The Cost of Missed Calls
in Westlock

You're crawling under the Patterson farm's century-old house outside Westlock, wrestling with frozen pipes in -35°C weather, when your phone buzzes three times. By the time you get back to the truck, those three missed calls have already found another plumber. That's the reality of working in Westlock's service area. Miss the call, miss the job. And in a town of 5,000 people where word travels fast, missing calls costs you more than you think.

Let's run the numbers for a typical Westlock plumber. Your average service call runs $200-300. Emergency calls, especially those frozen pipe disasters hitting North Westlock every January, can easily hit $500-800. Well pump failures on the farms surrounding town? $1,200-2,000 when you factor in the parts and labor.

Here's where it gets expensive. Research shows that 85% of callers won't leave a voicemail. In Westlock's tight-knit farming community, people want to talk to a person, not a machine. They'll keep calling plumbers until someone answers.

If you're missing just two calls per week at an average job value of $400, you're losing $41,600 annually. That's more than what many Albertans make in a year. For emergency calls during Westlock's brutal winter months when pipes are freezing in Downtown's older homes and South Westlock's newer developments alike, each missed call could represent $800-1,500 in lost revenue.

Did you know?

Westlock plumbers using Buddy capture 40% more leads by answering every call instantly, even at 2 AM.

Farmers don't have time for phone tag. When the water system goes down on a cattle operation, every minute costs money. Animals need water, and they need it now. The same urgency applies when Mrs. Johnson's pipes freeze in her Downtown bungalow at 2 AM.

Westlock customers call with problems that can't wait. They're dealing with:

• Frozen pipes threatening to burst
• Well pumps that stopped working
• Farm water systems down during calving season
• Sewer backups in homes built on Westlock's clay soil

These aren't "call me back tomorrow" situations. When someone in Westlock has a plumbing emergency, they're calling every plumber in their phone until someone picks up. The first voice they hear gets the job.

Westlock's service area might seem small, but you're competing for every call. Local plumbers, contractors from Athabasca, even Edmonton-based companies that will drive north for the right job. In a community where the Westlock Healthcare Centre brings in patients from across the region, there's steady work, but also steady competition.

When a property manager at one of the medical buildings needs emergency service, they're not calling just one plumber. They have a list, and they start at the top. Miss that call, and someone else is building the relationship that leads to ongoing maintenance contracts.

The farming community north and south of town creates another dynamic. Farmers talk to each other. They share recommendations at the Co-op, at coffee in Downtown, at equipment auctions. Land one big farm account by answering when they called, and you might pick up three more through word of mouth. Miss that first call, and watch those referrals go to your competitor instead.

You're working on a tricky well pump replacement at a farm south of town. Cell service is spotty, and you've got your hands full with a 40-year-old pump system that should have been replaced a decade ago. Your phone rings, but you're 15 feet down in a well pit. By the time you climb out, clean up, and call back, the customer has already booked someone else for what turns out to be a $2,300 sewer line replacement in North Westlock.

Or you're dealing with a massive frozen pipe situation in one of Downtown's heritage buildings. It's a complex job requiring careful work around century-old infrastructure. You silence your phone to focus, knowing this job is worth $4,000 if done right. But during those three hours, you missed five calls. Two were for emergency frozen pipe calls that went to competitors. One was a farmer whose heating system failed, needing immediate water line protection. The other two were follow-up calls from previous customers who needed additional work.

These aren't hypothetical scenarios. This is Tuesday in Westlock during winter.

Here's what many Westlock plumbers don't realize. That missed call doesn't just cost you one job. It costs you the relationship.

Take the Westlock Healthcare Centre. They call you for a backed-up drain, but you're working on another job and miss the call. They book another plumber who shows up, fixes the problem professionally, and hands them a business card. Six months later, when they need major plumbing work done on their facility expansion, who do you think they call first?

The same pattern repeats across Westlock's farming community. Miss the call from Johnson Farms about their barn's frozen water lines, and you don't just lose that $800 service call. You lose the opportunity to build a relationship with a operation that spends thousands annually on water system maintenance.

Farming families in the Westlock area often own multiple properties. The Andersons might call about their main farm, but they also own rental properties in town and a second farm section. Answer that first call, provide good service, and you've potentially secured thousands in annual work. Miss it, and all that future revenue goes to whoever was available when they needed help.

The solution isn't complicated, but it requires treating your phone like the business tool it is. Every call that goes to voicemail is potential revenue walking out the door.

First, consider your coverage. During Westlock's winter emergency season, missing calls during peak hours (typically 7 AM to 9 PM) costs you the most. If you can't answer because you're on another job, have a system. Some plumbers use answering services specifically trained for trades. Others partner with family members or retired plumbers who can take calls and capture lead details.

Second, return missed calls fast. In Westlock's small community, if you call back within 30 minutes, you might still land the job. Wait until end of day, and that customer has already found someone else and probably told their neighbor about which plumber actually answered their phone.

Third, use technology smartly. Auto-reply texts acknowledging the call and providing an estimated callback time can buy you precious minutes. "Received your call. Currently on another job, will call back within 2 hours with emergency pricing available." This keeps you in the running while you finish your current work.

Fourth, consider seasonal staffing. Westlock's winter months create predictable spikes in emergency calls. Bringing on seasonal help or partnering with other trades during peak frozen pipe season lets you capture more of that high-value emergency work.

Every day you don't have a solid phone answering system is another day you're handing revenue to competitors. In Westlock's service area, reputation travels fast and second chances are rare. The plumber who answers their phone gets the job, builds the relationship, and captures the referrals.

Your technical skills matter, but they don't mean anything if customers can't reach you when they need help. Fix your phone coverage like you'd fix a broken pipe system. systematically, completely, and before it costs you any more money.

Start tracking your missed calls this week. Check your phone log and multiply those missed calls by your average job value. That number should motivate you to solve this problem once and for all. Your Westlock customers are calling. The question is whether you'll be the plumber who answers.