The hidden cost of one missed call

Three missed calls a week can cost a trades business thousands a year.

You miss a call. You spot it an hour later, ring back, and get nothing.

Annoying. Not a disaster. On to the next job.

That is how most trades businesses treat a missed call. Here is why that thinking is expensive.

The maths nobody does

Say your average job is worth 400 pounds.

Say you miss three calls in a typical week. Most trades miss more.

Say only one of those three was genuine work, and the other two were sales calls or timewasters.

That is 400 pounds a week. Around 1,600 pounds a month. Close to 20,000 pounds a year.

Walking straight past your van and into somebody else's.

You already paid for that call

This is the part that really stings.

That call did not arrive by accident. Your Google Business Profile, your website, your reviews, years of word of mouth. All of it worked exactly as intended.

The customer searched. They compared. They chose you. They picked up the phone and rang your number.

Then the whole thing fell over at the final step because you were under a sink, up a ladder, or driving.

Your marketing did not fail. Your catching did.

Customers do not wait

The person ringing you is not loyal yet. You are one of two or three numbers they have open.

If you do not answer, they do not sit patiently by the phone. They ring the next name on the list. Most of the time you never even know the enquiry existed.

Ringing back two hours later is often two hours too late.

You cannot answer every call, so stop trying

You are on the tools. You will always miss calls. Every trades business does, and no amount of trying harder changes that.

What you can change is what happens in the sixty seconds after the missed call.

An instant text back that says you are on a job and will ring shortly, with a link to book a slot, keeps the customer in the conversation instead of dialling your competitor. That is exactly what Missed Call Text Back does, automatically, every single time.

Here is a challenge

Open your phone. Look at last week's missed calls.

Count them. Multiply by your average job value.

Then decide whether that is a number you are happy to keep paying every year.

Key takeaways

• Three missed calls a week, with an average job value of 400 pounds, is close to 20,000 pounds a year walking out the door.
• Every missed call is a customer your marketing already won. They searched, compared, and chose you. Then you did not pick up.
• Customers do not wait. If you do not answer, they ring the next name on the list. Ringing back two hours later is often too late.
• You cannot answer every call on the tools. But an instant text back keeps the conversation alive until you can. The full Growth System handles this and every other gap too. Read more on why the first message never wins the job.

Shaun Chrisp

Founder, Chrisp Design

Shaun has been building websites and growth systems for local trades and service businesses since 2010. Based in Cramlington, Northumberland.

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