How the estimate works
The calculator uses one line of arithmetic. With the example numbers already filled in:
- 25 new-customer calls a week, and you miss 20% of them. That is 5 missed calls a week.
- A month has about 4.33 weeks (52 weeks divided by 12), so 5 a week is about 21.7 missed calls a month.
- You close 30% of the new callers you speak to, so those calls would have become about 6.5 jobs.
- At $450 a job, that is about $2,925 a month, or roughly $35,100 a year.
Those inputs are an example, not an average for any trade. The answer only means something once you put your own numbers in.
What the number leaves out
The estimate is deliberately simple, so it is wrong in both directions:
- It can overcount. Some missed callers ring back, or leave a voicemail you return in time. That is why the last line shows the figure if half of them call back anyway.
- It can overcount again. Someone who rings three businesses at once may be harder to close than the average caller you answer.
- It undercounts repeat work. A customer you never got also never sends you a second job or a referral.
- It is revenue, not profit. Take your costs off before comparing it to what a fix would cost.
Keep existing customers, suppliers and spam out of the first box. They inflate the number without changing what you lose.
How to get your real inputs
Your phone's call log is the honest source. For one normal week, count calls from numbers that are not already saved as customers, and how many of those you missed. Your close rate and average job value come from last month's quotes and invoices. A week of real numbers beats a year of guessing.
If the result is small, good: your phone is not the problem. If it is bigger than you expected, the cheapest fixes are a text back when a call is missed and a set time each day to return calls. See Communications for how we handle it.
Questions
Is every missed call a lost job?
No. Some callers ring back and some were never going to book. The calculator assumes a missed new caller would have closed at your normal rate, so treat the result as an estimate to check against your call log.
What share of calls do small businesses usually miss?
It varies too much by trade, season and team size for an average to be useful, and we do not publish one. Count your own for a week; it takes ten minutes with your phone's call log.
Does this work for a business that books online or by text?
Partly. It only counts phone calls. If a lot of your enquiries arrive by form or text, the leak there is slow replies rather than missed calls, and the same arithmetic applies to enquiries that never get an answer.