What a Missed Call Costs a Service Business, Worked Out on Your Own Numbers

The formula

Missed calls a week, times the share you would have won, times 52, divided by 12, gives jobs lost a month. Multiply by your average job value for the money. That is the whole calculation behind our calculator, and you can do it on paper.

With the calculator’s home-services inputs (8 missed calls a week, a $285 CAD average job, 55% won if answered) that is about 19.1 jobs a month, or about $5,430 CAD.

Worked for four kinds of business

These are the calculator’s starting inputs for each preset. They are not benchmarks and not results from a customer. They are there so the page shows a number before you type yours.

• Home services: 8 missed calls a week, a $285 CAD job, 55% won if answered. Each missed call is worth about $160 CAD, or about $5,430 CAD a month.
• HVAC: 7 missed calls a week, a $1,250 CAD job, 58% won if answered. Each missed call is worth about $730 CAD, or about $21,990 CAD a month.
• Property: 10 missed calls a week, a $190 CAD job, 45% won if answered. Each missed call is worth about $90 CAD, or about $3,710 CAD a month.
• Professional: 4 missed calls a week, a $420 CAD job, 35% won if answered. Each missed call is worth about $150 CAD, or about $2,550 CAD a month.

Where to get your own inputs

Missed calls: your phone system or carrier report for the last 90 days. Count calls that rang out or went to voicemail, during the day and after hours, and divide by 13 for a weekly number.

Share you would have won: start below your close rate on calls you do answer. Some missed callers were spam, wrong numbers, or people who called back and booked anyway, and the share should allow for them.

Average job: from your invoices, not your best week. If emergency work runs much higher than routine work, do the sum twice, once for after-hours misses and once for daytime.

Our HVAC version of this math walks through the same steps with a furnace shop’s numbers.

What the number leaves out

It counts the job, not the customer. A household that reached someone else for a no-heat call may use them for the next ten years, and that does not show up in a monthly figure.

It also leaves out what you paid to make the phone ring. If the call came from an ad that bills per lead, the miss can cost the lead fee as well as the job.

Google Local Services Ads is the clearest case. Google’s lead rules say a call during your operating hours that nobody answers can be billed as a lead once the caller has stayed on the line more than 20 seconds, and so can a voicemail. We cover what that means for your phone setup in answering every Local Services Ads lead.

What it costs to stop the miss

Our Essential plan is $199 CAD a month with 200 minutes included, then $0.70 CAD a minute, and $699 CAD setup, in CAD plus HST. Put that next to your own monthly figure. If yours is smaller than the plan, you do not need us, and the calculator will show that too.

The receptionist answers the calls you miss, sorts emergencies from routine work, books only times your calendar really has, and texts your on-call number the details. It does not diagnose, quote a repair price, or call anyone back. Callbacks come from your team.