Guide · a measurement method
How many bookings are you missing? A way to count.
Most owners feel the leak and cannot size it. This guide is a counting method you can run with a notebook and your calendar: what to log, how to classify a missed booking, and how to decide which leak to fix first. It is not a survey and quotes no industry statistics; the numbers will be yours.
What you get
What this guide covers.
- A two-week log you can keep by hand: every enquiry, its channel, its time, and what happened next.
- Four causes to classify a miss: nobody answered, the answer was slow, a question went unanswered, or the customer could not book themselves.
- A simple way to put a dollar figure on each cause using your own average ticket.
- A decision rule for what to fix first, and how to tell in a month whether it worked.
Steps
The steps, in order.
Log every enquiry for two weeks
Phone (answered and missed), website form or chat, email, texts, walk-ins. For each: the time, the channel, and whether it ended in a booking. Missed calls count even when the caller left no message.
Mark each one that did not become a booking
Anything that did not end in a confirmed appointment within a few days is a miss. Be strict; a “they will call back” is a miss until they do.
Classify the cause
Nobody answered (busy, closed, after hours). Answered slowly (a callback the next morning). A question unanswered (price, availability, suitability). Could not self-serve (no way to book at that moment).
Price each cause with your own numbers
Misses per cause × the share you honestly believe would have booked × your average ticket. Keep the share conservative; it is your assumption, not a benchmark.
Fix the largest, then count again
The largest dollar figure is the first fix. After-hours misses point to answering coverage; unanswered questions point to written answers; self-serve misses point to a booking path. Run the log again a month later.
Questions
Answered plainly.
Is this based on a study?
No. It is a counting method. Industry statistics about missed bookings vary widely by trade and by how they were collected, and none of them is your business. Two weeks of your own log is worth more.
How often should we count?
Two weeks to start, then a week each quarter, and always after a change such as new hours, a new booking path or an assistant answering the phone.
What is the most common first fix?
In our own demonstrations and design conversations, the largest bucket is usually calls nobody answered, followed by questions nobody answered in writing. Your log will tell you whether that holds for you.
Do I need software to do this?
No. A notebook by the phone and your calendar are enough. If you already run Amfion, the Inbox and the Performance page show the same counts for the channels it answers.