- Most callers who don't get through won't leave a voicemail. Many call the next business instead.
- Three numbers you already know will tell you what missed calls cost you.
- An instant text from your business number keeps the conversation alive until you can call back.
- Keep the automatic reply helpful, and leave the sales offers out of it.
Why calls get missed
Missed calls in the trades usually aren't neglect. You're on a roof, under a sink, driving between jobs or already on the phone with another customer. The office is at lunch, or it's 7 p.m. and the furnace just quit.
The person calling usually isn't waiting by the phone for you. They have a list.
What callers do next
In a 2025 CallRail survey, 82% of consumers said they'll call a competitor if a business doesn't answer, and 21% said they call another business immediately. Only 42% said they leave a voicemail. (CallRail consumer survey, 1,000 US consumers, September 2025)
So voicemail catches fewer than half of the people who call and don't get through. The rest leave nothing to call back, and you may never know they tried.
Work out your own number
You don't need an industry average. Three numbers from your own business will do.
- Missed calls a week. Your phone system's call log will show them, or keep a tally for one week.
- How many of those callers usually book. Think about new customers, not your supplier or a robocall.
- What an average job is worth.
A worked example, not a forecast
Say you miss 8 calls a week. Half are new customers, and a third of those would normally book. That's about 1.3 jobs a week. At an average job of $450, it's roughly $600 a week, or over $30,000 a year, from calls you never heard about.
Your numbers will be different. The point is to know them. And the real cost is higher than one job: a customer who books a furnace repair today may call you for the replacement, the air conditioner and the water heater over the next ten years.
Four ways to catch missed calls
- Answer more calls. Forward the line to a mobile after hours and share phone duty. This works until the person holding the phone is the one on the roof.
- Use an answering service. A person answers around the clock. Coverage is good, but you pay per call or per month, and they'll know less about your work than you do.
- Improve your voicemail greeting. It's free. Say when you'll call back and that callers can text the same number. It still depends on them leaving a message.
- Text back automatically. When a call goes unanswered, the caller gets a text from your business number within seconds. They can reply with what they need, and you pick it up as soon as you're free.
The last one has an advantage the others don't: the conversation continues even when nobody can talk. The customer explains the problem by text, sends a photo, and gets an answer between your jobs.
How text-back works on a landline
On most business landlines, missed-call text-back uses a phone-company feature called conditional call forwarding. You switch it on with a short code on your office phone. When a call rings three or four times without an answer, or the line is busy, your phone company forwards just that call to the text-back service, which texts the caller. Calls you answer are never touched.
For the text to come from your own number, your landline has to be text-enabled first. Our guide to texting from your business landline explains how that works.
What the text should say
Keep it short, friendly and clear about who you are.
An example you can adapt
"Hi, it's [your business]. Sorry we missed your call, we're on a job right now. Reply here with what you need and we'll get right back to you. Reply STOP to opt out."
- Say who you are. The caller may have dialled three businesses.
- Make a promise you can keep. "We'll get right back to you" only works if somebody does.
- Leave the promotions out. A reply to someone who just called you is an answer to their question. Add a sales offer and it becomes marketing, which has stricter consent rules in Canada.
Then call them back
A text-back buys you time. It doesn't replace a real reply. Set a simple rule, such as every missed caller hears from a person within the hour during business hours, and make it someone's job.
Put this to work
Missed Call Text-Back is a Traction accelerator component, at C$57/mo. Start with Traction's 30-day free trial and add it when you're ready.
This article is general information for business owners, not legal advice. Survey figures are US consumer research where noted; we are not aware of equivalent published Canadian surveys and do not present them as Canadian data.