When something's leaking, people don't leave voicemails

Most plumbing calls are time-sensitive. A leak under the sink at 7am, a boiler that stopped working overnight, a blocked drain that can't wait until Monday — the caller is stressed, wants to speak to someone now, and has several other plumbers pulled up on their phone. If yours goes to voicemail, they'll call the next one before the beep finishes.

The problem isn't that plumbers don't want to answer. It's that the job makes it impossible. You can't pick up a call while you're lying under a kitchen unit with water dripping past your ear, or while you're soldering a joint that needs both hands and full concentration. The phone sits in your pocket, vibrating, and by the time you can get to it, the caller has moved on.

Research from Invoca puts the average missed call rate for small businesses at around 25% — and for plumbers, who are physically unable to answer for most of their working day, the real figure is likely higher. Each missed call is typically a job worth several hundred dollars or pounds. Over a week, that's a pattern. Over a year, it's a significant chunk of revenue that went to whoever picked up.