Somewhere in your OpenSolar or Pylon account right now, there is a proposal that got opened, looked at twice, and then went quiet. The customer did not say no. They just did not say anything, and nobody in your business noticed in time to say something back. That gap between "proposal sent" and "deal signed" is where a huge amount of Australian solar revenue disappears, one quiet quote at a time.
This is a practical guide to closing that gap: how solar proposal follow-up actually works, what OpenSolar and Pylon each already track for you, and how to turn that tracking into an automated follow-up sequence instead of a task someone has to remember to do.
Why proposals die between sent and signed
Solar buyers rarely reject a proposal outright. They get busy, they want to compare a second or third quote, they lose the email in their inbox, or they simply need a nudge at the right moment. None of that means the deal is dead. It means the deal is waiting for a follow-up that, on a busy week, quietly does not happen.
The problem is not effort. Solar sales teams work hard. The problem is that proposal follow-up is invisible and manual by default: someone has to remember which quotes are outstanding, check whether they were viewed, decide what to say, and actually send it - across dozens of open proposals at once. That is a system problem, not a people problem, and it needs a system fix.
What OpenSolar already tracks for you
If you run OpenSolar, you already have more visibility than you might be using. Its Project History Tracker logs when a customer opens your proposal email, when they view the proposal itself, and how long they spend looking at it. Projects also move through OpenSolar's own workflow language - stages and milestones such as Presold, Sold and Installed - so you can see exactly where a deal sits.
That is genuinely useful data. The catch is that OpenSolar shows you the signal; it does not act on it. Someone still has to check the tracker, notice the proposal was viewed twice last night, and decide to follow up. On a design-and-proposal platform used by more than 25,000 solar professionals worldwide, that manual step is the same bottleneck almost everyone hits.
What Pylon already tracks for you
Pylon solar design software works differently but lands on the same problem. Its fast, 3D-shaded proposals include native eSignature and deposit payment built right into the proposal itself, so a customer can view, sign and pay a deposit without leaving the page. Pylon also ships a REST API with webhooks, which means proposal activity is available the moment it happens.
Again, the visibility is there. What is missing is the automatic response. A customer who opens a Pylon proposal, scrolls through the 3D design and then closes the tab without signing has just told you exactly how warm they are. If nothing happens next, that signal is wasted. This matters even more for teams pulling leads in from SolarQuotes or SolarChoice through Pylon, because those leads are often shopping several installers at once - the business that follows up first and best on a viewed proposal is usually the one that wins the job.
The three triggers that matter: sent, viewed, signed
Whichever platform you use, proposal follow-up automation comes down to reacting to three moments:
- Sent. The proposal goes out. This is your baseline - the clock on this deal has started.
- Viewed. The customer opens it. This is the moment that matters most, because it is the clearest buying signal you get before a signature. Viewed-but-not-signed within a day or two is exactly when a well-timed follow-up does the most work.
- Signed. The deal closes. This should trigger the next stage of your pipeline automatically - job handover, install scheduling, review requests - not a manual re-entry into another system.
Both OpenSolar and Pylon expose these events through their APIs and webhooks, which is exactly what a follow-up engine like our OpenSolar proposal follow-up integration or the equivalent Pylon proposal follow-up integration is built on. The proposal activity flows straight into your CRM the moment it happens, instead of sitting in a tracker waiting to be checked.
How to build the follow-up sequence
- Connect your proposal software to your CRM. One proposal integration - OpenSolar or Pylon - is included in every Solar AI-Q package, so this is the foundation, not an extra project. If you run both platforms, an additional proposal integration is available as an add-on.
- Let sent, viewed and signed become automatic triggers. Once connected, every status change in OpenSolar or Pylon updates your CRM without anyone re-keying anything. The integration syncs dozens of fields between the two systems, so one entry updates everywhere.
- Hand viewed-but-not-signed proposals to Andy. Andy is our AI proposal follow-up agent. He watches for exactly this pattern - proposal sent, proposal viewed, no signature yet - and follows up by text so the quote turns back into a conversation instead of going cold. Andy requires a proposal integration to be connected, which is why step one matters.
- Make the follow-up sound like your business, not a template. Because Andy works from AI Note Taker call context - the transcript and summary of every call already in your CRM - his follow-up references the actual conversation you had with that customer, not a generic "just checking in" message.
What this looks like in practice
Picture a customer who had a phone consultation, received a proposal in OpenSolar three days ago, and opened it twice last night but has not signed. Under a manual process, that customer is one line in a spreadsheet someone might check on Friday. Under an automated sequence, the "viewed" event fires the moment it happens, Andy sees that a proposal integration flagged activity with no signature yet, and a follow-up text goes out referencing the actual conversation - system size, the objection they raised about financing, whatever was actually discussed. The customer replies to a real, specific message instead of ignoring a form email.
The same pattern works the other way around in Pylon. A customer receives a 3D-shaded proposal, opens it on their phone during their lunch break, scrolls through the design and closes it without using the native eSignature or paying the deposit. That "viewed, no signature" event fires through Pylon's webhook the moment it happens. Andy picks it up and sends a follow-up that references what was actually discussed on the sales call, not a generic nudge to "check out your quote". A day later, if the customer still has not signed, that same trigger can prompt a second, differently worded follow-up rather than nothing at all.
That is the shift: from "someone has to remember" to "the system already noticed." Nothing about how your team designs, quotes or presents proposals changes. OpenSolar and Pylon keep doing exactly what they do best. The follow-up simply starts happening in the background, on every open quote, not just the ones near the top of someone's to-do list.
Does it matter whether you use OpenSolar or Pylon?
Not for the follow-up itself. Both platforms expose the same three triggers, and Andy works the same way from either one. The choice between OpenSolar and Pylon usually comes down to how your team likes to design and quote - free-forever and unlimited seats versus pay-per-project with native eSignature and deposit collection - not which one supports better follow-up. If you want the full side-by-side, we cover it in our OpenSolar CRM review.
Either way, one proposal integration is included in every Solar AI-Q package, so the follow-up engine described here is not a separate purchase - it is part of getting set up properly from day one.
Results vary by business, but the pattern is consistent - answer faster, follow up harder, and the same lead flow produces more installs.