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The missed-call math

What a missed emergency call actually costs a shop your size

You already know you miss calls. Here is how to put a real number on it, in about a minute, with your own figures. No pitch on this page, just the math.

The industry picture
8 in 10
emergency callers will not leave a voicemail. they hang up and dial the next listing
75%+
of the work goes to the first shop that answers
2.3s
about how long a caller waits before moving on. in 2020 it was 8. the patience is gone
$50K
a year the average solo home-service operator loses to calls they never knew came in

These are industry averages for home-service calls, not Total Apptitude results, and not a promise about your shop. Your number is below, and you are about to compute it yourself.

The miss does not look like a miss. It looks like a quiet Tuesday. The caller does not leave a message, so there is nothing to return. The phone shows one missed ring, or nothing at all, and the job is on another shop's board before you are out from under the house. You cannot total up what never shows up.

Your number

Now run yours.

Whatever a real after-hours call runs in your trade. You know this number better than any chart.
After hours, on the tools, both. If you honestly do not know, that is the point of the next section. Most operators guess low.
3. Multiply, then multiply by 12:
$______a year

This runs entirely on your device. Nothing you type is saved, sent, or seen by anyone but you.

That last number is yours. Not an industry average, yours, from your own two inputs. If it is small, honestly, you may not need anything, including us. If it stung, keep reading.

The one thing most operators miss

That second number is almost always an undercount, because of the 8-in-10 figure above: most missed emergency calls never become voicemails, so they never become a number you can count. The only way to know your real one is to have something catch the calls for a while and show you.

That is what the 30-minute look is. We put a real picture on your line, what comes in, what slips, what it is worth, and we will tell you straight, even if the honest answer is that you do not miss enough calls to bother. Every setup carries the 30-day Capture Guarantee: at least 3 captured calls you would have missed in your first 30 days, or you pay nothing, the month and the setup both refunded.

Total Apptitude is a two-person Sacramento outfit. We answer the emergency calls solo trades operators cannot get to.