Ran the numbers on a few contractor and salon clients recently: the average missed call during business hours costs them roughly one job. Not a bad review, not a competitor's lower quote — a call that rang out because the tech was elbow-deep in a repair or the stylist was mid-appointment.

Most owners eyeball this at maybe 2-3 missed calls a week. When we actually pulled call logs, it was closer to 15-20. That's not a staffing problem, it's a coverage problem — nobody can answer a phone while doing the actual job they were hired for.

We built Front Base's AI Front Desk after watching this pattern repeat across every trade and small clinic we talked to. It answers instantly, captures the job details (address, issue, timing), books the slot if your calendar's open, and flags anything urgent. No hold music, no voicemail, no 'call you back tomorrow.'

If you run a business where the phone is your #1 revenue driver and it's not being answered 100% of the time, that's the leak worth plugging before anything else — before ads, before a new website, before a referral program. None of that matters if the phone just rings out.