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The Sovereign Technologist

What do missed calls actually cost a small firm?

The short answer: the calls you miss, times your job value, times the one in four callers who ring somebody else

That is the model, and the calculator below runs it on your numbers rather than on ours. The one in four is the conservative end of the evidence. A study of 1,000 recorded calls to 94 US home-service firms found owners believed they answered 97% of calls while the recordings showed 66%. Every assumption here is an editable band and the arithmetic is printed step by step underneath.

The assumptions

AssumptionValueWhere the number comes from
4.33
  • our working rule 52 weeks divided by 12 months is 4.33, which turns a "per week" band into a monthly number.
25%
  • worked model Doc 08 CALC.missed-calls states it: assumes 1 in 4 missed callers books elsewhere.
  • industry study Home-service firms believe they answer 97% of calls. Measured: 66%.
  • industry study Only 42% of inbound trade calls become booked jobs; 24% at shops under 5 techs.
€50
  • our working rule The result rounds to the nearest €50 so it never claims a precision the model does not have.

≈ €1,600 a month walks away.

Estimate. Model: assumes 1 in 4 missed callers books elsewhere, industry studies put the miss rate higher. Your real numbers replace it on the call.

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The methodology

Every assumption on this page is editable. Change the bands, the model recalculates. The defaults come from published studies and worked models, each one cited below.

The math, step by step

  1. Missed calls a month10 × 4.33 = 43.3
  2. Callers who book elsewhere43.3 × 25% = 10.8
  3. Value of those jobs10.8 × €150 = €1,600

Sources: HBR lead-response audit (2,241 firms) · practitioner-reported no-show curves (labelled model) · industry answer-rate studies · our own worked models, stated openly. Where a number is a model, it says so next to the number.

Further reading

The calculator shows the leak. The analysis shows the fix.

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Where do the default numbers come from?

Published studies and worked models, each cited under the calculator. Every assumption is editable, so your numbers replace ours in seconds.

Is this a quote?

No. It's the size of the leak, not the price of the fix. The fix gets a fixed quote after a free analysis.

Can I save the result?

The exit file has the same math for your industry, and the free Inefficiency Scan emails you a full report.

Numbers first. Decisions second.

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