What bad phone service costs a business: how to count the losses in money
Sado AI team · · 4 min read
In short
Bad phone service doesn’t show on any bill, but it takes money: an unanswered call, a long wait, a wrong price or opening hours, a promised callback that never came, an indifferent answer. You can count each loss with one formula: number of such calls × share who might have bought × average profit. Start by counting a week of missed calls and making three mystery calls to your own number. Most often, the biggest loss is customers who got no answer and no callback.
Where bad service loses money
| Problem | What the customer does | How to count it |
|---|---|---|
| Call not answered | Calls a competitor | Missed calls × share who might buy × average profit |
| Long wait, busy line | Hangs up | Callers who gave up × the same share × profit |
| Wrong price or hours | Comes in and leaves unhappy | Cancelled orders and discounts given |
| Callback promised, never made | Loses trust | Open requests × sales share × profit |
| Indifferent or rude answer | Doesn’t come back | A regular customer’s yearly profit |
| Not answered in the caller’s language | Can’t explain and leaves | Calls in that language × share × profit |
Example: a car service in one month
- 600 calls come in a month, and 90 go unanswered.
- Of those, for example, 30% would have booked, at 150,000 so‘m profit per visit: 90 × 0.3 × 150,000 = 4,050,000 so‘m.
- Another 20 customers were promised a callback that never came. 40% of them would have booked: 20 × 0.4 × 150,000 = 1,200,000 so‘m.
- Total: about 5.25 million so‘m a month, more than 60 million so‘m a year. These numbers are only an example.
That leaves out regular customers who left unhappy, and what they told others. More on unanswered calls: missed calls.
Check your own service: a mystery call
Call your own number from another phone at different times: morning, lunchtime, evening and Saturday. After each call, note:
- After how many rings was it answered, and was there a wait?
- Did they give the company name and their own name?
- Were the price, address and hours correct?
- Did they answer in the language you spoke, Uzbek or Russian?
- Was a next step offered: a booking or a callback time?
- Did the promised callback come at the promised time?
What a good answer sounds like
Many bad calls start where the operator doesn’t know the answer. Handled well, it sounds like this:
Sado: Assalomu alaykum, Mustahkam building supplies, this is Shohruh.
Caller: Hello. Do you have white 60 by 60 tiles?
Sado: We have white tiles, but I can’t say right now exactly how many 60 by 60 are left in the warehouse. Our manager will check and call you back by five today. On this number?
Caller: Yes, this number. I need 40 square metres.
Sado: Got it: white 60 by 60 tiles, 40 square metres. What’s your name?
Caller: Dilshod.
Sado: Thank you, Dilshod. Our manager will call you by five today.
The operator didn’t make up what it didn’t know, didn’t keep the caller on hold and gave an exact time. Now what matters most is keeping the promise: log every callback as a task and check them at the end of the day.
What an AI operator changes
Sado’s AI operator answers every call at once, day and night, with no queue: more than ten conversations at the same time. It replies in the caller’s language, Uzbek or Russian, speaks only from your company’s facts, and when it doesn’t know an answer, says a manager will call back and creates a task. Every call’s recording and transcript is in the portal, so you can check quality without mystery calls. More: AI operator for incoming calls and comparison with a call centre. Try it live or call 78 778 01 23.
Questions
How can we estimate the cost of bad service quickly?
Count a week of missed calls and put them into the formula: missed calls × share who might buy × average profit. It’s the biggest part and the easiest to count.
What if our staff are good but there are too many calls?
Then the problem is volume, not people: one person answers one call at a time. Busy hours, nights and weekends need a separate solution.
Does one bad call really matter?
Yes, because the caller is often close to buying: they found you and made time to call. If they get no answer, the advertising money that brought them is wasted too.