Blog Details
Questions a dispatcher asks
Marta Okonkwo
·
4 min read
The Timestamps
Every Owner We Talk To Has A Rough Sense That They Are Missing Calls. Almost Nobody Knows Which Ones. So We Went Through The Timestamps On 1.4 Million Inbound Calls Across Nine Trades And Sorted Them By The Only Thing That Matters: Whether The Call Turned Into A Job.
The Timestamps
The Shape Is The Same In Every Trade. Calls Climb Through The Morning, Dip Over Lunch, And Then There Is A Second Peak Between 6pm And 8pm That Almost Nobody Is Staffed For. In HVAC That Evening Peak Is 31% Of The Week's Booked Revenue. In Plumbing It Is 28%. In Dental It Collapses To 9%, Because A Cracked Crown Can Wait Until Morning And A Dead Furnace Cannot.
Inbound Calls By Hour, All Trades, N=1,412,880.
What 6pm Actually Costs
Take A Four-Truck HVAC Shop Doing 400 Calls A Month At A $480 Average Ticket. If 31% Of Calls Land After Hours And Voicemail Converts At 8% Against 63% For A Live Answer, The Gap Is Not A Rounding Error — It Is Roughly $16,900 A Month Sitting In A Voicemail Box.
Voicemail Converts At About 8%. A Live Answer Converts At 63%. Same Caller, Same Job, Same Price.
Why Voicemail Does Not Work
Three Reasons Show Up Again And Again In The Transcripts:
The Caller Is Already On Your Competitor's Website While Your Greeting Plays.
Messages Arrive Without The Details You Need, So The Callback Is A Second Conversation.
By The Time You Call Back The Urgency Has Passed, Or Somebody Else Has The Job.
The Three Hours That Matter
If You Only Fix One Window, Fix 6pm To 8pm On Weekdays. It Is 24% Of Weekly Call Volume And It Has The Highest Intent Of Any Block In The Week — These Are People Who Waited Until They Got Home From Work To Deal With A Problem They Have Been Thinking About All Day.
What To Do About It
You Have Three Options And They All Work: Pay Someone To Sit On The Phone Until 8pm, Route To An Answering Service And Accept The Message Delay, Or Let Software Pick Up And Book. Pick Whatever Is Cheapest For Your Volume. Just Stop Sending The 6pm Caller To A Beep.
