What's the real cost of a missed call for a restaurant?

For a full-service restaurant, the cost of a missed call breaks down by what kind of call it was. A missed takeout order call is roughly a $35-65 hit, based on typical takeout ticket sizes, and it's not a rare event, restaurant phones ring most during the exact hours staff are least available to answer, the 6-8pm dinner rush. A missed reservation call is harder to price directly since the table might still get filled by a walk-in, but a no-show alternative, an empty table that could have turned, during a Friday or Saturday dinner service can mean $150-300 in lost revenue for that seating. And a missed catering call is the worst case by far, those inquiries run $500-2,000+ per order, and a caller who hits voicemail during a lunch rush typically just calls three other restaurants and books with whichever answers first.

Restaurants that track it usually find they're missing more calls than they'd guess, a busy dinner rush with the host seating tables and a slammed floor easily generates 10-20 unanswered rings in a single night. Even a conservative estimate, say 8 missed calls a week where half were takeout orders and one was a catering inquiry, adds up to real monthly losses well into four figures, against a $99/month Premium plan that answers every one of those calls instead. The math tends to favor Voksha even for restaurants skeptical about needing an AI receptionist, because the current cost isn't zero, it's just invisible.