Counting them honestly
Open your recent calls. Look for incoming calls with no matching outgoing call to that number afterwards — those are the ones nobody got back to. Count one full week, including the weekend.
Almost everyone guesses low, usually by half, because the calls that go unanswered are precisely the ones you were too busy to notice. The count is worth doing rather than estimating.
While you are in there, note how many of those left a voicemail. It is usually a small fraction. A missed call with no voicemail looks exactly like nothing happened — but somebody was trying to give you money.
What one call is worth
Take the average value of one job, visit, or ticket — before costs, since we are comparing revenue to revenue. Then take the share of new callers who actually book when they reach you. If half the people who get through end up buying, then each missed call is worth half a job.
Multiply: missed calls a week, times that share, times the value of one job, times fifty-two. That figure is not a marketing statistic. It is your own arithmetic, and it is usually larger than any other number on the page.
The reason it stays hidden is that nothing bills you for it. No invoice arrives for the customer who called the next plumber on the list.
What actually catches them
Calling everyone back at the end of the day catches some, but the decision has usually been made by then — most people call two or three businesses and go with whoever answers.
An automatic text sent within about a minute — "sorry we missed you, what do you need?" — lands while they are still deciding, and it does not require you to stop working. An assistant behind that text can answer hours, ballpark pricing, and availability, take the job details, and hand you a person who is ready to book.
It will not catch all of them. Anybody who promises a specific recovery rate for your business is guessing. That is exactly why the calculator makes the recovery rate a slider you set, and why the first month of Front Desk is free — so the number gets tested on your real callers before you pay for it.
Last updated 2026-07-26