Estimates

What missed calls really cost a estimating business

A missed call in estimating is not a missed call. It is a customer who rang the next company on the list and got an answer.

Work out your own number rather than trusting a statistic. Take what a estimating customer is worth to you across a season — the estimates, the renewals, the referrals — and multiply it by the calls you did not pick up last week. Most owners land on a figure that is larger than their truck payment, and they land on it in under a minute.

The calls you miss are not random either. They cluster exactly where you cannot answer: mid-morning when you are on a property, late afternoon when you are driving, and evenings when someone finally sits down and deals with somebody who wants a price before they will book.

Voicemail does not rescue it. Homeowners calling about estimating are usually calling two or three companies in the same sitting, and the one that answers gets the job. A message left at 7pm competes with a person who picked up at 7pm.

The fix is not working longer. It is having someone — or something — that answers in your voice, knows your services and prices, and books the estimate straight into the route while the customer is still on the line.