Calls, texting and booking

It depends on what's counted. Our missed call statistics collect the studies that name their method: CallRail found home services missed 14% of calls across 1.1 million conversations (January 2025), Invoca found only 52% of home services calls reached a person (July 2026), and Service Direct measured a 66% answer rate where owners had guessed 97% (2019). The often-repeated “85% of callers won't call back” couldn't be traced to any study, so don't quote it.

A short, repeatable conversation. The call booking script has six steps: greeting, let the caller explain, two or three questions, address and contact, the fee and two specific times, then a recap. Rilla's data in that guide has top performers following the script about 70% of the time. Then measure it: call booking rate is booked jobs divided by bookable calls. ServiceTitan's 2022 data put shops with 25+ techs at 59% and shops under five at 24%, and a call nobody answered counts as a bookable call that booked zero.

Handling after-hours calls compares five setups: the owner's cell, an on-call rotation, a live answering service (often $175 to $700 a month), an AI receptionist (roughly $25 to $300 a month) and voicemail with an automatic text back. Whichever you choose, write the emergency list down so everyone sorts calls the same way, book non-emergencies into the first morning slot, and charge after-hours rates of about 1.5× to 3× your daytime price.

Contact, by phone first. Speed to lead sets a target of a first call within 5 minutes; the 2011 Harvard Business Review study it cites found firms answering within an hour were nearly 7 times as likely to qualify a lead, and 23% of the 2,241 companies audited never responded. When the call goes the other way and you miss it, a text within a minute or two keeps the caller: 22 missed-call text-back templates cover daytime, after hours, emergencies and weekends, each under 160 characters.

Four texts cover most visits: a confirmation at booking, a reminder about 24 hours before, an on-my-way text and a thank-you; appointment reminder templates has the wording, with one-letter replies (C to confirm, R to reschedule). Text messaging for plumbing companies adds the moments specific to plumbing, like shut-off steps during a leak. The seasonal reminder schedule starts tune-up reminders about six weeks before each rush, with three touches at most.

Texts from a regular 10-digit number through any software need a registered brand and campaign; 10DLC registration for contractors explains the Sole Proprietor and Standard brand types and why to start early (Twilio says campaign vetting can take two to three weeks). Registration doesn't replace consent: service texts to customers who gave you their number are routine, promotions need written consent, STOP is honored at once, and federal quiet hours bar telephone solicitations before 8 a.m. and after 9 p.m., with Florida, Oklahoma and Maryland stopping at 8 p.m.