Every article says a missed call costs $1,200. Nobody knows why.

Search for what a missed call costs a small business and you will meet the same number everywhere. $1,200.

It is on dozens of company blogs. It is in sales emails. It is stated plainly, with no source, as though everyone already agreed.

We went looking for where it came from. We could not find it.

The other numbers have the same problem

That 27% of calls go unanswered. That 85% of people never leave a voicemail. That most small businesses miss 62% of their calls.

All quoted constantly. None of them traceable to a study you can open and read.

We are not saying they were invented. We are saying nobody can show you where they came from, and a number you cannot check is not evidence. It is decoration.

Why it matters who is telling you

Notice who repeats these. Almost always a company selling answering services, call software, or receptionist tools.

A big scary number is useful to them. It makes the monthly fee look small. That does not make it false, but it does mean nobody in the chain had any reason to check it.

Which is how a number ends up everywhere and nowhere at once.

Work out your own, in ten minutes

You need three numbers, and you already have all of them.

1. What a job is worth. Your average, after materials. Not your biggest job. Your normal one.
2. How often an enquiry becomes work. Out of ten people who ask, how many book? Guess honestly. Three or four is common.
3. How many you actually miss. Count for one week. Do not estimate this one, it is the number people get most wrong.

Multiply the three together. That is what a missed enquiry costs you.

Then take some of it back off

This is the step the scary articles skip, and it is the one that makes your number true.

Some of those people rang back. Some emailed as well. Some were selling you something. Some wanted a job you do not do. Some you could not have fitted in anyway.

A missed call is not the same as a lost customer. Treating them as identical is exactly how you get to $1,200.

What a real answer looks like

Something like: "I miss about six enquiries a week. Maybe two of those were real. I win about a third, and a job is worth £150 to me. So this is costing me around £100 a week."

That is smaller than $1,200 a call. It is also the first number in this whole subject you can actually act on.

Now you know what you can sensibly spend to fix it, and whether it is worth fixing at all.

A rule for the next article you read

If a number has no link, treat it as a slogan. If it has a link, click it, and check the number on that page is the number being quoted. Sometimes it is not.

If you want the counting part properly, here is the one-week version.

Written by the team at hailera — we help small businesses answer customer questions without being there.