Ask a plumber how many calls they missed last week and you'll usually get a shrug and a guess. Ask what those calls were worth and the guess gets vaguer. It is the least examined number in most small businesses, which is strange, because it is often the largest.
The arithmetic is not complicated. Take the calls you don't answer in a week, multiply by the share that would have become work, and multiply that by what a job is worth to you. The number is usually uncomfortable.
A worked example
Say you miss ten calls a week. That is modest for anyone who works with their hands. Say a quarter of those callers would have booked — a conservative figure, given they rang you rather than a competitor. Say an average job is worth £300.
Ten missed calls a week, a quarter converting, at £300 a job, is about £32,000 a year walking past the door.
That is before you count the customers who would have come back, or the ones who would have recommended you. The first missed call is rarely the whole cost.
Why voicemail doesn't rescue it
The instinct is to point at voicemail and call the problem solved. In practice most people don't leave one. If they're ringing about a leak, they're ringing the next number on the list before your greeting has finished.
- Callers with an urgent problem rarely wait for a callback
- A voicemail is a task for you, not a booking
- Nothing about a voicemail tells you whether it was worth £80 or £8,000
What to do about it
You have three options: answer every call yourself, hire someone to, or have something answer for you. The first costs you the work you're already doing. The second is a salary. The third is why we built Daygent.
Whichever you choose, do the arithmetic first. It is the only way to know whether the problem is worth solving — and for most businesses that get calls, it very obviously is.
Daygent answers your business calls day and night, books the work and sends the reminders — for $129 a month.
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