The other day while my partner was making dinner in the kitchen, I heard him answer a phone call. After he answered, I heard him announce, “Eighteen million dollars!” and then hang up the phone.
It was a robocall. You know, the one where they call and a recording claims someone wants to buy your home for cash. I liked his new approach—to demand millions of dollars for our home and hang up the phone. But then I found out you’re never supposed to speak to a robocall.
Robocalls are the worst.
As a business owner, you can’t ignore phone calls. But you’re probably answering too many calls that have nothing to do with your business.
Robocalls waste time and kill your productivity—they also put you at risk of having your business phone number spoofed.
Let’s look at how much time you could be losing to robocalls.
“We need to speak to you about your car’s extended warranty.”
You’ve probably gotten that robocall more than once. Warranty auto-renewal calls were the top complaint received by the FCC for the years 2020 and 2021. Unwanted robocalls frustrate consumers, but they also put businesses at risk. Spoofing can ruin your reputation since it looks like your business is doing the robocalling.
Let’s look at the raw data. How much time are you losing to robocalls?
In 2019, American consumers and businesses received 58.5 billion robocalls. Individuals in some states averaged more than two robocalls per day. Those robocalls are more likely to occur between 10-11 am and around 1 pm.
Peak work time.
Businesses often receive even more robocalls than the average person because their phone numbers are published in public databases. According to a study by the University of California at Irvine, it takes a person an average of 23 minutes to recover from answering a distracting phone call. That’s because interruptions can change the way you work and even your mental state.
Taking a robocall in the middle of a project puts people in a sour mood making it difficult to regain focus.
Now imagine the effects of robocalls on your business in terms of time and money.
If you’re deep at work at a task and stop to answer three robocalls a day, you’re losing more than an hour in your day. That’s more than 260 hours a year lost from answering robocalls.
Why are you still answering those calls?
For a business owner, it’s not as simple as ignoring unwanted phone calls. Your business takes calls from unknown numbers every day. You’ve got customers who need you to be available to take their calls! You can’t exactly place your phone on silent all day, ignoring calls and checking voicemails later.
Instead, you deal with the nuisance of robocalls.
How much money are you losing by handling all those unwanted phone calls?
Plumbers earn between $45–$200 an hour, depending on location and task. Let’s take the low end and say your time is worth 45 dollars an hour. Losing 260 hours a year to robocalls is costing you $11,700 per year!
Lawyers average $200 per hour, which means your law office could be losing more than $50,000 a year to robocalls. Now add that money lost to the time your team members spend taking robocalls during business hours.
In the U.S, Robocalls cost more than 3 billion dollars a year.
Business owners often make up that lost time and money by staying later and working when they should focus on their families and personal lives.
Time to stop taking robocalls.
I know, I know, a lot easier said than done. You can take steps to stop getting so many robocalls. Taking steps to reduce robocalls is excellent, but there are solutions out there that can help you filter out robocalls and give you back your time.
A virtual receptionist solution like Ruby is the most effective way to filter robocalls. In fact, these days, robocall filtering is a key feature to look for when comparing virtual receptionist solutions.
Our exclusive filtering feature automatically sends calls likely to be robocalls to voicemail. Our robocall filtering uses live network data and advanced AI algorithms to screen most robocalls, so you don’t waste a minute on them. Best of all, our users never pay for those calls sent to voicemail.
