If you run a plumbing, electrical, building, roofing, heating or other trade business, your phone is one of your most important tools.
But what happens when you’re up a ladder, under a sink, on a building site or driving between jobs and your phone starts ringing?
You can’t always stop what you’re doing to answer it.
And while missing one call might not seem like a big deal, those missed calls could represent missed enquiries, missed jobs and lost revenue for your business.
Why Are Missed Calls Such a Problem for Tradespeople?
For many trade businesses, the telephone is still an important way for new and existing customers to get in touch.
A potential customer might be calling because they need:
- An emergency plumber
- An electrician for a new installation
- A roofer to inspect a leak
- A builder for a quotation
- A heating engineer to repair a boiler
- A tradesperson to carry out maintenance or repairs
If you don’t answer, the customer may simply move on to the next business they find.
This is particularly important when someone needs a job completed quickly. They may not leave a voicemail or call back later, they may simply try another company.
How Many Calls Could You Be Missing?
It’s difficult to put an exact figure on how many jobs an individual trade business could lose through missed calls.
It depends on the number of enquiries you receive, how many calls you miss, the type of work you provide and how many enquiries turn into paying customers.
But it’s worth doing a simple calculation for your own business.
Imagine you receive 10 new customer calls each week and miss just three of them.
If only one of those missed calls would have turned into a £500 job, that’s potentially £500 of work you didn’t have the opportunity to quote for.
Over a year, that could represent more than £25,000 in potential revenue.
Of course, not every missed call would become a paying job, so this isn’t a prediction of actual lost revenue. Instead, it highlights why it’s worth looking at how many calls your business is missing and what those calls could be worth.
How Can a Telephone Answering Service Help Trades Businesses?
A telephone answering service gives your customers a real person to speak to when you’re unavailable. (Link)
At Paperclip, our team can answer calls on behalf of your business, handle enquiries and take messages, helping your customers feel that their call has been dealt with professionally.
Depending on your requirements, we can also help with areas such as appointment bookings, enquiries, quotes and invoices. (Link)
This means you can concentrate on your work without constantly having to stop what you’re doing to check your phone.
You Don’t Need to Be a Big Business
You might think telephone answering services are only suitable for larger companies.
That’s not necessarily the case. Small trade businesses and sole traders can also benefit from having professional support available when they’re unable to answer the phone.
In fact, Paperclip’s services were initially designed with smaller business in mind.
What About Voicemail?
Your callers can of course leave a message via voicemail, but it doesn’t provide the same experience as speaking to a person.
Consider the difference between:
“Please leave your name and number after the tone.”
and:
“Good morning, how can I help you?”
For a potential customer making an enquiry, being able to speak to someone straight away can make the process feel much easier.
A professional call answering service can also collect the information you need, rather than simply taking a message and leaving you with a list of people to call back.
Find Out How Paperclip Can Help
At Paperclip, we provide professional telephone answering and business support tailored to your requirements.
Our team can answer calls on your behalf, deal with customer enquiries and help with bookings and other administrative tasks, giving you more time to concentrate on running your trade business.
Don’t let your next job be lost because you couldn’t answer the phone.
Find out more about Paperclip’s telephone answering services and see how we could support your business.
Try our Free 14 day Trial
Our free trail is the perfect way to see if we’re a good fit for your business. You’ll never know the impact that call answering can have on your business until you try it.
Not only do you get 14 days of Paperclip’s call answering services, but you also get a a dedicated report at the end of the trial. The report provides analysis by call type, length, time and day-to-day frequencies over the trial period.
