Nobody counts the calls they do not answer. Yet the phone is still the channel most customers use to book. Here we do a simple calculation with conservative numbers and give you the formula to rerun it with your own.
How many calls a small business misses
A two-chair salon receives on average 15 to 30 calls a day. Industry research on small businesses indicates that 20 to 40 percent of incoming calls go unanswered: busy hands, customer at the till, lunch break, closing day.
Take the low end: 20 calls a day, 25 percent missed, 26 working days. That is 130 unanswered calls a month.
How many call back
Most people who call to book and get no answer leave no message and do not call back: they call the next result on Google Maps. The most conservative estimates say at least a third of missed calls is a customer booking somewhere else.
Out of 130 missed calls, 43 customers a month end up with a competitor. Even if only half were real bookings, that is 20 appointments a month.
What they are worth
An average salon ticket is 35 to 60 euros; a physiotherapy session 50 to 80 euros; a restaurant table 25 to 40 euros per person. With 20 lost appointments a month and an average ticket of 45 euros, 900 euros of revenue go missing every month. More than 10,000 euros a year, without counting that a happy new customer comes back.
The formula: calls per day x percentage missed x working days x share booking elsewhere x average ticket.
The alternatives and what they cost
A part-time receptionist costs 900 to 1,300 euros gross per month and covers only some hours. A classic answering machine is cheap but does not book: people hang up. An outsourced call centre costs 1 to 2 euros per call and does not know your price list.
An AI phone receptionist like Rispondly costs 69.99 euros a month, always answers, knows your services and sends the booking to WhatsApp. If it recovers even two appointments a month, it has paid for itself.
How to measure your own missed calls
Your phone's call log shows missed calls: count them for a week. If you have a PBX or a landline with a customer area, the incoming call detail is there. Multiply by four and you have the monthly figure.
For the exact measure, switch on Rispondly for a free month: the panel shows every call answered, every booking taken and every message collected.