The Missed-Call Revenue Index

Every unanswered ring is the sound of money leaving.

A modeled U.S. benchmark of the revenue home-service shops lose each year to unanswered phones — with the formula, the constants, and every source cited. Free to reference and quote.

• 62% of inbound calls to home-service businesses go unanswered. Source: ServiceTitan
• 62% of missed callers dial a competitor next. Source: 411 Locals
• 85% of callers who reach voicemail hang up silently. Source: Invoca / Dialzara

Methodology

The Index is a transparent, back-of-the-envelope model. It multiplies published, third-party benchmarks against a shop's own call volume and ticket size. Nothing is proprietary — you can rebuild it in a spreadsheet.

Formula: annual_leak = calls_per_week × 0.62 × 0.62 × revenue_per_call × 52

• 0.62 — share of inbound calls unanswered (ServiceTitan).
• 0.62 — share of missed callers who dial a competitor (411 Locals).
• 52 — weeks per year.

Sources

1. ServiceTitan — 62% of inbound calls to home-service businesses go unanswered. Used for: Missed-call rate benchmark for the trades.
2. 411 Locals — 62% of callers who reach voicemail or a busy line dial a competitor next. Used for: Competitor-dial rate after a missed call.
3. Invoca — 2024 Buyer Experience Benchmarks — Phone calls remain the highest-intent inbound channel for considered home-service purchases. Used for: Channel intent benchmark.
4. Dialzara — ≈85% of callers who reach voicemail hang up without leaving a message. Used for: Voicemail abandonment rate.
5. Harvard Business Review — Oldroyd, McElheran & Elkington (2011) — Firms responding within an hour were up to 7× more likely to qualify a lead. Used for: Speed-to-lead effect on conversion.
6. MIT / InsideSales — Lead Response Management Study — Odds of qualifying an inbound lead drop by ~2 orders of magnitude between 5-min and 30-min response. Used for: Response-time decay curve.