A missed call is not a lost job by itself. Some callers leave a message, some call back, some wanted a price and would have hung up anyway. The ones that cost money are the callers who reach voicemail and ring the next shop on the list. This guide shows how to count them from numbers you already have.
What a missed call costs: the arithmetic
Four numbers, all yours:
- Calls a week. Your phone bill or carrier app has the count. If you forward to a cell, count both lines.
- The share you miss. Rings that went to voicemail or rang out, divided by all rings. Most carrier apps show missed calls by day; after-hours ones are the easy part to count.
- The share of missed callers who book elsewhere. Nobody knows this exactly. Pick a number you believe, and then try a lower one; if the answer still covers the cost, the decision does not depend on the guess.
- Your average ticket. From your own invoices, not an industry table.
Jobs lost a month = calls a week × share missed × share who book elsewhere × 4.33 weeks. Revenue at risk = jobs lost × average ticket.
A worked example, labelled as one
Example, not a measurement. These numbers are chosen to show the arithmetic. Replace every one with your own.
| Input | Assumption |
|---|---|
| Calls a week | 40 |
| Share missed (after hours and while on jobs) | 25% |
| Share of missed callers who book elsewhere | 50% |
| Average ticket | $350 |
| Result | |
| Missed calls a week | 10 |
| Jobs lost a week | 5 |
| Jobs lost a month (× 4.33) | 21.6 |
| Revenue at risk a month | $7,578 |
Against that, Pickwick's After-hours & overflow plan is $149 a month for 600 minutes. In the example, one caught job pays for the month and the rest is margin. If your own numbers come out under $149, Pickwick is not worth it for you yet, and we would rather you knew that now.
Run your own numbers on the missed-call calculator; it shows the same arithmetic with every step visible.
Where the outside figures come from
Two published figures are useful for a sanity check, with their sources and dates. Neither replaces your own numbers.
- A typical air-conditioner repair is quoted at about $375 to $431 by two cost guides (Fixr and Thumbtack, both read 1 October 2026). If your ticket is far from that, trust your invoices.
- After-hours calls are a larger share of HVAC calls in summer: 14.1% of calls in June against 9.8% in October, in one field-service platform's analysis of its own customers' call data (State of the Trades, 3 June 2026). Your after-hours share is in your own call log.
What a missed call is not
- A caller who asked a price and hung up is not a lost job, whoever answered.
- A robocall is not a missed call; your log will have some.
- A customer who left a message and got a callback by 8 am is a kept job. The cost is in the ones who did not leave one.
How Pickwick changes the count
Forward after hours or on no answer, and the ring that would have gone to voicemail is answered, the caller is told it is automated, the problem and address are taken and read back, and a window is penciled in for you to approve. The dashboard then shows every call that was answered and every one that was not, so after two weeks you are judging on your own log, not on this page. See how a call goes and the HVAC answering service page.