TelaKomieEvery service business misses calls. You are on the tools, with a patient, mid-colour, or closed for the night. The question is not whether you miss calls, but what they are worth.
You will see a lot of confident statistics about missed calls online. Many of them are hard to trace back to any real study. So instead of handing you a headline number, this guide gives you a way to estimate your own, and points to the published research that does exist, with its limits.
Start with your own numbers
The most reliable figures are the ones from your own phone. Most phone systems and mobile carriers can show you how many calls came in and how many went unanswered over a week or a month. If yours cannot, keep a tally for two typical weeks.
You need four numbers:
- How many calls you get in a typical week.
- What share of those go unanswered (from your call log or tally).
- Of the unanswered calls, roughly what share were people who wanted to book or buy, rather than suppliers, spam or existing customers with a quick question.
- Your average booking or job value.
The calculation
Multiply them together: calls per week, times the share unanswered, times the share that would have booked, times your average booking value. Then multiply by about 4.33 to turn a week into a month.
Here is a worked example using made-up numbers, purely to show the method. Say a salon gets 40 calls a week, misses 10 of them (a quarter), and half of those missed callers wanted to book. With an average booking of $120, that is 40 x 0.25 x 0.5 x $120 = $600 a week, or about $2,600 a month.
Your numbers will be different. The point of the exercise is to replace a vague feeling with a figure you can weigh against the cost of answering those calls.
Not every missed call is a lost customer
Some callers leave a voicemail or try again. Some were never going to book. Be honest with your estimate, and if you are unsure, use a lower share for "would have booked". A conservative number you believe is more useful than a big one you do not.
It also helps to think beyond the first booking. A new client who books a regular appointment, or a customer who calls you again next year, is worth more than one job.
What the published research says
There is very little independent, Australian research on missed calls in small businesses. Most published figures come from US companies that sell call tracking or phone software, so treat them as indicative rather than definitive.
Invoca, a US call tracking company, analysed calls to home services businesses in its 2026 benchmarks report and found that 52% of callers spoke with a person. Answer rates varied widely by trade in that data. These are US businesses that use call tracking, which may not reflect a small Australian business.
On what callers do next, CallRail, another US software company, surveyed 1,000 US consumers in 2025. When a business did not answer, 42% said they leave a voicemail and 21% said they immediately call another business. That is what people say they do, not observed behaviour, but it supports the common-sense view that an unanswered call is often a call that goes elsewhere.
Ways to stop losing those calls
Once you have a monthly figure, compare it with the options for answering more calls:
- Answer more yourself: free, but it interrupts the paid work in front of you.
- Divert to a mobile: helps if someone is free to pick up, which is often the problem in the first place.
- Hire or roster a receptionist: the most personal option, and the most expensive. Our comparison guide sets out the costs with sources.
- Use a call answering service: a person takes a message, and you call back.
- Use a digital receptionist: TelaKomie's Lily answers every call and text, books into your diary and confirms by SMS, 24/7, from $99 plus GST a month.
Try the numbers on your own business
The homepage has a quick missed-call estimator that runs the same calculation with typical ranges. For a real answer, use your own call log. If the monthly figure is more than the cost of answering those calls, it is worth fixing. See pricing, or read how Lily works for tradies, clinics and salons.