A missed call to your business at 7:15 PM isn’t just a missed call.
It could be a lost customer.
Think about the best customer service you’ve ever received. What made it so good?
They communicated. Fast. You got an answer when you needed one. You didn’t have to chase them down.
Now picture an owner-operator home services company, or a realtor, or any business that isn’t open 24/7. They’re working all day. Then dinner. Then time with the kids.
The business line is also the owner’s cell phone. It rings at 7:15 on Thursday night and he lets it go to voicemail.
I’ll call them back tomorrow.
And that customer? They might not wait. In fact, they’ll probably just call the next business in Google, right now.
Quo, the business phone company formerly known as OpenPhone, looked at 16.7 million missed calls this summer.
69% never received a callback within 48 hours.
And the calls that did get returned were mostly returned the same day. Wait until tomorrow, and your odds drop fast.
Someone called your business because they wanted something. A quote, a repair, an appointment, an answer.
The business that answers first has a huge advantage.
But you can’t answer every call, and you shouldn’t.
You’re working. You’re eating dinner. You’re coaching your kid’s soccer team. You’re living your life. So what’s the fix?
Don’t try to answer every call. Make sure every missed call gets a response.
Instead of sending a caller to voicemail, automatically send them a text.
Within a minute or two, they get something like:
Hi, this is Mike from Mike’s Electric. Sorry we missed your call. We’re closed for the night but we’ll call you back first thing tomorrow. If you can text us what’s going on, we’ll be ready when we call. Reply STOP to opt out.
Guess what happens next?
People text back.
Now you have a conversation instead of a voicemail, and you can answer it when it’s convenient for you.
During business hours, I’d make it even shorter:
Hi, this is Mike from Mike’s Electric. Sorry I missed your call. What can I help you with? Reply STOP to opt out.
That’s it.
You don’t need a receptionist, and you don’t need to answer the phone at 7:15 PM.
You just need to respond quickly.
Now for your quick win:
You need a second phone number for the business. Not another phone. Just a number that lives inside an app. Call it your texting number.
Then you tell your carrier:
If I don’t answer, send the call to this number.
It’s a code you dial once. For example, Verizon uses *71 followed by the texting number, then Call. AT&T and T-Mobile have their own forwarding codes.
From then on, when you don’t answer, the call gets forwarded to the texting number. The texting number sees the missed call.
And sends the text automatically.
Here’s what that conversation looks like in HighLevel:
Every reply shows up in an app on your phone called LeadConnector (shown above). It looks and works a lot like a normal texting app. You answer when you’re available, and voicemails go there too.
So instead of checking your phone for calls, your voicemail, and your texts separately, everything ends up in one place.
Two things you need to know
1. It doesn’t work for every caller
This only works when the customer calls from a cell phone.
You can’t text a kitchen landline.
If some of your customers still call from the house phone, they’ll get the normal voicemail experience. Their voicemail will still land in the app, but they won’t get the automatic text.
That’s okay.
The text-back works for the vast majority of callers, because most of them are on a cell.
2. You have to register with the carriers
Before a business can send automated texts, the carriers require what’s called A2P registration.
That’s the boring part. It usually takes a few business days, and three things commonly cause problems:
1. Your legal business name and EIN don’t match IRS records.
Read them directly from a tax document.
2. Your business email is a Gmail address.
That can trigger an additional photo-ID and selfie verification. Not a big deal, just something to monitor.
3. Your opt-in language is vague.
Be specific about what happens:
The customer calls the business and we send a text message back to confirm the call.
The good news is that the customer called you, so texting back is allowed. Send the response, identify your business, and anyone who replies STOP is removed automatically.
The best part is you don’t need any software to test this.
Write the message. Copy the after-hours message above into your phone’s Notes app. Change the name and business.
Make yourself a rule. Every missed call gets a text within two minutes. Copy. Paste. Send. From your own phone.
Log every one. Keep a simple note: Date → phone number → what they needed
Do it for seven days. At the end of the week, count the lines. That’s how many opportunities you were missing.
One electrician ran this for a week. In seven days, he logged 11 missed calls. Eleven people called because they wanted to hire somebody. What could your business do with 11 more conversations a week?
Want to automate it?
The automatic version does the same thing while you’re working, eating dinner, or sleeping.
The tool I use for this is HighLevel.
It gives you the texting number, missed-call trigger, STOP handling, and LeadConnector app in one place.
Once it’s set up, the process looks like this:
Missed call → automatic text → customer replies → conversation → appointment.
Building it takes less than an hour and I’ve got the entire setup written out click-by-click.
Here’s a 2-min video demo:
Then test it. Have a friend call your business line and hit Decline. Within a couple of minutes, they should receive your text. If they do, you’re live.
But don’t wait for the software.
Your Quick Win tonight:
Text back the next call you miss.
Do it manually, within two minutes, and see what happens.
Next time, we’ll take this one step further: What if you didn’t just text back the missed call but had AI actually answer it?
Go get this quick win!
Did you miss Quick Wins #1 and #2?
Catch up here:
#1: Review Catch-Up Go back through your old customers and turn past work into new reviews.
#2: The Automatic Review System Make asking for reviews part of your normal customer process.