Missed calls feel like minor annoyances, but they are usually new customers at the moment of decision. Here is how to put a realistic dollar figure on them — and what to do about it.
Most business owners can tell you their rent, their insurance premium and their fuel bill. Very few can tell you what missed calls cost them — because missed calls do not show up on any invoice. The caller simply hangs up, rings the next business in the search results, and the revenue quietly lands somewhere else.
That invisibility is the problem. A cost you can see gets managed; a cost you cannot see gets ignored. So let us make it visible.
You only need three numbers: how many calls your business gets in a week, what share of them go unanswered, and what an average new job or customer is worth. Multiply them together, apply a conversion rate for how many callers were genuinely ready to buy, and you have a weekly figure.
Worked example: a plumber receiving 40 calls a week who misses a quarter of them has 10 missed calls. If half of those were real jobs at an average of $400, that is $2,000 a week walking out the door — over $100,000 a year. Even if you halve every assumption, it is still a five-figure annual leak.
The jobs you lose after 5pm never show up anywhere: no message, no record, no second chance. — AIssie team insight
For trades and home services, a large share of enquiries happen outside business hours — the hot water system fails at night, the storm damage is discovered on the weekend. These callers are the most urgent and the least patient. They rarely leave voicemail; they keep dialling until someone answers. If your phone coverage ends at 5pm, your competitor with better coverage is collecting your overflow.
Once you know your missed-call number, the fixes price themselves. A full-time receptionist covers 38 hours a week for $55,000 or more a year. A traditional answering service takes messages but rarely books work. An AI receptionist like AIssie answers every call 24/7 from $199 a month, captures the details, books the job into your calendar and transfers genuine emergencies to you. For most small businesses, the cost of the fix is a fraction of the cost of the leak.
Estimates persuade nobody, including you. Our free missed call calculator on the AIssie website lets you enter your own call volume and job value and see your annual figure in under a minute. Whatever you decide to do about it, you should at least know the number.