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Local Voice research
69% of Missed Business Calls Never Get a Callback: What Each One Costs, by Trade
Quo found 69% of missed business calls go unreturned within 48 hours. See what one missed call is worth by trade, from $92 to $20,465.
By Adam Brewer, founder of Local Voice. Figures checked October 10, 2026.
69% of missed business calls got no callback within 48 hours, according to Quo's August 2026 analysis of 16.7 million missed calls. Only 31% got a callback at all.
Run that through published booking rates and Angi's 2026 job costs. One missed call then puts about $92 of business at stake for an HVAC repair shop and $8,380 for a kitchen remodeler. At a typical plumbing shop, about every 3.4 missed calls is one lost job.
Every figure was checked at its source on October 10, 2026. Derived figures are marked as Local Voice calculations, with the math shown in the methodology.
Key findings
69% of missed business calls got no callback within 48 hours in Quo's 2026 analysis of 16.7 million missed calls. Only 31% got a callback at all.
Across the industries Quo reported, 59% to 79% of missed calls went unreturned. Quo did not report home services on its own.
One missed call puts about $92 of business at stake for HVAC repair and about $20,465 for an in-ground pool build, using Angi's 2026 job costs (Local Voice calculation).
At ServiceTitan's 43% plumbing booking rate, about every 3.4 missed calls is one lost job. At the 24% rate for shops with fewer than 5 techs, it takes about 6 (Local Voice calculation).
A plumbing shop that misses 30 calls a month puts about $12,132 of water heater work at stake each month, or $145,584 a year (Local Voice calculation).
How many missed business calls get a callback?
Fewer than a third. Quo, the business phone company formerly called OpenPhone, analyzed 16.7 million missed calls logged by its customers over three months and published the results on August 20, 2026. 69% got no callback within 48 hours. Quo counted any outbound call to the caller's number in that window as a callback.
Only 31% of missed calls got a callback at all. Quo reports that nearly all of those came within 24 hours.
The rate moved by industry. Healthcare businesses returned the most missed calls, at 41%. Non-profits returned the fewest, at 21%. Professional services (33%) and consumer goods (22%) fell in between. Quo did not report home services separately, so this post uses the 69% average and shows the 59% to 79% range beside it.
Two limits apply. Every call in the study came through one company's phone system. A business paying for a business phone line may handle calls better than a shop running off a personal cell. Quo also didn't publish which three months it studied.
What one missed call is worth, by trade
One missed call puts between $92 and $20,465 of business at stake, depending on the job. Local Voice calculated each figure the same way. Start with the 69% of missed calls that go unreturned (Quo). Multiply by the share of calls the trade turns into booked jobs (ServiceTitan or Invoca). Then multiply by Angi's 2026 national average cost for the job.
Figure 1. One missed call puts $92 at stake for an HVAC repair shop and $20,465 for a pool builder
Value of business at stake per missed call, by job type. Angi 2026 national average job costs.
For pools, remodels and roofs, a booked call is usually an estimate visit, not a signed contract.
Source: Local Voice calculation. 69% unreturned (Quo, 2026) × booking rate (ServiceTitan, 2022; Invoca, 2026) × Angi 2026 national average job cost.
An HVAC repair shop that misses a call risks a $350 ticket, Angi's 2026 average for the job. A pool builder risks a $65,909 project. By this math, one missed call on a pool build carries as much value as more than 220 missed HVAC repair calls.
Table 1. Value of business at stake per missed call, by job type (Local Voice calculation)
Booking rates: ServiceTitan (2022) for HVAC (38%) and plumbing (43%). Invoca (2026) home services (45% of leads converting on the call) for pools, remodels and roofs, which ServiceTitan doesn't break out. Range: the same math at 59% and 79% unreturned, the low and high ends Quo (2026) reported across industries. Small shop: ServiceTitan's 24% booking rate for shops with fewer than 5 techs. Job values: Angi cost guides (2026).
Read the project rows with one caution. For a pool, a remodel or a roof, a booked call usually means an estimate visit, not a signed contract. We couldn't find a published close rate for these trades that we could verify, so the table doesn't subtract one. If you close half of your estimates, cut those rows in half.
How many missed calls add up to one lost job
At a typical plumbing shop, about every 3.4 missed calls is one lost job. At a shop with fewer than 5 techs, it's about every 6. The formula is 1 ÷ (69% × booking rate), using ServiceTitan's 2022 booking rates.
Figure 2. Out of 100 missed calls, 69 get no callback within 48 hours and about 30 would have been jobs at a typical plumbing shop
What happens to 100 missed calls, at a typical plumbing shop and at a shop with fewer than 5 techs.
Source: Local Voice calculation. 69% unreturned (Quo, 2026) × booking rate (ServiceTitan, 2022). Rounded to whole calls and jobs.
Table 2. Missed calls per lost job, by booking rate (Local Voice calculation)
Booking rates from ServiceTitan (2022), except home services from Invoca (2026). Assumes 69% of missed calls go unreturned (Quo, 2026).
Larger shops lose more jobs per missed call because they book more of the calls they answer. ServiceTitan found shops with 25 or more techs booked 59% of calls in 2022, against 24% for shops under 5. That cuts both ways for a small shop. Train whoever answers the phone and your booking rate can climb. So does the cost of every call you miss.
How to work out your own number
Multiply four numbers. Three come from your own records, and the fourth is Quo's 69% until you have your own.
Missed calls per month × 69% unreturned × your booking rate × your average ticket = business at stake per month
A plumbing shop misses 30 calls this month.
30 × 69% = 21 calls never returned (20.7, rounded).
21 × 43% plumbing booking rate = 9 lost jobs (9.03, rounded).
9 × $1,348 water heater replacement = $12,132 a month, or $145,584 a year.
At the 24% small-shop rate, the same 21 calls make 5 jobs and $6,740 a month.
Where to find each input:
Missed calls. Your carrier, VoIP dashboard or call-tracking tool lists them. Count 30 days, and note how many came after 6 p.m. or on weekends.
Booking rate. Booked jobs divided by calls from people who needed service, over the same 30 days. No records yet? Use Table 2.
Average ticket. Your own average invoice for that type of job. Angi's figures are national averages, and your market may run higher or lower.
Unreturned share. If you return every missed call within the hour, yours is lower than 69%. Track it for a month and swap in your own.
What to do this week
Call back fast. CallRail's 2025 survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers found 21% call another business right away when nobody answers. A callback the next morning only reaches the people who waited.
Find where the misses cluster. If most come after 6 p.m. or on weekends, start there. ServiceTitan found small shops booked just 9% of calls after 6 p.m. in 2022, down from a 26% peak.
Pick a way to cover those hours. Your options include forwarding to a cell phone on rotation, a missed-call text-back, a human answering service and an AI phone agent. Local Voice builds AI phone agents, so weigh our view with that in mind. Compare each option's monthly cost against Table 1.
Measure again in 30 days. Once coverage is in place, rerun the formula with your new missed-call count and booking rate.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a missed call cost a home service business?
It depends on the job. Local Voice multiplied Quo's 69% unreturned rate by published booking rates and Angi's 2026 job costs. By that math, a missed call puts about $92 at stake for HVAC repair and $400 for a water heater replacement. It's $2,984 for a roof replacement and $8,380 for a kitchen remodel. Your own figure depends on your booking rate and average ticket.
What percentage of missed business calls get returned?
31%, according to Quo's August 2026 analysis of 16.7 million missed calls. The other 69% got no callback within 48 hours. Callback rates ran from 41% for healthcare businesses down to 21% for non-profits. Quo did not report home services separately.
How do I calculate the cost of a missed call?
Multiply your missed calls per month by the share that never get returned (69% on average, per Quo), then by your booking rate, then by your average ticket. A plumbing shop with 30 missed calls, a 43% booking rate and a $1,348 average ticket has about $12,132 of work at stake each month.
Is the "$126,000 a year lost to missed calls" figure real?
We couldn't find a study behind it. The $126,000 figure shows up on answering service and AI vendor blogs that cite other vendor blogs or no source at all. Local Voice could not trace it to any research. Every number in this post comes from a named, published source, so you can check it yourself.
Do most callers leave a voicemail?
No. CallRail's 2025 survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers found 42% say they leave a voicemail when a business doesn't answer, so 58% don't. 24% switch to online chat and 21% call another business right away. A voicemail box catches fewer than half of the callers you miss.
Free tool
What do missed calls cost your business?
Pick your trade, enter how many calls you miss and what a job is worth. The free calculator shows the sales you lose each month, each year and per missed call, using published booking and close rates.
Open the calculatorMethodology
Formulas
Value per missed call = unreturned share × booking rate × job value. Missed calls per lost job = 1 ÷ (unreturned share × booking rate).
Unreturned share
69%, from Quo's August 2026 analysis of 16.7 million missed calls logged by Quo customers over three months. Quo counted a callback as any outbound call to the caller's number within 48 hours. The range column uses 59% and 79%, the low and high unreturned rates across the industries Quo reported.
Booking rates
ServiceTitan's June 2022 data from more than 3,000 trade businesses in the U.S. and Canada: HVAC 38%, plumbing 43%, electrical 41%, garage door and water treatment 31%, shops with fewer than 5 techs 24%, shops with 25 or more techs 59%. ServiceTitan describes the rate as the share of calls turned into booked jobs. For pools, remodeling and roofing, which ServiceTitan doesn't break out, we used Invoca's 45% home services rate from its July 2026 benchmarks, built on more than 70 million calls across 10 industries. Invoca reports it as the share of leads that convert on the call, without defining conversion further. It counts 38% of answered home services calls as leads. Its June 2025 press release put the rate at 46%. Because Invoca counts conversions among callers it classifies as leads, the rate fits a missed call from a real prospect. Misdials and calls from existing customers aren't leads. The ServiceTitan and Invoca rates come from different datasets and aren't strictly comparable.
Job values
Angi national average costs, with each page's update date: in-ground pool installation $65,909 (Aug. 5, 2026), kitchen remodel $26,990 (Sept. 4, 2026), bathroom remodel $12,152 (July 9, 2026), roof replacement $9,609 (March 5, 2026), HVAC system replacement $7,500 (Aug. 3, 2026), water heater replacement $1,348 (July 20, 2026), HVAC repair $350 (Aug. 4, 2026).
Rounding
Per-call values are multiplied at full precision and rounded to the nearest dollar. Missed calls per lost job are rounded to one decimal. The worked example rounds each step to whole calls and jobs, as shown, so you can check it by hand.
Assumptions and limits
We treat a returned call as recovered and an unreturned call as lost. Neither is exactly true: some callers try again on their own, and some callbacks never reach the caller. For project trades, a booked call is usually an estimate, and we found no verifiable close rate to apply. All job values are national averages. The figures leave out repeat business and referrals.
When we checked
Quo, ServiceTitan, Invoca, CallRail and the Angi HVAC and pool pages were checked at the source on October 10, 2026. The Angi kitchen, bathroom, roof and water heater pages were checked on October 9, 2026.
Sources
Quo. Small business callback statistics in 2026: Data from 16M+ calls. Rachel Bicha, August 20, 2026. Accessed October 10, 2026.
ServiceTitan. Typical call-booking rate for ServiceTitan users? The number might shock you into action. Pat McManamon, October 25, 2022. Accessed October 10, 2026.
Invoca. The Invoca Home Services Lead Conversion Benchmarks Report 2026. Published July 2026. Accessed October 10, 2026.
Invoca. Invoca Releases Definitive Cross-Channel and Cross-Industry Buyer Conversion Benchmark Report. Press release via PR Newswire, June 10, 2025. Accessed October 10, 2026.
CallRail. Why businesses can't afford to miss calls. Danielle Wood, September 25, 2025. Accessed October 10, 2026.
Angi. In-ground pool installation cost guide. Updated August 5, 2026. Accessed October 10, 2026.
Angi. Kitchen remodel cost guide. Updated September 4, 2026. Accessed October 9, 2026.
Angi. Bathroom remodel cost guide. Updated July 9, 2026. Accessed October 9, 2026.
Angi. Roof replacement cost guide. Updated March 5, 2026. Accessed October 9, 2026.
Angi. HVAC system replacement cost guide. Updated August 3, 2026. Accessed October 10, 2026.
Angi. Water heater replacement cost guide. Updated July 20, 2026. Accessed October 9, 2026.
Angi. HVAC repair cost guide. Updated August 4, 2026. Accessed October 10, 2026.
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