Text or voicemail: what to send someone who cannot take a call

The timing problem runs both ways

The reason you missed their call is that you were working. The reason they miss yours is the same. You are free at half past six and they are on a train, or putting children to bed, or in the last hour of a shift where the phone is in a locker.

So the two of you can spend three days failing to be free at the same moment, over a job that would take four minutes to book. This is one of the most common ways work quietly disappears, and it is not a sales problem at all.

What each channel is actually for

A voicemail is a request for a callback. It puts the next action on the other person, at a time you do not control, and it requires them to stop what they are doing, listen to the whole thing, and then find a moment to ring you. It works well for one specific case: a message that genuinely needs a voice, like bad news about a quote.

A text is a message that can be read in three seconds in a situation where a call cannot be taken, and answered with two words. It can be read at work. It can be read on a train. It sits in the thread so nobody has to remember anything, and it carries a link if a link is useful.

For arranging a time, confirming an address, or checking whether somebody still wants the work, a text does the job and a voicemail mostly does not.

Send both when it matters, in that order

For a job worth real money, ring, leave a short voicemail, then text saying you have just tried. The voicemail carries the tone, the text carries the information and gives them a way to answer without a conversation.

The order matters. A text before you ring makes the call look like a follow-up on your own message. A text after the voicemail reads as considerate, which is exactly the impression you want on a job you have not been given yet.

Keep it to one screen

The most common mistake in trade texting is length. A message that requires scrolling gets read later, and later usually means never. Everything a booking text needs fits in about three lines.

• Who it is, because your number is not saved in their phone yet.
• What it is about, in one clause: about the leak at the back of the house.
• One question with a small number of possible answers: does Thursday morning or Friday afternoon suit you better.

Reply from the number they know

If someone rang your business number, the text has to come from that number. A message from a personal mobile they have never seen looks like a wrong number at best and something worse at worst, and a large share of people simply will not answer it.

It also matters later. When they go looking for you in six months, they scroll their messages for the name they remember, and that thread needs to be attached to the number on your listing.

Do not stack messages on somebody who has not replied

Three unanswered texts in a row is the fastest way to turn a warm enquiry into somebody who blocks the number. A person who has not replied is usually at work, not ignoring you, and a second message an hour later says you have not noticed that.

One message, then a gap of a day, then one more that gives them an easy exit: let me know if you have sorted it and I will leave you be. That last line does two things. It gets a reply from people who would otherwise say nothing out of awkwardness, and it leaves the ones who really have gone elsewhere with a decent impression of you for next time.

The window is shorter than it feels

The practical rule is that a reply the same hour is a conversation and a reply the next day is a fresh introduction. This is not about being available at all times, which nobody in this trade is. It is about the first response, which does not have to come from you personally and does not have to be long.

One short message that goes out immediately, saying you have seen it and asking what they need, holds the job open long enough for you to answer properly when you are off the ladder.