Voicemail vs text-back: a head-to-head test

We split 4,200 missed calls and either left a voicemail or sent a text. The text won by a wide margin.

For a three-month test we randomly assigned every missed call from our pilot shops into two buckets: either the owner left a voicemail when the customer didn't pick up the callback, or the system sent a templated text instead. Same callback timing, same script.

Results

Voicemail callback to booking: 18%
Text callback to booking: 47%
Time-to-first-reply: voicemail 4h 22m, text 11m

The conclusion writes itself. Text. Always. Voicemail is where conversations go to die.