39% of midday calls to East Coast roofers went to voicemail. Not one was answered by AI.
Research by Legacy Business Partners. Published November 2026. Calls made November 11, 2026, between 12 and 3 pm.
We called 44 East Coast roofing and exterior companies between 12 and 3 pm on November 11, 2026. 17 of them (39%) sent the call to voicemail, and not one call was answered by an AI receptionist or an answering service. A live person answered the other 27 (61%).
- 39% went to voicemail (17 of 44)
- 0 answered by an AI receptionist or answering service (0 of 44)
- 61% answered by a live person (27 of 44)
Results
| Outcome | Calls | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Voicemail | 17 | 39% |
| AI receptionist or answering service | 0 | 0% |
| Live person answered | 27 | 61% |
The result holds when the adjacent trades are removed. Among the 29 companies tagged as roofers, 18 answered (62%) and 11 went to voicemail (38%). No call was answered by an AI receptionist or an identified answering service.
By shop size
Shop size did not predict who answered.
| Employees | Called | Live person | Voicemail |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 10 | 13 | 8 (62%) | 5 (38%) |
| 11 to 25 | 16 | 9 (56%) | 7 (44%) |
| 26 to 49 | 15 | 10 (67%) | 5 (33%) |
Each group is only 13 to 16 calls. Read this as a direction, not a rate.
Answered is not the same as handled
None of the 27 answered calls reached the owner, and 13 were redirected somewhere else.
| What happened after someone picked up | Calls |
|---|---|
| “Send an email” | 7 |
| Hung up without responding | 7 |
| “Not interested” | 6 |
| Took a message or a callback number | 4 |
| Tried to transfer; the transfer went to voicemail | 2 |
| Said the owner was unavailable and ended the call | 1 |
These were outreach calls asking for the owner, so a brush-off says nothing about how the same office treats a homeowner with a leak. The two transfers are different. In both, a person answered, tried to pass the call along, and it landed in a voicemail box.
What it means
Our reading
Every answered call cost a person's time, and when no person was free the call went to a mailbox. None of the companies we reached had anything picking up the overflow. Our reading: these offices are spending staff time on the phone and still losing four callers in ten. Roofers could be getting more out of the staff they already have.
How the test was run
- Sample: 44 East Coast companies with under 50 employees, across 10 states. 29 are tagged as roofers; 15 are adjacent trades that do roofing-related work (exteriors, restoration, general contracting, skylights).
- The list leans Southeast: Florida (12) and Georgia (8) make up 20 of the 44.
- One call per company to the listed number, on November 11, 2026, between 12 and 3 pm.
- One caller logged each outcome in plain words. Notes were sorted into two outcomes afterward.
- Six further numbers on the call list did not connect when dialed and are excluded.
- No business or person is named.
Limits of this test
- The calls were made between 12 and 3 pm, likely the weakest stretch for a staffed office. The result does not describe the whole day.
- One attempt per company.
- Calls came from a number the business would not recognize. A new customer is also an unrecognized number, so the experience is comparable but not identical.
- 15 of the 44 are adjacent trades. The roofer-only figures are given above and tell the same story.
- Seven of the numbers are toll-free and two carry an out-of-state area code, so some may not be the line a local customer would dial.
- Outcomes come from one caller's written notes, not reviewed recordings.
- This is a 44-call snapshot, not an industry rate.
Check your own shop
- Call your main line from a phone your office will not recognize.
- If someone answers, say you have a leak and ask for an inspection. Note whether they can book it, or whether you get a message pad, an email address or a transfer.
- If you are transferred, stay on the line and see where you land.
- If no one answers, leave a voicemail and time how long the callback takes.
About this research
This test was run by Legacy Business Partners, the company behind Keystone. Disclosure: Keystone sells call answering, so we have a commercial interest in this topic. That is why the method, sample and limits are stated in full, and why every figure is a count from our own call log.
Legacy Business Partners, "The Missed-Call Test: 44 East Coast Roofing Companies," Keystone, November 2026. https://keystoneapp.io/research/roofing-missed-call-test
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