What a missed call really costs a trade business

Why a missed call is usually a lost job

When someone needs a plumber, a locksmith or a recovery truck, they are not shopping. They have a problem and they want it to become somebody else's problem as quickly as possible. So they ring the first name they find. If nobody answers, they ring the second.

That is the important part. A missed call from a regular customer may well ring back. A missed call from a new customer with an urgent job almost never does, because by the time you see it they have already booked the firm that picked up. You did not lose a phone call. You lost the job, and whatever work would have followed from it.

The less urgent the job, the more forgiving the caller. Someone planning a new bathroom will leave a message. Someone with water coming through the ceiling will not.

Working out your own number

You only need three figures, and you already know all of them roughly.

• How many calls you miss in a week. Look at the missed calls list on your phone for the last seven days and count the numbers you don't recognise. Ignore the ones that are obviously sales calls.
• What a typical job is worth to you. Not your biggest job, your ordinary one.
• How many of those callers would have booked. Be honest. Some were only asking for a price. For urgent work it is most of them; for quotes it may be a third.

Multiply the three together, then by four for a month. Here is an example, with made-up figures: a plumber misses five calls a week, an ordinary job is worth £120, and about a third of those callers would have booked. That is five times £120 times a third, which is £200 a week, or about £800 a month.

Your figures will be different, and the point of doing it is that the answer is usually bigger than people expect. There is a calculator on our home page that does the sum for you.

The costs that don't show up in that sum

The sum above only counts the first job. It leaves out several things that are harder to measure and often worth more.

• Repeat work. A customer who finds a good tradesperson keeps them. The boiler service you missed is also next year's service, and the year after.
• Recommendations. Trades live on word of mouth. Every job you don't do is a neighbour who never hears your name.
• The bigger job behind the small one. A leaking tap leads to a bathroom. A tripping fuse leads to a new board. You never get to quote for work you didn't know about.
• Advertising you have already paid for. If you pay for adverts, a listing or leads, each call cost you money before it rang. Missing it means you paid to send a customer to a competitor.
• Your reputation for being reachable. People remember the firm they could never get hold of, and they say so.

When missed calls hurt most

Not every hour of the day is equal. It is worth noticing when your missed calls happen, because the pattern tells you what would fix it.

For most trades the calls come in during working hours, which is exactly when your hands are full. A second cluster comes in the early evening, when people get home and deal with the day's problems. Emergency trades have a third: nights and weekends, where the work pays best and the phone is least likely to be answered.

Then there are the rushes. The first cold week for heating engineers, a night of high wind for roofers and tree surgeons, the end of the month for removals and cleaners. Those are the days you are busiest and the days the phone rings most, so they are also the days you lose the most work.

Five ways to lose fewer calls

There is no single right answer. These are the options, roughly from cheapest to most complete.

• Ring back fast. Free, and better than nothing. If you can return a missed call within a couple of minutes you will save some of them. Past ten minutes, most urgent callers have gone elsewhere.
• A better voicemail greeting. Saying when you will ring back makes more people leave a message. We have written a guide to voicemail greetings that work.
• Divert to someone else. A partner, a family member or an office. It works while they are willing and available, and they need to know what to ask.
• A telephone answering service. Real people take a message for you. See how it compares.
• An AI receptionist. Answers every call you miss, asks the questions your trade needs and texts you the job. This is what we make; see whether it suits you.

Whichever you choose, do the sum first. If the phone is costing you £800 a month, almost any of these pays for itself. If you miss one call a fortnight, ringing back promptly is probably enough.

Measure it for a week before you decide

If you are not sure how many calls you miss, find out before spending anything. For one working week, check your missed calls at the end of each day and write down how many were from numbers you didn't know. Ring a few back and ask whether they still need someone.

Two things usually come out of that week. The number is higher than you thought, and most of the people you ring back have already found somebody. That second finding is the one that changes people's minds.