Guides
Everything we know about calls you couldn’t answer.
Written to be useful on their own. Where a guide would be improved by telling you not to buy anything, it does — including the one that explains how to count your missed calls yourself, for free.
01 Missed calls
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How many calls is your business actually missing?
You can count your missed calls exactly, for free, from your own phone records — no estimate required. The number is almost always higher than the business owner expects, because a missed call from a stranger leaves no trace anywhere except a number in a log you never scroll back through.
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Why your customers don’t leave voicemail
Most callers do not leave a voicemail because it costs them effort and returns no certainty — they have no idea when or whether you will listen. Ringing the next business is faster and gives them an answer immediately, so that is what they do.
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Why the first business to reply usually wins the job
A customer choosing between businesses they have never used has almost no information to go on, so they use the one signal available: who responded first and how. Speed is not just about beating competitors to the phone — it is read as evidence of how you will behave once you are hired.
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What to do about calls that come in after hours
After-hours calls are mostly people who could not ring during working hours, not emergencies — which means they can be captured and answered the next morning without anyone being on call. The mistake is letting them reach silence, because a caller at 7pm has all evening to ring somebody else.
03 Setting it up
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What is missed-call text-back?
Missed-call text-back automatically sends a text message to anyone whose call to your business goes unanswered, usually within seconds. The caller can reply in writing, and the reply reaches you as a written enquiry — so a call you could not take becomes a conversation instead of a number in a log.
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How to set up missed-call text-back
Setting up missed-call text-back takes about ten seconds and does not require changing your number. You decide what the message says, connect it to the number you already publish, test it by ringing yourself, and check the replies after a fortnight.
04 Rules and admin
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The rules for business SMS in Australia
The Spam Act 2003 (Cth) governs commercial electronic messages sent to Australian addresses, and requires consent, clear identification of the sender, and a functional unsubscribe on marketing messages. Replying to someone who has just rung your business is a different situation from sending marketing, but the safest approach is to identify yourself clearly and honour any request to stop.
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Should you use your personal mobile as your business number?
Using your personal mobile as your business number works fine at the start and becomes a problem you cannot reverse: the number ends up on signage, invoices and directories permanently, and you can never be off. The fix is a separate business number, added early enough that it is the one that spreads.
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.