What a missed call costs
a UK tradesperson.
A missed call costs the jobs you would have won from enquiries nobody answered in time. This cost per enquiry calculator turns three numbers you already know into that figure, in pounds and in jobs a month. Nothing is stored. The maths is open. The tool is free.
The typical invoice when a job actually goes ahead. Blended across small repairs and bigger refurbs.
Calls that rang out, forms left overnight, WhatsApp you didn't see. Be honest with yourself.
Your close rate on conversations you actually have. Most owners overestimate this.
About £11,366 a month,
walking out the door.
Over twelve months, that's £136,395.
Or roughly 3 jobs a month walking out.
Most of this is fixable.
Plugging this leak is the job we built our business around. When an enquiry lands, an agent trained on your firm replies within minutes, finds out what the job is, where and when, and passes it to your phone ready to book. Missed calls, WhatsApp, Facebook and web chat all land in the same inbox. One flat monthly, talked through on a 15-minute call.
No long contracts. No hard sell. If you're not happy with the build in the first 60 days, you get a full refund.
See how the system worksHow we worked this out
We took the enquiries you don't respond to in time, scaled them to a month, and applied your own close rate on the conversations you do have. The assumption: a missed enquiry, if you'd caught it in time, would convert at the same rate as the ones you handle today. It's conservative. Some research suggests the picked-up call is easier to win because the competitor never got a chance.
Monthly leak = missed enquiries / week × 4.33 × your close rate × average job value
Honest scope: the number above is your total leak across every channel. Which doors we switch on for your firm depends on how your work comes in, and we tell you before you pay a penny.
About the calculator
What does a missed call cost a UK tradesperson?
Whatever jobs you would have won from the enquiries nobody answered in time. There is no single national figure, because a boiler service and a renovation are not the same job. This calculator asks for your own missed enquiries a week, the share of conversations that become a job, and your average job value, then shows the monthly leak in pounds and in jobs. Nothing is stored.
How does this cost per enquiry calculator work?
You give it three numbers: how many enquiries you miss each week, how often a conversation you do have becomes a job, and what an average job is worth. It scales the missed enquiries to a month (× 4.33), applies your close rate, and shows the figure in pounds and in jobs. The assumption is that a missed enquiry, caught in time, would convert at the same rate as the ones you handle today. Nothing is stored and there is no email wall.
Why does a slow reply cost as much as a missed call?
Because the customer usually contacted two or three firms at once and books whoever answers first. An enquiry that sits unread from 9pm to the next morning is often already gone. The calculator treats late replies as partial losses rather than total ones, so the figure is a floor, not a scare number.
What does a UK tradesman actually miss in a month?
Every firm is different, which is why the calculator asks rather than assumes. From the firms we speak to, a one-to-ten-person trade business typically loses a handful of enquiries a week to unanswered calls, forms left till Monday and emails buried in a personal inbox. At a few hundred pounds a job that adds up to a wage; at renovation job sizes it is a season of work.
What can I do about it without hiring someone?
The cheapest fix is making sure every enquiry gets a reply within minutes even when you are on the tools: a text back to a missed call, an answer to the web form, and a brief on your phone so you ring the right ones back first. That is what Shoogly builds for trade firms. Book a 15-minute call and we run your own numbers through it.
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