How to calculate the revenue lost through unanswered calls

Most owners know they miss calls. Very few know what it costs, because the loss never shows up anywhere. There is no invoice for the job you did not get. This is a way to put a sensible figure on it using numbers you already have, so you can decide whether it is a problem worth fixing.

Step 1: Count the calls you actually miss

Do not estimate this. Log in to your phone provider’s portal, or ask them for a call report, and pull the last four full weeks. You are looking for inbound calls that were not answered: rang out, went to voicemail, or hit an engaged tone.

If you use a mobile as the business line, the missed-calls list on the handset does the same job. Scroll back four weeks and count.

Step 2: Remove the calls that were never going to be work

Not every missed call is a lost job. Strip out the ones you can identify:

• Numbers that rang again within the hour and got through. You did not lose those.
• Suppliers, existing customers chasing an update, and anyone already in your contacts.
• Obvious sales calls and withheld numbers that call at the same time every day.

What is left is mostly unknown numbers that called once or twice and never came back. Those are your probable new enquiries. Divide by four for a weekly figure.

Step 3: Work out how often an answered enquiry becomes a job

Think about the new enquiries you did answer last month. How many turned into paid work? If you speak to ten new callers and six become jobs, your conversion rate is 60%. Be honest and use your own figure. For urgent trades it is often high, because people who ring a plumber at 8am generally need a plumber.

Step 4: Find your average first-job value

Add up last month’s invoices to new customers and divide by the number of jobs. Use the first job only. Repeat business is real, but leaving it out keeps the estimate conservative.

Step 5: Do the sum

Missed new enquiries per week
  × conversion rate
  × average first-job value
  = revenue lost per week

Worked example (illustrative figures, not an industry average):
  9 missed enquiries × 50% × £180 = £810 a week
  £810 × 48 working weeks       = £38,880 a year

Your numbers will be different, and that is the point. A firm missing three calls a week at £90 a job has a small leak. A firm missing fifteen at £400 has a serious one. Until you do the sum, you do not know which you are.

Two things the sum leaves out

What you paid to get the call

If you advertise, each call had a cost before it rang. Divide last month’s ad spend by the calls it produced and you have a cost per call. Every one you miss is that money spent with nothing to show for it, on top of the job itself.

Where the customer went instead

A caller who cannot reach you does not wait. They ring the next firm, and if that firm does a good job, it keeps the customer. The boiler service next year and the recommendation to a neighbour go with them.

What to do with the number

If the figure is small, carry on as you are. If it is not, you have three realistic options: somebody whose job is to answer, a message-taking service, or a system that answers and books on your behalf. Whichever you pick, you now have a yardstick. Anything that costs less than it recovers is worth doing.