Dear Business Owner,
In an ideal world you would answer every call, sound vibrant, and make your customers feel warm and looked after.
But if you are doing your job properly you are growing, and keeping that up becomes impossible.
Back in the day when I worked in local transport, the team answered inside three rings.
Miss a call and you missed the booking.
We were smashed with hundreds of calls a day.
Miss ten and that was $300 to $1,000 gone. Just like that.
Do the maths.
Ten missed calls a day equals $1,500 to $5,000 in a week.
Over a year that becomes tens of thousands.
OMG.
To a florist it might be a bouquet today, or a wedding worth a couple of grand, or a funeral where people never question the price, they just nod politely through the tears.
Every missed call hurts a little more once you picture it.
To a plumber it might be an emergency call out at $250 to $400 or a bathroom reno worth $12,000 to $30,000.
And you just know they are kicking themselves when that call goes unanswered.
To a restaurant a missed table of four at $40 to $50 per head is $160 to $200.
And that is before we hit the whisky sours.
Miss a few of those a week and you have just paid for someone’s Bali trip.
To a vet they are just expensive as f***.
A consult starts around $90 and if your dog sneezes weirdly, suddenly it is $600 and a new credit card limit.
Miss one of those calls and you really feel it.
Big operators know this.
They build systems and support so no call goes unanswered.
Most small teams have not done that maths yet.
You are busy serving customers while the phone lights up again in the background.
Every missed call is not just a ring.
It is a customer, a repeat job, a review, a referral.
Once you see it you never unsee it.