Your phone leaks jobs in five places.
Most owners only notice one of them. Here is where calls slip away, and what the published research says about how callers behave.
Missed during the day
You're on a ladder, under a sink or with a customer. The phone rings out and the caller tries the next name on the list.
Missed after hours
Evenings and weekends are when people notice the leak, the dead furnace or the stuck door. Voicemail asks them to wait until morning.
No voicemail, next company
Callers who never leave voicemail can call a competitor instead. A recording does not tell you what job you missed.
Never called back
A message gets heard at 9 pm, then buried under the next day's work. By the time you call, they have booked someone else.
Wasted ad and SEO spend
Ads, SEO and listings can bring in calls. If nobody answers, the money and work behind that inquiry may not turn into a job.
Callers don't wait long.
Each figure below comes from the named publisher. Follow the link to read the cited source and its context.
78%
of consumers say they have abandoned a business after an unanswered call.
A consumer survey about reported behavior, not a count of jobs lost by local contractors.
Source: CallRail, 2025, via Carly42%
of consumers say they leave a voicemail when a business does not answer.
Reported consumer behavior. Your callers may behave differently, and some may call again.
Source: CallRail, 2025, via Carly82%
say they would call a competitor if a business does not answer.
What consumers say they would do, not a measured booking or loss rate for your business.
Source: CallRail, 2025, via Carly69%
of missed business calls get no callback within 48 hours.
Quo measured calls on its own platform. A callback means an outbound call to the caller's number within 48 hours. Text replies are not counted.
Source: Quo, 202614%
of home-services calls were missed in CallRail's January 2025 benchmark.
A published benchmark, not your business's missed-call rate or a forecast of jobs you could recover.
Source: CallRail, January 2025, via Stealth Agents32%
of healthcare calls were missed in the same CallRail January 2025 benchmark.
Healthcare is a comparison category, not a trade or customer group we target. It is not the home-services missed-call rate.
Source: CallRail, January 2025, via Stealth Agents$6.59
per click on average for home-services Google Ads, according to LocaliQ's 2025 figures.
Average cost per click is not cost per call or per booked job. Actual costs depend on market, trade and campaign. Unanswered calls can waste both ad and SEO investment.
Source: LocaliQ, 2025, via Pipeline Marketing$200 to $500
in immediate job revenue is Signpost's estimate of the value of a missed home-services call.
A publisher estimate, not a measured loss for every missed call. Trade, job size, caller intent and whether the customer calls back all matter. Use your own average ticket and booking rate.
Source: Signpost, 2026Signpost's $200 to $500 range is a publisher's estimate of what a missed call can cost a service business. It is not a verified loss that applies to every business. Your numbers depend on your trade, prices and close rate.
How It Pays for Itself
Example, not a forecast. Use your own numbers.
A shop gets 80 calls a month. At a 14% miss rate, that's about 11 missed calls. If just 2 of those turn into $300 jobs, that's $600 in work, three times the cost of Starter.
Starter pays for itself with one booked job a month. Growth and Pro with one or two.
At an illustrative $300 per job, one job covers Starter or Growth's recurring monthly fee, and two cover Pro's. This compares gross revenue, not profit. Job costs, setup and extra minutes are not deducted. Answering a call does not ensure a booking. The example uses two jobs, while the calculator starts at a 25% booking assumption. Neither is a forecast of your results.
Set up and managed from Mahwah, NJ.