What a missed call actually costs a roofing company
Every vendor in this category will do this arithmetic for you, and most will do it dishonestly. Here it is with the assumptions visible.
By Pierce Mason ·
Start with what the lead cost you
Not zero. If it came from Angi, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack or Google Local Services, you know the number per lead. If it came from your own advertising, divide last month’s spend by the leads it produced. If it came from a referral, it still cost you the years of reputation that produced it.
Then the part people skip: you only lose the ones you would have won
A missed call is not a lost job. It is a lost chance at a job. If you close one in four of the leads you actually speak to, then four missed calls cost you roughly one job, not four. Any vendor multiplying every missed call by your full job value is selling you a number, not a fact.
The honest formula
Missed calls per month, multiplied by your close rate on contacted leads, multiplied by your average job value. That is revenue, not profit. Your margin on it is a separate and smaller number. If a calculator does not show you that distinction, be suspicious of it.
The number most contractors do not have
How many calls they actually miss. Not the ones they know about. Your phone system has this data and almost nobody looks at it. Pull last month’s call log and count inbound calls with a duration under ten seconds, plus everything that went to voicemail outside hours.
Why it compounds in storm weeks
Miss rate is not constant. It is near zero on a slow Tuesday and worst during exactly the two days a hail event sends you a month of leads at once. Your annual average hides the fact that the losses cluster where the money is.
Related
The calculator
Same arithmetic, with your figures.
Storm surges
Why miss rate spikes when it costs most.
After-hours leads
Where the overnight ones go.
Want to see what your own response time looks like?
No sales call needed. Watch one run, then decide.