What are your missed calls actually costing you?

Put in your own numbers. Every assumption is visible and editable, because a calculator that hides its arithmetic behind a scary total is an advert, not a tool.

How to get a real number instead of a guess

Three of the four inputs above are guesses until you check them. Two are easy to fix in about an hour.

Calls per week and percent missed. Your carrier itemises incoming calls with timestamps. Download a month, count the ones with no connected duration, and you have both numbers properly. While you are there, separate the calls that arrived outside your opening hours, because that is usually where the loss concentrates and it is the easiest part to fix.

Average job value. You have this in your invoicing already. Use the median rather than the mean if you have a few unusually large jobs, or the number will flatter you.

Percent who would have booked. This is the honest guess and nobody can give it to you. A caller who found you in search and rang at 8pm is closer to buying than someone shopping five quotes. If you are unsure, put in a low figure. A number you believe is more useful than a big one you do not.

What to do with the answer

If the annual figure is smaller than the cost of fixing it, do nothing. That is a real outcome and it happens, particularly for businesses with low job values and few out-of-hours calls.

If it is larger, the cheapest fix is usually not an agency. Start with a better voicemail message that offers a text alternative, and see what changes. Then look at an off-the-shelf AI receptionist at forty or fifty a month, which handles a straightforward business perfectly well. Only after those does a custom build make sense, and only if your routing or your systems are genuinely complicated.

I sell the expensive option, so weigh that as you read it. But talking someone into a build they did not need is how you get a client who leaves in six months.

Frequently asked questions

How do you calculate the cost of a missed call?

Multiply the calls you miss by the share of those callers who would have become customers, then by what a customer is worth to you. The first number comes off your phone bill, the second is a judgement, and the third you already know. The arithmetic is simple; the honesty of the inputs is what decides whether the answer is any use.

What percentage of missed callers call a competitor?

Published figures vary widely and most are produced by companies selling call answering, so treat any specific percentage with suspicion, including any you see quoted elsewhere on this topic. What is not in dispute is that most people do not leave voicemails. This calculator asks you for your own estimate rather than asserting one.

How do I find out how many calls I actually miss?

Your phone carrier itemises incoming calls with timestamps. Download one month, count the calls with no connected duration, and separate the ones that arrived outside your opening hours. That hour of admin gives you a real number instead of a guess, and it is worth doing before spending anything on fixing it.

Are these numbers industry averages?

No. The presets are round starting points to edit, not researched statistics, and they are labelled that way in the tool. Any calculator that hands you an industry average and a scary total is selling something. Your own figures are the only ones worth acting on.