The Morning Round Surprised Me

We called the same 20 London roofing companies back during business hours. Only 7 of 19 reached a real person.

Last week I called 20 roofing companies in London at 9 PM. Nobody picked up, which I expected.

So we called the same list again the next morning during business hours. I thought that round would be boring because I assumed everyone answers in the morning.

We called 19 numbers this time. One company was out of business, so I dropped it.

Only 7 reached a real person. 7 out of 19.

6 went to voicemail, and one of those mailboxes was full. 3 just rang until it stopped. 1 number did not connect at all. 1 put us into an automated menu asking which office we wanted. And 1 number, listed under a roofing company, was answered by a window and door business. That is a wrong listing, so any homeowner calling that number is gone.

That means it was 0 out of 20 at night, and 7 out of 19 in the morning. 12 roofers in the middle of a work day, during peak roofing season, missed their phone calls.

Here is how the morning round actually ran. I did not dial these by hand. We built an AI agent, gave it the list, and it placed all 19 calls in under two minutes. It clearly stated it was AI and explained why it was calling.

Most people who answered hung up within 15 seconds. 1 person sounded annoyed, which is fair. I would hang up too.

Both things are true at once. Roofers miss most of their calls, and people hate answering calls from a robot. We are building a solution for the first problem, but we still have to earn our way past the second.