, so oral consent suffices (FCC 12-21, paragraph 28). The moment the text promotes ("ask about our summer discount"), it drifts toward telemarketing, and the written-consent bar applies (paragraph 29).
Solar has a specific gray zone worth naming. Lead generation in this industry is dominated by cold door-knocks and robocalls, so the lead-gen touch is often telemarketing even when the reminder is not. A reminder to someone who genuinely booked is on safe ground. A text blast to a purchased lead list is a different animal entirely. Keep those two things apart and most of the risk goes with them.
Revocation rules are strict and specific. A consumer can opt out by any reasonable method (paragraph 10), and the words stop, quit, end, revoke, opt out, cancel, and unsubscribe are per se reasonable (paragraph 12). You must honor it within 10 business days (paragraph 19), and you may send one confirmation text back as long as it carries no marketing (paragraph 24) (FCC 24-24, effective 11 April 2025). The deeper consent breakdown lives in the SMS consent and compliance guide.
One more piece of context, kept in its lane. A solar sale signed at the kitchen table comes with a federally mandated escape hatch: the buyer may cancel at any time prior to midnight of the third business day after the transaction (16 CFR Part 429). That right kicks in after a sale is signed, not at the consultation, so don't imply the reminder triggers it. But knowing it exists is part of running the clean operation homeowners are hoping you are.
The operator who runs clean wins twice
Doing right by the homeowner and staying compliant are the same move here. The reminder that's plain, informational, and easy to opt out of is the one on the right side of the TCPA line. The operator who never bait-and-switches a reminder into a promo is also the one a wary homeowner doesn't feel the need to hide from. In solar, trust and compliance point the same way.
None of this promises a number, because I won't invent one. What I'll say from first principles is narrow and honest: reminders help attendance in the settings we can measure, and in solar the extra job is defusing suspicion. If your no-shows are memory problems, a reminder fixes that. If they're trust problems, a reminder written the right way starts to fix that too. The true cost of no-shows is what makes either worth the effort.
Frequently asked questions
What is a "sit rate" in solar sales?
"Sit rate" is direct-sales jargon for the share of booked appointments where the homeowner actually sits down with the rep. The trouble is that every published sit-rate number comes from a CRM or appointment-setting vendor with no methodology. No trade body publishes one, so treat all of them as unsourced marketing.
Do SMS reminders actually reduce no-shows?
In healthcare, yes: the 2013 Cochrane review found attendance rose from 67.8% to 78.6% with SMS reminders across 7 trials and 5,841 participants (Cochrane, 2013). No study measures sales appointments, so applying that to solar is a labelled extrapolation, not a proven solar result.
Is texting a booked homeowner a TCPA violation?
Not if the text is a reminder for a consultation they booked. That's informational, so oral consent suffices (FCC 12-21, paragraph 28). It becomes risky when the text promotes an offer, or when you blast a purchased lead list, which is telemarketing and needs written consent (paragraph 29).
What was the Connecticut lawsuit about?
In July 2024 the Connecticut Attorney General sued Sunrun and two sales partners in a lawsuit alleging deceptive tactics, including forged signatures and locking consumers into contracts without consent (CT AG, 2024). These are allegations, not proven facts, and they illustrate the reputational climate, not a verdict.
Does the cooling-off rule apply to the consultation?
No. The federal cooling-off right applies after a sale is signed, not to a free consultation. Once a buyer signs an in-home sale, they may cancel until midnight of the third business day (16 CFR Part 429). It's useful compliance context, but a reminder does not trigger it.
The Bottom Line
Solar's no-show problem is unusual because its cause is documented in a courthouse, not a calendar. There's no trustworthy sit-rate figure, and the reason nobody trusts those numbers, a category built on high-pressure selling, is the same reason wary homeowners ghost a booked consultation. The Connecticut allegations are the sourced reminder that this reputation is real, even though they remain allegations. Your move isn't a slicker pitch. It's a plain, low-pressure reminder that names your rep, makes cancelling one tap easy, and never sneaks in a promo. That text keeps you on the right side of the TCPA line and, more importantly, marks you as the operator homeowners don't need to hide from. Be that, and fewer of them will.
Sources
- Gurol-Urganci I, de Jongh T, Vodopivec-Jamsek V, Atun R, Car J. "Mobile phone messaging reminders for attendance at healthcare appointments." Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2013, Issue 12. Art. No.: CD007458. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6485985/ (retrieved 16 July 2026).
- Connecticut Office of the Attorney General. "Attorney General Tong Sues SunRun, Bright Planet, and Elevate Solar, Alleging Deceptive, Unlawful Solar Panel Sales Tactics." 19 July 2024. https://portal.ct.gov/ag/press-releases/2024-press-releases/attorney-general-tong-sues-sunrun (retrieved 16 July 2026).
- FTC "Rule Concerning Cooling-Off Period for Sales Made at Homes or At Certain Other Locations," 16 CFR Part 429, notice text. Cornell Legal Information Institute. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/429.1 (retrieved 16 July 2026).
- 16 CFR Part 429, definitions and thresholds. Cornell Legal Information Institute. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/429.0 (retrieved 16 July 2026).
- Federal Communications Commission. Report and Order FCC 12-21, released 15 February 2012. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-12-21A1.txt (retrieved 16 July 2026).
- Federal Communications Commission. Report and Order FCC 24-24, released 16 February 2024, effective 11 April 2025. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-24A1.txt (retrieved 16 July 2026).
