Topic

What a missed call actually costs

The phone rings while you are under a sink, up a ladder, or three minutes into someone's haircut. You hear every ring. You let it go, because there is nothing else you can do with your hands full, and you tell yourself they will try again later.

Two numbers frame most of what follows. A 411 Locals study of 85 small businesses found 62 percent of calls went unanswered. The Numa Small Business Phone Report found 85 percent of callers who reach voicemail never call back. Together they describe a leak that shows up nowhere in your books, because a job you never heard about cannot be written down as a loss.

These pieces put scenes and arithmetic to that, one ring at a time. Answering the phone is one step of getting a customer, and it is the step where a good outbound email turns into a lost sale if nobody picks up when the buyer rings back.