Missed calls are the biggest leak in a locksmith business: text-back, answering and what each one costs
A locked-out caller gives you one ring, then dials the next listing. What a missed call costs a locksmith, the 30-second text-back, answering options and speed to lead.
You are under a dashboard with a lishi pick in one hand and a flashlight in your teeth. The phone buzzes in your pocket. You let it go. That caller was locked out six blocks away, and by the time you call back 20 minutes later they have already paid someone else. Nobody in any trade loses a sale faster than a locksmith who misses a lockout call.
This is the one marketing problem that has nothing to do with marketing. It is about the calls already coming in.
What a missed call costs
Run your own numbers in the missed-call calculator. The defaults there are a $140 average ticket, 160 calls a month, 24% missed and a 65% close rate on answered calls, which is roughly a busy one-van shop. On those numbers the missed calls are worth about $3,500 a month in jobs you did not do. Change the inputs to yours. Most owners find the real figure is more than they spend on advertising.
The reason the number is so large is the lockout caller's behavior. In other trades a missed call gets a voicemail and maybe a callback. A locked-out person calls the next listing within about 60 seconds. There is no second chance.
The 30-second text-back
The fix that works for every shop, including one-van shops: a text goes out automatically to any missed call within 30 seconds. The text is short and sounds like you:
"This is Dan at Ridge Lock, I'm on a job and saw your call. Are you locked out right now? Text me the address and I'll tell you how fast I can be there."
Three things happen. The caller, who was about to dial the next listing, stops and types an address. You see the address between jobs and reply with an arrival time and a price. And the conversation is now in text, which is how most people under 40 would rather talk anyway.
Set a second message for after hours if you do not answer nights: "We open at 7. If this is an emergency, text LOCKED and I'll call you back within 10 minutes." Only send that if someone really will. Only 16.6% of locksmith listings claim 24-hour service; be honest about which group you are in and route accordingly.
Answering options, by shop size
- One van, owner answers. Text-back on every missed call, plus a Bluetooth headset so the lockout-in-progress does not stop you answering. Answer with your name and the shop's name; callers in this trade are checking that you are real.
- Two to four vans. A dispatcher, even part time, pays for itself fast. Someone whose only job between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. is answering within two rings, quoting from the price sheet and dispatching the nearest tech. A spouse, a retired parent, a part-timer at home. Text-back still runs as the backstop.
- Any size, nights. An answering service that follows your script (price range, arrival time, take the address, page the on-call tech) or honest hours with the after-hours text-back. The worst option is listing 24 hours and letting the 2 a.m. call ring.
Speed to lead for the planned jobs
Lockouts are seconds. Rekeys, commercial quotes and Facebook leads are minutes, but not hours. A property manager who submits a form for a 30-door rekey and hears nothing until tomorrow has already heard from two other shops. Rule: every form, every lead, every email gets a text within five minutes during business hours, even if the text just says "Got it, I'll call you at 2 with a quote." Then call at 2.
Call tracking, so you know
Put a tracking number on your Google profile, one on the site, one on each ad campaign. Recordings on. Once a week, listen to ten calls and look at the missed-call count by hour. You will find the hour where you miss the most, and it is usually the same hour every day: the end of the school run, or 5 to 6 p.m. when every commuter discovers their keys are on the kitchen counter. Staff that hour.
The script for the answered call
"Ridge Lock, this is Dan." Then listen. Then: "I can be there in about 25 minutes. For a standard car lockout it's $85, and that's the price, there's no extra at the door. What's the address?" Price, time, address. Callers who have been burned by the bait-price listings will ask "is that the total" and the answer is yes. Say it before they ask.
Frequently asked
Will customers be annoyed by an automatic text? Not when it is written like a person and it arrives while they still need you. The text that annoys people is the one that arrives an hour later from a number they do not recognize.
What if I am in a dead zone under a building? The text-back goes out from the system, not from your phone, so it sends even when you have no signal. You reply when you surface. The caller has already been told you exist and are coming back to them.
Does this help my Google ranking? Indirectly. Local Services Ads ranks partly on your answer rate, and answered calls become reviews, and reviews rank the map pack. The Google Ads guide covers the LSA side. Missed-call text-back is the first thing to fix before buying a single click.
Missed-call text-back is one of the services in the free 14-day trial, set up the same day on your existing number. No card, text or call.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, locksmith businesses among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor