What a missed call really costs a trade business

Work out what unanswered calls cost you in a year with your own numbers, and five ways to cut that loss, from better voicemail to an AI receptionist.

Every tradie knows the feeling. You are under a house, on a roof or halfway through wiring a board, the phone rings, and you cannot get to it. By the time you call back, the customer has booked someone else.

It is easy to shrug that off as the cost of being busy. It is also easy to put a number on it.

Most people do not wait for a call back

When a call goes unanswered, most callers do not leave a message and wait. They ring the next business on the list. Quo analysed 16.7 million missed calls to small businesses and found that 69% were never returned within two days. Whatever the exact figure is for your trade, the pattern is the same: a missed call is often a lost job, not a delayed one.

Work out your own number

You need four figures, and your phone already has most of them.

Missed calls a week. Your call log shows every call you did not answer. Count a normal week.
The share that were new work. Not every missed call is a job. Some are suppliers, existing customers or spam. A fair guess for most trades is between a quarter and a half.
The share you would have won. If you answered, how often would it turn into a booked job? Think about your quote win rate.
Your average job value. Use a typical job, not your best one.

Multiply them together for a week, then by 52.

A worked example

Say a plumber misses 8 calls a week. Three of those are new jobs. Answered, they would win half of them, and the average job is $380. That is 1.5 jobs a week, or about $570 a week, which comes to roughly $29,600 a year.

Those numbers are made up for the example. Use yours. Even if you halve every figure, most trade businesses find the answer is several thousand dollars a year.

The costs that do not show up in the maths

Evenings. Calling back a list of missed numbers after a full day on the tools is unpaid work that eats into family time.
Reputation. A customer who could not get through is less likely to recommend you, even if they never tell you.
Urgent jobs. Burst pipes and power faults go to whoever answers first. They are often the best paid work of the week.

Five ways to cut the loss

Answer more yourself. Set a rule: if you can safely take a call in under 30 seconds, take it. Keep the phone in reach, not in the ute.
Fix your voicemail greeting. Say your business name, that you are on a job, and when you will call back. "Leave a message" on its own sounds like nobody is coming.
Text back fast. A two line text within ten minutes ("Sorry I missed you, on a job, what do you need done?") keeps many callers from ringing the next name.
Use an answering service. A person answers in your business name and takes a message. It costs more per call, and they usually cannot book work or answer questions about your jobs.
Use an AI receptionist. It answers every call in seconds, day or night, asks the questions you would ask, books the job into your calendar and sends you the details. It works best when you check its first few calls and correct anything it says differently from you.

What to look for if you choose a service

Your phone should still ring first, so you never lose a call you could have taken.
It should say whose phone it is answering and hand callers to you when they ask.
You should see every call afterwards, with a recording or transcript.
It should be month to month, so you can walk away if it does not pay for itself.

Where Aroha fits

Aroha is an AI receptionist built for the calls you miss. Your phone rings first, and only unanswered calls come to Aroha, which works out how urgent the job is, books it and texts you. You can ring a trade receptionist from the website before signing up, and see what it would have done with your own awkward questions.

Source: Quo, analysis of 16.7 million missed calls to small businesses.