How to estimate what missed calls are really costing your UK trades business — a practical formula using call volume, conversion rate and average job value, plus a seven-day tracking exercise.
Published 18 January 2026
Most trades owners know they miss calls. Far fewer have a real sense of what those missed calls add up to over a month — because the cost doesn't show up in your bank statement. It shows up as jobs that went to whoever answered first. Here's how to put a realistic number on it, without guessing.
A missed call isn't just a missed call. It's a missed opportunity to quote for a job — and in trades, those jobs are often high-value. A homeowner with a leaking roof doesn't leave a voicemail and wait. They hang up and call the next roofer on the list. The first business that answers usually gets the enquiry.
The cost isn't the call. It's the job the call would have become, multiplied by how often it happens.
You can estimate this in under a minute. Take your missed calls per month, multiply by the percentage that would have been genuine new-job enquiries, then by your conversion rate on those enquiries, then by your average job value.
The result is your potential missed revenue — not guaranteed lost money, but a realistic illustration of what's slipping through while you're on site.
Twenty missed calls a month. Say 80% are genuine enquiries (sixteen), you'd normally convert 30% of those (about five), and your average roofing job is worth £1,500. That's roughly £7,500 a month — £90,000 a year — in potential work you never even quoted for.
Fifteen missed calls. 90% genuine (thirteen), 25% conversion (about three), £600 average job. That's around £1,800 a month — £21,600 a year. Smaller per job, but it adds up quickly, and emergency call-outs often go to whoever answers first.
Be clear about the difference. The formula estimates potential revenue — the top-line value of jobs you didn't quote for. Your actual profit on that work would be lower, once materials, labour and overheads are accounted for. But the revenue figure is still the right number to track, because it's the income that never entered your pipeline in the first place.
When someone's boiler has stopped or their roof is leaking, urgency is high and patience is low. Research into lead response behaviour consistently shows that buyers contact multiple providers and tend to go with the first competent business that engages with them. A missed call isn't a deferred enquiry — for most high-urgency trade jobs, it's a lost one.
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