What missed calls and no-shows cost you
A call that rings out and a customer who doesn't turn up are both jobs you had almost won. Put in your own numbers to see what they add up to over a year, and how much of it a text-back and a couple of reminders could bring back.
Lost each year
Could be won back each year
Want this fixed?
I set up missed-call text-backs, online booking, reminders and review requests for service businesses, on accounts you own and keep.
Reading the result
These are revenue figures, not profit. A missed £250 job doesn't cost you £250 of profit, because you'd have spent some of it on parts, fuel and time. It's still the right number to compare against the cost of fixing the problem, because it's the work you're turning away.
No-shows hurt more than they look. The slot was blocked, so you couldn't sell it to anyone else, and you often find out too late to fill it.
What actually brings the money back
- Text back every missed call, automatically. A message within a minute ("Sorry we missed you, you can book here") catches people before they ring the next business on the list.
- A booking link people can use without calling. On your website, your Google Business Profile and in that text. Plenty of customers would rather book than talk.
- Reminders before every appointment. A confirmation when they book, then a reminder the day before. Include a way to reschedule, so a no-show becomes a moved booking.
- A deposit for the slots that hurt most. For long or high-value jobs, a small deposit at booking does more than any reminder.
None of this needs new staff. It's a handful of automations that run in the background, the kind of thing a CRM set up around how the business actually works handles well.
Where the numbers come from
Everything except one figure is your own number, multiplied out over 52 weeks. You can see the sums under each result.
The 29% default for reminders comes from Hasvold and Wootton's 2011 systematic review of 29 studies. Across them, reminders cut missed appointments by 34% on average: 39% for reminder calls made by staff, and 29% for automated calls and texts. Those studies were in hospitals, so treat it as a sensible starting point for your business, not a promise.
The share of missed callers a text wins back has no reliable research behind it, so that one is yours to set. Figures like "85% of callers never ring back" are quoted everywhere, but I couldn't trace them to an actual study, so they aren't used here.
Keeping track of the people who do get in touch? The free lead tracker shows who's waiting for a follow-up and what your pipeline is worth.