Installer growth

How does conversion rate affect your bottom line?

By Ben Brockbank-Naylor · 26 October 2026 · 4 min read

If your conversion rate goes from 20% to 30%, it is easy to hear that as a 10% improvement and move on. But imagine looking at the diary, the wages and the work it took to win those jobs. The difference is much bigger than it first sounds.

It is half as many customers again

Say you carry out 100 surveys. At a 20% conversion rate, you win 20 jobs. At 30%, you win 30. That is ten extra sales in this example, but those ten are on top of the twenty you were already winning. You have increased sales by 50%, from exactly the same number of surveys.

The rate has risen by ten percentage points. The number of customers has risen by half. That is the bit I think gets lost when we talk about conversion as a percentage on a dashboard. It is not just a nicer number. It can change what the same working week produces.

What would that mean for a £1m installer?

Take a business selling £1m a year, with an average job value of £10,000. That is 100 sales. At 20% survey-to-sale conversion, it would take 500 surveys to get there. If the same 500 surveys converted at 30%, you would win 150 jobs and sell £1.5m. Same number of visits. Same average job value. An extra £500,000 in revenue.

These are hypothetical figures to show the maths, not measured results or a promise from Solful. In practice, you would need enough installation capacity and the right mix of work. But before spending more to fill the diary, it is worth asking how much value is already being lost between the visit and the sale.

Of course, £500,000 of sales is not £500,000 of profit

You still have to buy the kit and deliver the installation. Panels, batteries, scaffolding and labour do not become free because you converted more of the enquiries you already had. At an illustrative 25% contribution margin, that extra £500,000 would produce £125,000 of contribution before additional overheads, software and other costs not already included.

That is a much more useful conversation than saying the whole increase drops straight to the bottom line. Look at the margin on the extra jobs, whether you need more installers, and what it will cost to deliver them properly. Growth only helps if the business can handle it.

You might prefer fewer surveys to more sales

Perhaps your installation team is already full. You do not want 150 jobs; you want to win your existing 100 without running everyone into the ground. At 20% conversion, that means 500 surveys. At 30%, it takes around 334 whole visits. That is roughly 166 fewer surveys for the same sales target, assuming comparable opportunities.

Allow two hours per survey at an effective all-in £25 per hour, including fuel, travel, the visit and at least 30 minutes of admin within those two hours. That is £50 a survey. In this example, 166 avoided visits represent about £8,300 of survey cost value and 332 hours of capacity. Those hours are the same work already valued in the £8,300, not another saving to add on.

Think about the person doing those visits

A less crowded diary could mean getting home without a pile of write-ups, giving a complicated job the time it needs, or having a proper conversation with a customer instead of rushing to the next appointment. It could ease the pressure to keep buying leads just to keep sales steady.

That can help morale, although a lighter diary does not automatically cut a salary bill. Some benefits show up as time and headroom rather than cash. I would ask the surveyors and office team whether their day feels easier, alongside looking at the accounts.

Then work out what is getting in the way

Be consistent about what you measure. Survey-to-sale conversion is different from enquiry-to-sale or wins as a share of closed deals. Give comparable jobs the same time to reach an outcome. Track proposal turnaround, review time and lost reasons too; speed alone will not explain every difference.

For me, this is where Solful fits: let the surveyor talk through the job while it is fresh, keep the customer's priorities with the quote, and give the office something clear to review. Test whether that removes delays and repeated admin for your team. The aim is to get more value from the work people are already doing.

Talk through your survey process.

See how voice capture and a clearer office handover could fit your team.

Book a meeting ↗