What are your practice's missed calls actually worth?
A patient in discomfort books the next practice that answers. This calculator strips out the calls that were never new patients and shows what the rest cost your practice, using deliberately cautious assumptions.
What are your missed calls actually worth?
Deliberately cautious. We strip out the calls that were never going to become work.
We assume only half are new patients. The rest are existing patients, suppliers and sales calls.
We assume 85 in 100 will not call back. A patient in discomfort books the next practice that answers.
Voco starts at £49 a month. One recovered £1,000 treatment plan covers 20 months of it.
Voco answers every call in seconds, takes the details, and books the work in or texts you straight away.
A receptionist typically costs £1,500 or more a month. Answering services charge per call. Voco is £49 a month, flat.
Call +44 333 043 6661 now. It is free, and you can judge it in ten seconds.
Get started from £49 a month Or try the personalised online demoYour weekly missed calls times 4.33 weeks in a month. We count only half of those as genuine new enquiries, assume 85 in 100 of the genuine ones never ring back, and apply your acceptance rate to what is left. We round down and show ranges rather than single inflated figures. These assumptions are deliberately cautious: your real numbers may be higher.
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 assume 85 in 100 of those never call back, so the figure above is the cautious end 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.
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