Our world is becoming more connected, with more people moving across states, working from various locations, and making decisions remotely. This shift is affecting how businesses interact with customers by phone. While in the past it was more common to connect customers and potential customers between 9 am and 5 pm because the customers were local, this is no longer the case. A remote worker relocating to your state could be calling your real estate office before or after business hours. A caregiver handling the affairs of an aging parent could be inquiring about healthcare services from three time zones away. A multi-national company could be calling your law firm regarding an urgent matter in the middle of the night. Across industries, businesses are receiving more and more calls coming in outside of traditional office hours.
That’s great news for businesses that offer round-the-clock support. This modification, though, might be harmful to a company that can only take calls eight hours a day. Have you considered how many calls you are missing during the other sixteen hours of the day, if that is your line of work? What’s more, how much do those dropped calls cost your company?
Here are five things you should know about business loss due to missed after-hours calls:
- Missed calls can mount up quickly: No company can afford to miss more calls after hours, as the average small to midsize business already misses roughly 62% of its calls. In a similar vein, big companies lose out on roughly 22% of calls. Missing even a tiny portion of the hundreds of calls that a large business may receive on average would be a significant loss.. A professional answering service is the best solution for ensuring your calls are not missed. Additionally, they will be answered by a friendly and knowledgeable representative of your brand.
- Missed calls can cost an average business hundreds or even thousands of dollars per day, depending on the industry and business model. Assume you are a plumbing company owner in Orlando, Florida. A lost sale occurs for every five missed calls if your company has a 60% call-to-lead ratio and a 33% lead-to-sale ratio. You have just missed out on four sales if your company doesn’t answer 20 calls in a 24-hour period. If the average sale is only $250, you are losing out on $1,000 every day. You can’t afford to miss a call, especially in a service industry like plumbing where problems can arise at any time of day or night. Feeling displeased and unable to get through to you, a distressed homeowner with a blocked main line will just call the next company they come across. Not only have you lost out on phone sales, but you’ve also just disregarded people who have shown interest in your company, which harms the reputation of your brand and might lead to bad reviews. According to recent surveys, 89% of customers say they will sever ties with a business following a negative customer service encounter. Even worse than a negative experience, according to thirty percent of respondents, is not being able to get through to a live agent.
- Calls after hours are currently increasing: The trend of working remotely is not going away. An increasing number of workers are looking for opportunities to work from different locations, even though specific company policies may change. 96% of workers said in a recent FlexJobs survey that they would prefer to work remotely. Upwork projects that 36 million Americans will still work remotely in 2025. Many people are calling businesses after regular business hours due to the more flexible and new lifestyle that comes with working remotely. Thus, companies such as yours ought to remain prepared for calls received after business hours.
- Phone callers are growing impatient. With more options than ever before, our world is getting faster. Customer expectations regarding customer service are at an all-time high due to our hectic lives and the multitude of businesses that are opening up every day to fill blanks in our needs. A third of customers will not wait on hold for customer service, did you know that? Furthermore, according to a recent Forbes magazine survey, 80% of callers refuse to leave a voicemail when asked. Customer service may be signaled as being unimportant when customers call your business with a need and are placed on hold or sent to voicemail. This is not a good message to send. Callers’ lives are greatly simplified by it.
- Increasing staff is not the solution: Many business owners think about increasing staff when their call volume increases. Despite its apparent benefits, this could end up being a costly investment. Thousands of dollars may be spent on overhead in addition to salary, including hiring, training, taxes, and benefits. Furthermore, you will still be responsible for providing extra phone coverage during the hours that your staff is not in meetings, at lunch, or on sick leave. Receptionists and office managers, for example, are far more valuable to most businesses when they are assigned in-person tasks like welcoming clients and attending meetings—tasks that cannot be outsourced. On the other hand, it is simple to outsource phone answering.
From 24/7 live answering to appointment scheduling and more, professional answering services are equipped to handle your call volume at any time, day or night. When you consider the cost of missed calls, whether it’s during your regular business hours, after hours, on weekends or holidays, you will quickly realize that a 24/7 answering service is a must for any business. Whether your business receives 10, 50, 100 or more calls a day, investing in a professional answering service will pay for itself in new business opportunities, improved customer service, and a more consistent experience for all callers. Stop missing calls and losing customers – find an answering service today.