Your phone rings. You’re halfway through a job. You look at it. Unknown number.

You can’t answer right now, so you let it ring. You’ll call them back later. Nothing wrong with that.

Except there’s one problem.

They might not be waiting for you to call back.

Think like the customer

Imagine you’ve got water coming through the ceiling.

Or your boiler has stopped working.

Or you need an electrician.

You search online.

You find a local business and call them.

No answer.

What do you do?

Some people will leave a voicemail.

Some will wait for a callback.

But plenty will go back to Google and call the next number.

And if that tradesman answers?

They might get the job.

It’s not personal.

The customer needed something and somebody else was available.

You’re not ignoring customers

This is the frustrating part.

Most tradesmen aren’t missing calls because they can’t be bothered answering.

They’re working.

You might be underneath a sink.

Up a ladder.

Using power tools.

Speaking to another customer.

Driving.

Covered in plaster.

There are plenty of situations where answering a phone isn’t practical or safe.

But the person calling doesn’t know any of that.

All they know is:

Nobody answered.

“They’ll leave a voicemail if it’s important”

Maybe.

But not everybody does.

And even when they do, you’ve still got another job waiting for you.

Listen to the voicemail.

Write down the details.

Call them back.

Find out what they need.

Check the diary.

Arrange the job.

Then add it to whatever system you’re using to keep track of everything.

The phone ringing for 30 seconds can create ten minutes of work later.

Multiply that across several calls every day and it adds up.

Your voicemail is competing with someone else’s hello

There’s nothing wrong with voicemail.

But think about the customer’s experience.

Business one:

“Your call has been forwarded to voicemail…”

Business two:

“Good afternoon, Smith Plumbing. How can I help?”

Which feels easier for the customer?

That doesn’t mean every business needs a receptionist.

But it does explain why getting calls answered can matter.

The first person to answer shouldn’t automatically get the job

There is another side to this.

Being first doesn’t mean being best.

Customers care about reviews, reputation, quality, price and whether they trust the person they’re hiring.

A customer isn’t necessarily going to choose another tradesman purely because you didn’t answer within three rings.

We don’t think businesses should panic every time they miss a phone call.

But if you’re regularly missing new enquiries and struggling to call people back, it’s worth paying attention to.

One missed call might mean nothing.

Twenty missed calls every month is a different conversation.

How much could a missed call actually be worth?

That depends entirely on your trade.

A missed enquiry could have been someone wanting a £70 repair.

It could also have been the first conversation about a £10,000 project.

You don’t know.

And that’s the problem.

You can’t calculate the exact value of every unanswered call because you often don’t know what the person wanted.

But you can start keeping track.

For a month, look at:

How many business calls did you miss?

How many left a voicemail?

How many did you successfully call back?

How many became jobs?

You might discover missed calls aren’t really a problem for your business.

Or you might discover you’re losing more opportunities than you realised.

Don’t answer your phone at the expense of the customer in front of you

There’s another thing we think matters.

You’ve already got a customer paying you to be there.

Constantly stopping their job to answer every incoming call isn’t necessarily great customer service either.

Imagine paying someone to work in your home and watching them spend half the afternoon on their phone.

You need a balance.

The customer calling matters.

So does the customer you’ve already got.

So what’s the answer?

For some tradesmen, voicemail and returning calls later works perfectly well.

If that’s you, don’t fix something that isn’t broken.

For others, there are options.

You could set aside specific times to return calls.

Use automated messages to set expectations.

Have somebody in the business handle enquiries.

Use a call answering service.

Or outsource more of the customer communication and admin.

What matters is having a system.

Because:

“I’ll try to remember to call everyone back tonight”

isn’t much of a system.

Answering the Call Is Only Half the Problem

This is where we’d go one step further.

Someone answering:

“I’ll take your details and get him to call you back.”

is useful.

But you’ve still got another call to make.

What if the person answering already understands your business?

What if they can find out what the customer needs?

Check where they’re based?

Take the right information?

And, where appropriate, book them into your diary?

Now you’re not just answering a telephone.

You’re dealing with an enquiry.

That’s the difference.

Your Customers Should Feel Like They’ve Reached Your Business

At Toucan Do Business, we’re not an AI receptionist and we’re not a massive call centre.

We’re a small human team that can get to know your business and your customers.

The aim isn’t for somebody to answer your phone and create another message for you to deal with later.

It’s to help keep the office side of your business moving while you’re on the tools.

So the next time your phone rings while your hands are full, you don’t have to choose between the job you’re doing and the job that might be calling.

Fancy a Brew? ☕

Come and have a chat with us.