The real cost of a missed service call
A single missed after-hours plumbing call is worth $312 on average. Here's how we measured it across 1,400 jobs.
We pulled six months of call logs and matched outcomes (job booked, job lost, customer never called back) to ticket sizes from our pilot shops. Here's what one ring of voicemail actually costs.
Average ticket by trade
- Drain clear: $312
- Water heater service: $480
- AC diagnostic + repair: $680
- Panel upgrade lead: $2,450
- Roof repair: $5,200+
Multiply by the 8-15 after-hours calls a busy plumbing shop misses each week and the number gets uncomfortable fast. The shops with the worst leakage weren't small - they were the ones growing fastest, where the owner stopped picking up because the daytime queue was already full.
Voicemail is not the answer
Callers under 40 leave voicemail roughly 8% of the time. Callers over 60 leave it about 22% of the time. Neither number is enough to recover the lost revenue. The only thing that consistently saves a call is a live human - or something that sounds like one.