Missed calls, slow replies, no-shows: which numbers are real?

Owner Workflows sells a related service, for a fee: an inbox that catches missed calls and inquiries. Every figure links to where it came from, and vendor figures are labeled.

Most of the famous figures about missed calls and reply speed are from 2007–2016, are about software sales teams, or have no source at all. The best current figures say that about half of calls to home-service businesses reach a person (Invoca, 2026, vendor data) and that 31% of missed calls are returned within 48 hours (Quo, 2026, vendor data); median salon no-show rates run 1–4% by segment on one platform (Zenoti, 2025 data, vendor). Your own phone log gives a better number than any of them, and it takes a few minutes to count.

The famous numbers and where they actually come from

Missed calls: what current data says

• Invoca (vendor): 52% of calls to home-services businesses reach a person, 65% of calls over 15 seconds and 73% over 30 seconds, from 32% to 74% across nine sub-industries (home services report, July 2026). Across all 10 industries in its base, 56% of calls speak with a person, a figure that includes misdials and quick hang-ups (2026 benchmarks). Its customers skew to larger marketers.
• CallRail (vendor): home services “missed” 14% of calls, against healthcare 32%, legal 28% and real estate 9%, from 1.1 million conversations (release, 14 Jan 2025). The release does not define “missed”.
• Quo (vendor): 31% of missed calls were returned within 48 hours, with healthcare at 41% and professional services at 33%, from 16.7 million missed calls by its customers over three months (Quo, 20 Aug 2026). A callback means any outbound call to that number within 48 hours.
• Zenoti (vendor): 37% of calls to salons and spas went unanswered, from its HyperConnect phone product (more than 1 million calls a month across 3,500+ locations, no formal sample) (Zenoti, March 2026).

These four count different things: answered by a person, “missed” with no definition, and returned within 48 hours. Their numbers can’t be compared with each other directly.

How many callers leave a message?

The only US figure is stated intent: 42% of 1,000 US consumers told CallRail they leave a voicemail when a business misses their call (CallRail, 25 Sep 2025, vendor). No study measures how many callers to small businesses actually leave one, as JustCall’s own audit of these figures also says (JustCall, 22 Sep 2026, vendor). Your phone log can tell you; the voicemail greeting page has a counter for your message rate.

Reply speed: what home-service data says, and why price still wins

Jobber surveyed 1,050 US home-service owners in December 2025 (Jobber Home Service Trends Report, via Conjointly, ±3 points at 90%; vendor). Owners report that their customers expect a reply immediately (28%) or within an hour (28%), but only 20% of owners say they reply within an hour, and 11% in HVAC. Asked what customers hire on, owners put price first (62%), then reviews (51%), then speed of first response (25%). These expectations are what owners report, not what customers said.

ServiceTitan reports that “more than half” of contractors respond to new leads within the hour, from a survey of 1,000 contractors (ServiceTitan, as reported in [date of release]; vendor). That conflicts with Jobber’s 20%, and neither survey checked replies against real leads. Jay Baer’s The Time to Win found that more than half of consumers hire the first business to respond (The Time to Win, 2022–23, “more than 1,900 consumers”, country not stated), a weaker source than Jobber’s, whose owners rank speed third at 25%.

What to send after a quote goes quiet is on the quote follow-up page.

After-hours calls: no traceable share exists

Percentages from about 5% to 60% circulate; none traces to a study with a sample and a definition. The after-hours page shows how to count your own.

No-shows: healthcare numbers are not salon numbers

No home-services no-show rate exists in any source I read. Salon policy wording is on the salon cancellation policy page.

Count your own numbers

1. Open four weeks of call history from your business line: your phone system’s portal or app, or your carrier account. A mobile phone’s recent-calls list works but may not show how long a call rang. Google Business Profile no longer keeps call history (Google removed it on 31 July 2024).
2. Keep incoming calls only. Drop calls shorter than 15 seconds (Invoca uses this filter to remove misdials and quick hang-ups) and numbers you know are spam.
3. Mark each remaining call: answered by a person / voicemail left / hung up with no message. Also mark whether it came in outside your posted hours, so you can count both all calls and missed calls outside your hours.
4. For missed calls, check whether you called the number back within 48 hours.
5. Optional: count repeat calls from the same number within 24 hours, and which missed callers later became jobs.

Where to find the log, by system (paths read October 2026):

• Quo: Analytics (Business and Scale plans; export CSV).
• Dialpad: Analytics, with business-hours and out-of-hours filters.
• Grasshopper: web portal, Messages & Calls → Missed calls.
• RingCentral: online call log, download to Excel.
• Zenoti HyperConnect: missed calls by hour and day.
• Everyone else, or anyone on a personal cell: tally every call for one normal week (Monday to Sunday) on paper.

How this page was checked

I traced each figure to the earliest page I could read and recorded its publisher, date, sample and definition. Figures from companies that sell phone, booking or lead software are labeled “vendor”. Every figure was checked on 12 October 2026, and I re-check them every six months. I could not read the full text of HBR’s 2011 article (paywalled), Ruby’s 2022 report, or the primary sources for Drift 2017 and Velocify 2012, so figures from those appear only as others report them.

Figures and prices last checked: 12 October 2026.

This page is general information, not legal advice. Rules change; check anything that matters to your business with your own adviser.