What a missed call actually costs a local business

Most owners think of a missed call as a minor annoyance. Run the arithmetic on a single week and it stops looking minor.

A missed call is rarely a customer who calls back. It's a customer who calls the next business on the search results page, and the one after that if they have to.

The arithmetic is uncomfortable. If your average job is worth $400 and you miss four calls a week, half of which would have booked, that's roughly $800 a week walking out the door — before you've spent a dollar on advertising to replace them.

The fix isn't hiring a receptionist. It's making sure something answers, captures the details, and gets them back to you before the caller has moved on.