The call that comes in while you're under the sink
The phone rings while you're under a sink or up a ladder. You can't pick up. The caller has other plumbers, electricians, and HVAC companies one search away, and by the time you call back they may have booked one of them. A missed call follow up is meant to fix that. It sends the caller a reply in the first few minutes.
How often home service calls go unanswered
No single number holds up, because the published counts disagree on what "answered" means.
- Invoca, a call-tracking company, reports that 52% of inbound home services calls were answered by a person. That leaves a bit under half that weren't answered. Leave out calls under 15 seconds and the answered share rises to 65%. Leave out calls under 30 seconds and it's 73%. Across nine home services sub-industries, including HVAC and plumbing, the answered share ran from 32% to 74%. Invoca says its figures are averages across its customers. It gives no date range and doesn't say what "answered" means.
- CallRail, another call-tracking company, says 28% of inbound calls go unanswered on average. It gives no sample, period, or definition.
Taken together, the published counts run from more than one missed call in four to nearly one in two. Most of that gap comes down to definitions. Does a call that went to voicemail count? What about a hang-up after a few seconds? Both companies sell call-tracking software. Invoca's figures come from its customers, not a national sample of trade businesses, and CallRail states no method, so treat both as rough.
Invoca also reports that 55% of home services businesses do not ask a lead to buy or book the job on the call. That's a follow-up gap, not a missed-call figure, but it points the same way. The call is only the first step.
What a missed call costs: the formula
None of the sources cited here measured what one missed call costs a plumbing, HVAC, or electrical company. The dollar figures going around are vendor models that assume a booking rate and an average job size. Build the estimate from your numbers:
- Missed calls per week
- times the share of those calls that were new jobs, not existing customers or wrong numbers
- times the share of new jobs you normally win
- times your average job value
For the first number, use a month of your call log. What comes out is your number, not an industry average.
Does a fast reply win more jobs?
One study of lead response points toward yes; a second found most companies respond too slowly. Both come with a limit that matters if you run a trade business.
- A 2007 Lead Response Management study from InsideSales.com covered over 15,000 web-generated leads and over 100,000 call attempts across six companies. In the first hour, the odds of reaching a lead fell more than tenfold, and the odds of qualifying one fell more than sixfold. InsideSales.com sells sales software, the study was presented at a marketing summit and wasn't peer reviewed, and it says it did not look at close ratios.
- A 2011 Harvard Business Review article, "The Short Life of Online Sales Leads" by Oldroyd, McElheran, and Elkington, found that most companies aren't responding to online leads nearly fast enough (BYU ScholarsArchive record).
Both studies looked at sales reps calling people who filled out a web form. Neither looked at inbound calls to a trade business, or at a text sent after a missed call. In web-form studies, faster first contact goes with more qualified leads. These studies don't say how much that matters for a plumber.
What a missed call follow up does after a call goes unanswered
Not every product works the same way. A missed call text back product replies to the caller by text. A voice product answers the call itself. CallRail's Voice Assist is the second kind: CallRail describes it as answering calls, taking messages, recognizing urgency, booking through a calendar, and transferring urgent calls with context.
TGC's Missed-Call Follow-Up page describes a narrower build. For a business that loses work when calls go unanswered, TGC could build a sorter that reads each message a caller leaves, during business hours or after them. The caller would get a reply within minutes:
- A text would be one message about the caller's message, naming your business, with a way to opt out and no promotion. A reply by email is also described.
- The reply would carry a booking link, so the caller can pick a time that lands on your calendar.
- Common questions, like hours, prices, and directions, would be answered from rules you supply.
- Urgent or sensitive messages, and anything the system can't answer, would go to someone on your team right away, with a summary of what the caller said.
The trigger is a message the caller leaves, not every unanswered ring. The page describes one text with a booking link, not a back-and-forth conversation by text, and it says nothing about answering calls by voice. A product that does those things is a different product.
What it should not do on its own
An automated reply works inside the rules you set, and some situations fall outside any rule.
- Emergencies. A smell of gas, carbon monoxide, a fire, or flooding isn't a booking-link situation. Those messages need a person right away, and the caller needs emergency services or the utility, not a calendar. An automated reply should not handle one alone. PHMSA's pipeline leak guidance covers what to do about a suspected gas leak. TGC's page says urgent messages go to someone on your team right away with a summary. Before launch, decide which situations count as urgent.
- Prices. On TGC's page, you supply the answers and the rules. A reply should repeat only prices you've approved. Anything else goes to a person.
- Diagnosis. TGC's page describes no diagnosis step. The reply should record what the caller said, not tell them what's wrong.
Is a missed call text back legal?
This section covers federal rules and one industry code only. State rules may also apply and aren't covered here, and none of it is legal advice. Talk to an attorney before you turn on any automated texting.
- Texts count as calls. The FCC's 2015 TCPA order (FCC 15-72) treats text messages as calls under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
- Consent. For autodialed, non-marketing texts, the same order requires prior express consent, with no required method. It repeats an earlier FCC position: people who knowingly give out their number have, absent instructions to the contrary, given permission to be called at it. It also says the scope of consent depends on the facts of each situation.
- The one-time reply rule fits loosely. The order says a single text sent right away in response to a consumer's request, with only the information requested and no marketing, doesn't violate the TCPA. It applies when the consumer asked for the text. Someone who phones a plumber and leaves a message didn't text a request, so don't assume that rule covers you. No source cited here settles whether a left message counts as consent to an informational text. That's a question for your attorney.
- Marketing is different. Marketing texts require prior express written consent under 47 CFR 64.1200. A reply that adds a promotion or an upsell moves into that category, and TGC's description of its text reply says no promotion.
- Opting out. Under the same FCC order, a consumer can revoke consent at any time by any reasonable means. The CTIA Messaging Principles and Best Practices is an industry code, not law, and carriers can add to it. It says senders should state the opt-out in the message, honor opt-out requests in normal language, and keep records of opt-ins and opt-outs.
- CTIA's consent tiers. CTIA treats consent as implied when a consumer starts a text exchange and the business only replies with relevant information. A phone call isn't a text exchange, and CTIA doesn't say whether a carrier would treat it as one.
- Registration. Business texting from a 10-digit local number has to be registered under A2P 10DLC. Twilio, a messaging provider, reports that unregistered messages sent from 10DLC numbers are blocked, and Twilio still charges its messaging rate for blocked messages. Check the current carrier and registry requirements before you set it up.
A text-back limited to one informational text that names the business, offers an opt-out, and carries no promotion still needs a lawyer's review before it goes live.
What you still handle
An automated reply doesn't replace the person who runs the business. According to TGC's page, you'd supply the answers and rules: what to say about hours, prices, and policies, and which messages always go to a person. You'd give access to the calendar your appointments already run through. And someone on your team would read the message summaries and fix what the system gets wrong.
The Missed-Call Follow-Up page shows what TGC builds for this. The page on AI for home and local services covers plumbers, electricians, contractors, and trades more broadly.
