What Should You Do When You Miss a Call From a Lead?

You don't have a lead problem. You have a phone problem.

Somewhere in your call log right now is a missed call from a homeowner who needed exactly what you do. You paid to get that call. The Google profile, the reviews you chased, the truck wrap, the ads. And while your hands were full on a job, that homeowner did what all of us do when a business doesn't pick up. They called the next contractor on the list.

That's what a missed call costs you. Not a delay. The marketing money you already spent, handed to a competitor.

When you miss a call from a lead, text them back within a minute, call them back the same day, and get a real person into the conversation before they hire someone else.

Get those 3 things right and you'll book more jobs from the leads you're already getting, without spending another dollar to get them.

Below is the exact text to send, how fast to call back, when to stop, and the setup step that trips up almost every contractor who tries this.

They're already dialing the next number

Think about the last time you hired someone for your own house. You searched, you looked at the map, you checked the reviews, and you called the one that looked best. And when nobody picked up?

You didn't sit by the phone. You went back to the list.

I walked through this in a video on how homeowners buy. I searched for an outdoor living contractor in Dallas and went down the map results. One company had 215 reviews. Another had 32. The homeowner calls the 215-review company first. But when that call goes to voicemail, the 32-review company gets the next call. And if they answer, they get the job.

All those reviews, all that reputation, and the job went to the company that picked up. The clock starts the second your phone stops ringing.

What one missed call costs you

Most contractors never do this math, so let's do it. You need 3 numbers:

• Your average job. What a typical new customer is worth to you.
• Your close rate. Out of every 10 estimates, how many do you win?
• Your missed calls from new leads. Count them in your call log for the last week.

Multiply them:

Missed calls a week × close rate × average job = what walks out the door every week.

Say your average job is $8,000, you close 1 in 3 estimates, and you miss 5 calls a week from new leads. That's roughly $13,000 a week in jobs you'd likely have won if you'd picked up. Over a year, that's close to $700,000.

Your numbers will be different. Run them anyway. Seeing your own number is what makes the rest of this worth doing.

Step 1: Text them back within 60 seconds

The first move is a text, and it should go out within a minute of the missed call. You can't do that by hand from a roof, so set it up to send on its own. That's what missed call text back is: your phone system notices an unanswered call and texts the caller from your business number.

Keep the message short and human:

"Hey, this is [name] with [company]. Sorry I missed your call, I'm on a job right now. What can I help you with? I'll call you back as soon as I'm off."

4 rules for that message:

• Say who you are. They may have called 4 companies in a row. Your name tells them which one is texting.
• Ask what they need. Plenty of people would rather text than talk, especially if they called from work or the sidelines of a soccer game. Let them answer right there.
• Only promise what you'll do. "I'll call you back in 10 minutes" is great if you will. If you're on a job until 4, don't say 10 minutes.
• No links, no sales pitch. It's a reply to their call, not an ad.

That one text does more than it looks like. The homeowner knows a real business got their call and plans to respond. Many of them stop dialing and text you back.

Step 2: Call back while they're still deciding

The text holds their spot. The callback wins the job.

Call back as soon as you're free, within the hour if you can and the same day at the latest. Every hour you wait, the odds go up that they've already talked to someone else and put an estimate on the calendar. By tomorrow morning, a lot of these leads are gone.

Open with context so you don't sound like a sales call: "Hey, this is [name] with [company], returning your call from earlier about your [job]." If they texted you details, mention them. Then get to what they care about most, which is usually when you can come look at it. A homeowner with a time on your calendar stops calling around.

No answer? Leave a short voicemail and send 1 more text: "Just tried you back. Call or text whenever it's good for you." That's it for today.

Step 3: Hand it to a real person, fast

Here's the part that gets skipped. The automatic text doesn't book jobs. It opens the door. A person has to walk through it.

So decide now who answers when a lead texts back. Maybe it's you between jobs, your office manager, or your spouse who runs the books. What matters is that someone sees the reply and answers it within minutes, not tonight after dinner.

I believe the automation should stop at that first text. Once the lead replies, a person takes over. Long automated sequences ("Just checking in!" on day 2, 4 and 7) annoy people and create legal risk for you. 1 reply that starts a real conversation beats a string of robot texts every time.

What if they never answer?

Some won't. They found someone else, the problem went away, or life got busy.

Give it 1 more try the next day, a call and a short text, and then stop. 2 tries is enough. Chasing a lead with a week of texts won't win the job back, and it can get your number flagged as spam, which hurts every text you send after that.

Write down who it was and what they called about. Some of them will come back in a few weeks, and you'll want to remember them.

Before you turn on missed call text back

There's 1 step most contractors don't hear about until they hit it. In the US, business texting from a regular local number has to be registered with the cell carriers. It's called A2P 10DLC registration, and texts from unregistered numbers get blocked or filtered.

Registration usually asks for your business information, a working website, and how people agree to receive texts from you. So the order matters: website first, then registration, then text back. Plan on it taking some time, not an afternoon.

2 more rules worth following:

• Reply only about their call. Someone who called you started the conversation. That's different from adding them to a marketing list. Don't send promotions to someone who called about a broken water heater.
• Honor "stop." If someone replies STOP, they get no more texts. Good texting tools handle this for you.

And don't forget the leads that never call. Website forms and chat messages need the same treatment: an instant reply, then a real person. Someone who fills out your form at 10pm is waiting on you the same way a caller is.

Want every lead answered without checking your phone all day?

You can set all of this up yourself. The hard part is keeping it running when you're busy, and busy is when you miss the most calls.

That's what our managed marketing system for contractors handles. Missed calls, website forms, chat and social messages all get an instant reply, and then a real person takes over the conversation. Missed call texts start as soon as your texting number is approved, which happens after your new website launches. Until then, we're updating and improving your Google Business Profile and building the site.

So here's my question. How many calls went to your voicemail last week, and how many of those homeowners called someone else?

Want to stop handing jobs to the next number on the list? Book a call and I'll show you how it works.