Who it’s for
Every business where answering the phone means stopping work.
The reason you miss calls is different in every trade, and so is what a good first text should ask for. Pick yours.
01 Trades and field work
When your hands are the tool, the phone loses.
- Plumbers Plumbing is the trade where the caller is least willing to wait. Something is leaking, and they are working down the list until someone picks up.
- Electricians Electrical work is the one trade where stopping to take a call is genuinely unsafe. So you don’t. And the call goes somewhere else.
- Builders and renovators Building is the trade with the widest gap between what a missed call costs and what it looks like. A dropped number could be a leaking tap. It could be a full renovation.
- Air conditioning and HVAC Air conditioning has the sharpest peaks of any trade. When it hits 40 degrees the phone rings all day, and every one you can’t get to rings someone else.
- Landscapers and gardeners It is not that you chose not to answer. Behind two-stroke and ear muffs, you never knew it rang.
- Roofers And the day after a storm, it rings forty times while you are up there.
- Painters Painting quotes go to whoever turns up first, and turning up first starts with replying first.
- Pest control Pest calls are driven by something the caller wants gone today. That urgency is the whole reason they will not sit on your voicemail.
- Locksmiths They are standing on their own doorstep in the cold. You have about ninety seconds before they call the next number.
02 Auto
Everyone is on the floor, under a car, or in the booth.
- Mobile mechanics Your callers are usually stuck. Stuck people ring the next number within about a minute.
- Smash repairers A driver who has just been in an accident rings three shops in the same ten minutes. The first one that answers usually gets the car.
- Car detailers Stopping to answer the phone means stopping the machine, taking the gloves off, and losing the panel you were halfway through.
- Used car dealers A buyer ringing about a car on your website is the warmest lead you will get all week, and they are ringing three yards about three cars.
03 Cleaning, moving and storage
Quoted per site, staffed by shift, and nobody is at a desk.
- Cleaning businesses Cleaning enquiries are decided fast and by whoever replies. Almost nobody rings one cleaner and waits.
- Removalists Moving dates are fixed and people book fast. A quote request you return tomorrow is usually a quote someone else already gave.
- Commercial cleaning companies A commercial enquiry is a contract, not a job. Missing one costs a year of revenue, not an afternoon.
- Self-storage facilities Storage is bought on availability and price, in that order, by someone who is moving on Saturday whether you answer or not.
04 Health, care and clinics
Someone is already in the chair, the room or the field.
- Dental practices A patient in front of the desk always comes first. That is correct, and it is also why the practice loses new patients every single day.
- Physiotherapists and allied health A hands-on appointment cannot be interrupted, so every call during a session is a call you are structurally guaranteed to miss.
- Vet clinics Every unanswered call at a vet clinic is somebody worried about an animal, and worry does not wait on hold.
- Skin clinics A consultation booking is worth many times a salon appointment, and it is lost the same way — nobody could answer.
- NDIS and home care providers The people ringing you — support coordinators, families, plan managers — are arranging care for somebody who needs it, and they will not ring twice.
05 Appointments and classes
The phone rings hardest during the hours you are teaching.
- Hair and beauty salons Every call you miss is someone who wanted an appointment, and appointments do not wait.
- Barbers A barbershop call is almost always somebody asking if you can fit them in. That is a booking, and it lasts about ninety seconds.
- Gyms and fitness studios A membership enquiry is recurring revenue for a year or more, and it arrives while you are counting reps.
- Swim schools Parents ring about lessons in the same fortnight every term, and a phone nobody answers costs you a place in the class.
- Childcare centres A parent looking for a place rings four centres in one sitting and takes the first one that gets back to them.
- Tutoring services Parents ring after school and in the evening, which is exactly when every tutor you have is in a session.
06 Events and bookings
One fixed date, quoted individually, and being shopped right now.
- Caterers Every catering enquiry has a date attached, and the date is being offered to three caterers at once.
- Party and marquee hire Hire is sold on availability for one specific date, and somebody else has the same stock.
- Function venues The person who books functions is, by definition, busy running one whenever the phone rings.
- Wedding photographers Saturday is the day you work and the day engaged couples do their research. You cannot be in both places.
- Florists Flower orders are time-critical almost by definition, and the caller has a deadline they cannot move.
- Charter and transfer operators A charter enquiry is a date, a vehicle and a run — and it is being quoted by two other operators this afternoon.
- Funeral homes A family calling a funeral home has just had the worst news of their year. Whatever else happens, they should not be left wondering whether anyone heard them.
Not listed? It works the same on any business number. These pages exist because the wording of the first text should change with the work, not because the product does.
Try it on your own missed calls for a fortnight.
Every call you can’t pick up gets a text back within seconds, and the reply comes straight to you. Free for 14 days, then $50 a month. Your number doesn’t change and setup takes about ten seconds.