Answering the Phone: The Cheapest Way to Get More Jobs From the Leads You're Already Paying For

Here’s a number that should make you uncomfortable: home service businesses miss about 27% of their inbound calls.

That’s more than one in four. And of the people who don’t get through, 85% won’t bother calling back. They just move down the Google results and call your competitor instead.

You’re paying for marketing to make the phone ring. Then you’re handing those leads to someone else because nobody picked up.

This is one of the easiest problems to fix in your entire business. And fixing it costs almost nothing compared to what you’re losing.

Why this matters more than you think

When someone calls a home service company, they usually need help now. The AC is out in July. The toilet is overflowing. The roof is leaking. They’re not going to leave a voicemail and wait patiently for you to call back tomorrow.

They’re going to hang up and call the next company on the list. Within minutes, your competitor has the job that your marketing paid to generate.

The math is brutal. If you’re missing two calls a week that would have been $500 jobs, that’s $52,000 a year in lost revenue. If you’re an HVAC contractor missing emergency calls worth $1,000 or more, the number gets much worse.

And that’s just the direct revenue. You’re also losing the lifetime value of that customer. The maintenance agreements they would have signed. The referrals they would have sent. The repeat business over the next decade. A single missed call can easily represent $5,000 to $15,000 in total lost value when you factor all of that in.

Every call that goes unanswered is money you spent to acquire and then gave away for free.

Setting up your phone system right

Most contractors run their business phone the same way they did twenty years ago. A landline in the office, maybe forwarded to a cell phone sometimes. It works until it doesn’t, which is most of the time.

A digital phone system changes everything.

Why you need a VoIP system

VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. It basically means your phone runs through the internet instead of a traditional phone line. The practical benefit is that you can route calls anywhere, to any device, based on any rules you want to set up.

Your “business phone” is no longer a physical phone sitting on a desk. It’s a number that can ring on your cell phone, your office manager’s cell phone, your laptop, your tablet, or all of them at once. You control where calls go based on time of day, who’s available, or whatever other logic makes sense for your operation.

The cost is usually $20-50 per user per month, which is often cheaper than traditional phone service. And the flexibility is incomparable.

Building a call waterfall

A call waterfall is a sequence of places the call tries before going to voicemail. Instead of ringing one phone and then hitting voicemail after four rings, the system tries multiple destinations.

Here’s an example of how you might set it up.

First, the call rings your office line or your dispatcher’s phone. If no answer after 15 seconds, it simultaneously rings to two or three other people on your team. If still no answer after another 15 seconds, it forwards to your personal cell phone. If you don’t answer, it goes to an answering service or AI receptionist rather than voicemail.

The call only reaches voicemail as an absolute last resort, and even then, you can set it up so that the AI takes a message and immediately texts you the details rather than leaving you to check voicemail hours later.

Most VoIP providers have this built in. You can configure the whole thing from a web dashboard without any technical knowledge.

Providers to look at

There are dozens of VoIP providers that work well for home service businesses. Some popular options include OpenPhone, Nextiva, RingCentral, Grasshopper, and Google Voice for very simple setups. Many field service platforms like Housecall Pro and Jobber also have phone features built in.

The specific provider matters less than actually setting up the routing properly. Pick one, configure your waterfall, and make sure calls have multiple chances to get answered before they die.

AI answering vs live answering services vs dedicated staff

You have three options for making sure calls get answered when your team is busy or unavailable.

Option 1: Hire someone to answer phones

Most home service companies that go this route don’t start by hiring a local receptionist at $40,000 plus benefits. They start with remote talent.

Offshore employees based in Latin America have become the go-to option for contractors who want dedicated phone coverage without the cost of a US-based hire. You can get a full-time, English-speaking employee for $1,000 to $2,000 per month. That’s $12,000 to $24,000 per year instead of $40,000 to $50,000.

The talent pool in countries like Mexico, Colombia, and the Philippines has gotten deep enough that you can find people with customer service experience, solid English, and the ability to learn your business quickly. They work your hours, answer your phone, book your appointments, and handle basic customer questions just like someone sitting in your office would.

The advantage is that you get a real human who learns your business, can answer detailed questions, and makes judgment calls. They’re not reading from a generic script like an answering service. Over time, they become genuinely knowledgeable about your services and customers.

The disadvantage is that one person still can’t cover nights, weekends, sick days, and vacations without backup. And there’s a management overhead to hiring and training someone, even if they’re remote. You need to be prepared to onboard them properly, set up the right systems, and provide ongoing feedback.

For companies doing $500,000 or more in revenue with consistent call volume during business hours, a remote hire often makes sense. It’s significantly cheaper than local staff while still giving you dedicated coverage and the human touch that AI and answering services can’t fully replicate.

Option 2: Live answering service

Answering services employ real people who answer calls on behalf of multiple businesses. When a call comes in, they see a script for your company and answer as if they work for you. They take messages, gather basic information, and forward urgent calls to your cell phone.

Honestly, we’re not huge fans of live answering services for home service companies.

Here’s how their business works. One agent is covering multiple clients at the same time. When your call comes in, they pull up a talk sheet for your company and read from it. They can handle the basics, but they can’t go deep. They don’t know your service area boundaries, your pricing structure, your availability, or any of the nuances that a dedicated employee would pick up over time.

The caller experience often reflects this. The person answering sounds professional enough, but there’s a shallowness to the conversation. They can take a message and say someone will call back, but they can’t actually help. For a homeowner with a broken AC in July who wants to know if you can come out today, “someone will call you back” isn’t a great answer.

The plus side is the pricing model. Most services charge per minute, somewhere between $1 and $2 per minute of talk time. If you have unpredictable call volume or you’re just using them for overflow and after-hours backup, this scales reasonably well. You’re not paying for coverage you don’t use.

Expect to pay somewhere between $100 and $400 per month for typical contractor call volumes, depending on how many minutes you actually use.

Live answering services can work as a stopgap or as backup coverage during business hours. But for after-hours and weekend calls where you need someone who can actually book appointments and answer real questions, AI has gotten good enough that it’s often a better experience for the caller at a lower cost for you.

Option 3: AI answering

AI answering services are relatively new but have gotten remarkably good. A well-configured AI receptionist can answer calls in a natural-sounding voice, ask qualifying questions, book appointments directly into your calendar, and handle basic FAQs about your services.

Pricing typically runs $50 to $200 per month for unlimited calls, which makes it dramatically cheaper than human alternatives for businesses with moderate call volume.

The AI won’t handle every situation perfectly. Complex questions, upset customers, and unusual requests will still need human follow-up. But for straightforward calls, especially after hours, it captures the lead instead of losing it to voicemail.

Tools like Avoca, Jobber’s AI Receptionist, ServiceAgent, and DaVoice AI are built specifically for home service contractors. They understand the industry terminology and common scenarios.

The hybrid approach

For most contractors, the best setup is a combination.

During business hours, calls go to your team first. If nobody answers within a few rings, the call routes to AI or a live answering service as backup.

After hours, AI handles everything. It answers immediately, gathers the relevant information, books appointments for the next day, and texts you immediately if something is truly urgent. You wake up to a list of leads instead of a voicemail box full of hang-ups.

This gives you coverage around the clock without the cost of 24/7 human staffing.

Measuring whether you need more coverage

Before you spend money on additional coverage, figure out what you’re actually missing.

Most VoIP systems and field service platforms track missed calls automatically. Pull the data and look at a few things.

How many calls are you missing total? If it’s under 10% of volume, you might be okay. If it’s over 20%, you have a problem.

When are you missing calls? If most missed calls are during business hours, you might need more staff or better call routing. If most are after 5pm and on weekends, AI or an answering service is the fix.

What’s the pattern by day? Maybe you’re fine Monday through Thursday but miss half your Friday afternoon calls because the team checks out early. That’s a specific problem with a specific solution.

Once you know where the gaps are, you can calculate whether fixing them makes financial sense.

If you’re missing 20 calls a month after 5pm, and historically 30% of calls convert to jobs averaging $400, that’s roughly $2,400 per month in lost revenue. An AI answering service at $100 per month pays for itself twenty times over.

If you’re only missing a handful of calls and they’re at random times that don’t follow a pattern, maybe it’s not worth adding complexity. But most contractors who actually look at their data are shocked by how much is slipping through.

What to do on the first call

Answering the phone is step one. What you say when you answer is step two.

Here’s a reframe that changes everything: your job on the first call is to sell the appointment, not to sell the service.

Most contractors try to answer every question the caller asks, quote prices on the spot, and basically conduct the entire sales conversation over the phone. This feels helpful, but it usually backfires. The caller gets all the information they need, thanks you, says they’ll think about it, and then calls two more companies to compare.

Instead, your goal is to book the appointment. Get them on the schedule. Once your tech or salesperson is in the home, face to face, the close rate goes way up.

This doesn’t mean you refuse to answer questions. It means you frame your answers in a way that keeps the value on the appointment.

When someone asks “How much does it cost to replace a water heater?” you don’t say “$1,200 to $3,000 depending on the unit.” You say “That’s a great question. It depends on a few factors like the size of your home, whether we’re going tankless or traditional, and what the current setup looks like. Our project manager can look at everything when they come out and give you exact options. Usually people are looking at somewhere between X and Y, but the appointment is free and there’s no obligation. What day works better for you, tomorrow or Thursday?”

You’ve acknowledged the question, shown you know what you’re talking about, given a general range so they don’t feel stonewalled, and pivoted back to booking the appointment. You’re being helpful while keeping the real conversation for when you’re in the home.

The person who shows up isn’t a stranger either. If you’re running pre-appointment email drips, the customer already knows who’s coming, what they look like, and something about their background. That familiarity builds trust before the conversation even starts.

Handling calls differently by source

Not every lead is the same. A call from Google search probably has different intent than a call from a Facebook ad. Treating them identically wastes opportunity.

Using different phone numbers for different lead sources gives you two advantages.

First, it gives you better data. You can see exactly how many calls came from Google Ads versus organic search versus your truck wrap versus the postcard campaign. This feeds into your marketing attribution so you know what’s actually working.

Second, it lets you handle calls differently based on what you know about that lead source.

Let’s say you’ve been running Facebook ads and tracking the results for six months. You know from your data that Facebook leads close at 8% when you send a sales person out, but they close at 15% if you just give them a price on the phone because the tire-kickers self-select out. For that lead source, it might make sense to quote prices directly rather than pushing hard for an in-home appointment. You’re saving your sales team’s time for leads that actually need the face-to-face interaction.

Meanwhile, your Google Ads leads might close at 30% in person but only 5% when quoted over the phone because they need the relationship building that happens in the home. For those leads, you never give price on the phone. You sell the appointment.

Same phone call, different handling, because you know the source and you know the patterns.

This level of optimization requires data, which means tracking, which means using different numbers. The setup takes a little work upfront but pays off in both intelligence and conversion rate.

What not to do

A few common mistakes that kill your phone performance.

Letting calls go to voicemail as a normal part of operations. Industry data shows less than 3% of callers leave voicemails. The other 97% just disappear. Voicemail should be a last resort, not a standard part of your call flow.

Answering with a generic greeting that doesn’t inspire confidence. “Hello?” makes you sound like you answered your personal phone by accident. “ABC Plumbing, this is Mike, how can I help you?” sounds like a professional operation.

Putting callers on hold for long periods. If you need to look something up, offer to call them back rather than making them wait. Or get their info first so you don’t lose them if they hang up.

Trying to sell the entire job on the phone. You’re selling the appointment. That’s it. Everything else happens in person.

Treating every lead the same regardless of source. Once you have data on conversion rates by channel, use it to optimize your call handling.

Not tracking missed calls at all. If you don’t know the number, you can’t fix the problem.

Where to go next

Phone performance is one piece of managing your lead flow effectively. To understand why leads don’t turn into jobs, read about why your leads aren’t converting. To capture leads before they even call, look at website visitor identification. And to track which channels are actually producing revenue, set up marketing attribution.

The phone is ringing. The question is whether you’re answering it.

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Pipeline Research Team