Missed call
An incoming call to the clinic that nobody answered: the line was busy, the receptionist was away or the call came outside opening hours. If nobody calls back, it is a lost enquiry.
≈ missed calls · unanswered call · unanswered calls · abandoned call · missed call rate
Why a missed call is a lost patient
Someone who phones a clinic is already close to booking, or at least wants to know the price. If nobody picks up, they rarely wait for a call back — more often they ring the next clinic in their search results. And the advertising that produced that call has already been paid for.
The trouble is that missed calls are almost invisible. The receptionist remembers the people they spoke to, not the ones who couldn't get through. The manager sees a calm front desk and has no idea how many people heard nothing but the ringing tone.
How to measure it and what to do
The missed call rate is the number of unanswered incoming calls divided by all incoming calls in the period. Separately, track how many of them were called back and how quickly, and at which hours calls are lost most often. This data comes from IP telephony or call tracking; an ordinary phone line keeps no such record.
Typical causes:
- one line and one receptionist who is also greeting patients;
- lunch breaks, shift changes and evenings with no cover;
- out-of-hours calls go nowhere: no recorded message and no call back in the morning;
- nobody reviews missed calls because nobody can see them.
What to do: set up telephony with a call log, make one person responsible for call-backs, write the rule "every missed call gets a call back during working hours" into the front-desk procedures and check it daily. If most calls are missed at peak times, the issue is how the front-desk workload is split. The loss calculator will help you estimate how many patients you lose at this stage.