You miss calls while you're on the job, and some of them never call back.

A lot of calls to an electrical shop aren't emergencies. They're a homeowner who wants a few more circuits in the garage, a builder with a new house to wire, a property manager with a list. Miss them while you're working, and some of them book the next electrician instead.

Book a call

A tradesman in a hard hat and safety harness, seen from behind, holding a phone to their ear on an active job site with a work truck and cones behind them — Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Sound familiar?

You're up in a hot attic fishing wire, and your phone keeps buzzing in your pocket.
You check voicemail at lunch, and some of the messages are just a name and a number, or nothing at all.
By the time you call back at the end of the day, the homeowner has already booked someone else for the EV charger.
A builder you've been hoping to hear from finally calls, on the one afternoon you couldn't pick up.

What it costs you

Planned work goes to whoever calls back first. A service upgrade or a remodel isn't urgent, but the customer is ready to book today.

A first call from a builder, a GC or a property manager can turn into years of steady work. Missing it can cost a lot more than one job.

Callbacks eat your evening. The day ends with you returning calls instead of finishing paperwork or heading home.

And when someone else grabs the phone for you, the call gets answered but the details get lost. You still end up calling back to find out what they wanted.

Why it keeps happening

Electrical work takes your hands and your attention. Nobody wants to stop in the middle of making up a panel to answer a phone.

In a small shop, the owner is the lead electrician and the person who answers the phone, often at the same moment.

Calls bunch up at the worst times: mid-morning when you're deep in a job, and early evening when people get home and notice the problem.

Since so many calls aren't emergencies, it's easy to treat them as something to get to later. The caller doesn't see it that way.

Who you'll talk to

Kevin Kirchner smiling, in black glasses, a black cap and a green plaid shirt — Kevin Kirchner

You'll be talking with me, Kevin Kirchner. My questions will be about who answers your phone during the day, what happens to a call nobody picks up, and how you find out about the ones you missed.

Much of the scramble around a missed call is busywork, and it doesn't have to land on you anymore. How that looks depends on your shop and who answers the phone today.

Questions

Do electricians need an answering service?

Some do and some don't. It depends on how many calls you miss, what kind of calls they are, and what happens to them now. That's worth knowing before you pay anyone to answer.

Are missed calls really a big deal for an electrician?

Plenty of your calls aren't emergencies, so it can feel like they'll wait. Some will. The ones comparing electricians for planned work often go with whoever gets back to them first.

Should I just answer every call on the job?

You can try. But every call you take on site costs time on the job that's paying you today, and you're stuck choosing between a slow job and a missed customer.

What exactly do you build?

It depends on how you work today; we figure that out on the call.