Nobody misses calls on purpose
You miss them because you are under a sink, up a ladder, driving, or standing in front of another customer. The phone rings at the worst possible moment because the moments you are busy are the moments you are earning.
The mistake is assuming they will ring back
Between eighty and eighty six percent of people who hit voicemail hang up without leaving a message, and roughly three quarters of them ring a competitor instead. A missed call is not a delayed job. Most of the time it is a job somebody else did.
Do the sum
Unanswered calls in a week, times the share that would have become work, times the value of that work, times four point three. That is your monthly number. Be conservative on every input and it will still be uncomfortable.
A worked example
Five missed calls a week. Two of them would have booked. Four hundred dollars a job. That is about three thousand four hundred dollars a month walking to whoever picked up. Change any of those inputs to suit your business and the shape of the answer rarely changes.
What to do about it
Answer more of them, or have something answer for you. Voicemail is not the third option, because the data says people do not use it. The only real question is whether the cost of covering the phone is less than the cost of not covering it, and for most trade businesses it is not close.