Missed call cost calculator
What are your practice's missed calls actually worth?
A missed call costs a UK business the sale that caller would have become, because many callers who cannot get through ring the next business instead of trying again. This calculator turns the calls you miss each week into a monthly figure, using your own sale value and your own estimates, and shows what answering them would cost.
- Every assumption is on screen and yours to change
- Rounded down, never up
- No email needed to see the answer
The working
How is the missed call cost calculated?
The calculator takes the calls you miss each week, turns them into a month, keeps only the real enquiries, applies your own estimates and multiplies by your sale value. These are your current figures.
- 0121
Calls you miss a month
Your weekly figure times 4.33 weeks.
- 0210
Real enquiries
Half, leaving out sales calls, wrong numbers and time-wasters.
- 035
Ring someone else
Your estimate of the real enquiries that go elsewhere.
- 041.3
Sales you would have won
Your close rate applied to those.
- 05£1,250
Revenue a month
Sales times your sale value, rounded down to the nearest £10.
What missed calls really cost a dental practice
Monday at 9am, the phones are solid and the front desk is checking patients in. Somewhere in that queue of calls is a new patient in discomfort, and they will not wait for a callback: they book the next practice that answers. The appointment they would have booked is only the visible part of the loss.
A new patient is not one appointment
The calculator's £1,000 default treatment value is deliberately low. A new patient who stays is years of check-ups, hygiene visits and treatment plans, and private treatment enquiries, from aligners to implants, can be worth several times that on their own. When a new patient books elsewhere, that whole relationship walks to the practice down the street.
Reception cannot be everywhere
Lunchtimes, early evenings, half-term staffing gaps and the first hour of the morning are when practices miss the most calls, and they are also when patients most often ring. We count only half of missed calls as new patient enquiries and you set how many of those ring another practice, so the figure above rests on your own estimate of what an unanswered front desk costs.
How practices use Voco
Voco answers every call in your practice's name, in seconds. It books consultations into your diary, takes details for the front desk to follow up, and flags patients in pain so your team sees them first. Your reception keeps doing what it does well, and no patient hears a busy tone. Hear how it greets a new patient on the demo line.
What it costs
Voco costs about 39p a minute for a typical call, ex VAT, with no monthly fee and no contract, so the quiet weeks between the Monday rushes cost you proportionally less. Monthly plans are available if your call volume is steady.
By industry
What does a missed call cost in your industry?
The cost of a missed call depends mostly on what one customer is worth to you, so each industry calculator starts from the jobs that industry actually gets.
- Calculator for plumbersA missed call could be a boiler replacement, not a dripping tap.Open
- Calculator for locksmithsA lockout is urgent, so the caller rings the next locksmith rather than wait.Open
- Calculator for dental practicesA new patient is rarely a single appointment. It is years of check-ups.Open
- Calculator for letting agentsThe first agent to answer usually books the viewing, and often wins the instruction.Open
The other side of the sum
What would it cost to answer every one of them?
On pay as you go, Voco costs 39p a minute, billed by the second, with no monthly fee. A typical call lasts about 75 seconds, so answering 20 calls a month costs about £10.
Questions about the calculator
Something else? Ring 0333 043 6661 and ask Voco directly.
Answers at 2am. Doesn't ask for overtime.
Hear Voco answer a call
Ring 0333 043 6661 and talk to Voco now, or set up your own AI front office today.