Trade firms answer 66% of calls and believe it's 97%. The gap is your margin.
industry study
The short answer: about a third of your calls go unanswered, and almost every owner puts the number near 100%
A study of 1,000 recorded calls to 94 US home-service firms measured a 66% answer rate against an owner-estimated 97%. That gap is what this page prices, because a missed call in the trades is a job that goes to whoever picked up. The same body of data puts booking rates at 42% of calls overall and 24% at shops with fewer than five technicians. It is US data from 2019 and 2022, so read it as the shape of the problem rather than as your own rate.
You were on the roof at 14:00. The phone was in the van. By the time you called back, half the list had already hired someone.
This is an industry analysis, not a client result. Every number below comes from a published study or an open model, and it carries the label next to it.
Three leaks run through a typical home-services firm. Calls missed while you work, replies that arrive tomorrow, quotes that go quiet. Here is what each one costs.
The 34% you never hear about
Almost every owner in this trade believes the phone is covered. The measurement says otherwise, and the gap is remarkably stable.
97% believed · 66% measured
A missed call is not a missed conversation. It is a missed job. Nobody rings back twice when three other numbers sit under yours in the search results.
It gets narrower after the pickup.
42% · 24%
Small firms lose twice. Fewer hands to answer, and less of a booking process behind the hands that do.
The demand for coverage is not a guess either.
72%
Put your own week in and watch the number move.
What do unanswered calls cost you?
≈ €19,500 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.
"We'll call you back tomorrow"
Tomorrow is a different market. The prospect who wrote to you at lunch has three quotes by the evening and a favourite by breakfast.
The largest audit of this behaviour is unusually blunt.
~60×
The cliff is inside the first hour, not the first day. First-hour replies are ~7× more likely to qualify the lead than second-hour replies (HBR audit).
And a quarter of firms never reply at all. 23% of the audited firms never responded to the enquiry (HBR audit).
Speed beats polish here. The first reply does not need to be perfect. It needs to exist while the prospect is still reading your website.
The quote that went quiet
You priced it, you sent it, and then nothing. Chasing feels awkward, so it happens late or never, and the job goes to whoever followed up.
A quote culture without a chase schedule is a discount on your own pipeline. The work is already done. Only the reminder is missing.
The machine chases on a schedule matched to the quote size. Polite, persistent, and it does not depend on anyone remembering on a Friday afternoon.