44%
of calls to businesses never reach a person.
Invoca, Lead Conversion Benchmarks Report 2026Report · 2026 · Local businesses and AI
The 2026 Lost Customer Report
How many customers local businesses lose to calls they can't answer, in the numbers published this year and last, and how AI can win them back.
86%
of calls from numbers people don't recognise go unanswered.
Hiya, State of the Call 202679%
of people will switch to a business that replies faster.
Invoca, B2C Buyer Experience Report 202675%
have hung up after being kept on hold too long.
Invoca, B2C Buyer Experience Report 2026 (press release)36%
get a reply within an hour of filling in a form online, though 56% expect one.
Invoca, B2C Buyer Experience Report 2026 (press release)53%
have texted a business and never got a reply.
Textmagic, 2025 consumer texting survey9 in 10
still read their text messages. Only 8% ignore them.
Textmagic, 2025 consumer texting survey35%
of calls to small and mid-sized US law firms went unanswered in business hours.
Law Leaders, “Silent Lines” audit (via Law Firm Newswire)What the numbers say
Four things for any business that runs on the phone.
Almost half of calls go unanswered.
Nearly half of calls to businesses never reach a person (44%). In some trades it is worse: a third of calls to small law firms rang out during business hours (35%).
Calling back isn't enough.
Most people don't pick up a number they don't recognise (86%), so a call back from a mobile or an office line can be missed as well.
A text gets read, if someone sends one.
Nine in ten people still read their texts, yet more than half of people who text a business never hear back (53%).
Speed decides who gets the customer.
Most people will switch to whoever replies faster (79%), and only about a third get a reply within the hour they expect (36% against 56%).
How AI wins them back
With Dolittle, you never lose a customer to a missed call.
- Replies to every missed call. In your business's name, by SMS or WhatsApp, so the caller has an answer they can read instead of a voicemail beep.
- Asks what your team would ask. What they need, how soon and who they are, so the call back you make is a short one.
- Lines up the booking. It notes the time that suits the caller, or shares your own booking link.
- Hands over to a person. Anything unusual goes to you with a short summary. It doesn't guess.
- Stops when asked. Every text says how to opt out, and a caller who replies STOP is never texted again.
About these numbers
We gathered these numbers from the reports named here and checked each one in its original report or release. We did not run these studies. Several come from companies that sell calling, texting or AI products, most are surveys of what people say they do, and most cover the US and Europe, so your own customers may differ.
Dolittle doesn't have customer results to share yet. When our first pilots finish, we'll publish what we measure, here.
Sources
- Invoca, Lead Conversion Benchmarks Report 2026July 2026 · over 70 million calls across 10 industries
- Hiya, State of the Call 2026March 2026 · survey of 12,000+ consumers in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany and Spain
- Invoca, B2C Buyer Experience Report 2026June 2026 · 693 US consumers, surveyed 8–22 May 2026
- Invoca, B2C Buyer Experience Report 2026 (press release)9 June 2026 · the same survey
- Textmagic, 2025 consumer texting surveyApril 2025 · 1,800 US consumers, surveyed in March 2025
- Law Leaders, “Silent Lines” audit (via Law Firm Newswire)August 2025 · 1,200 calls over four weeks, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. local time