Answer rate

The answer rate measures the proportion of inbound calls that get answered — by you, a colleague, a service, an agent. It's the mirror image of the missed call rate, and the most honest way to grade your phone reception: at 85% answered over a month, fifteen calls in a hundred found nobody.

Improvement follows a hierarchy of rising costs: settings first (call waiting enabled, forwarding on busy), then coverage (an AI agent or answering service for the hours you're on site), and only at the end headcount. Broken down by cause — busy, no-answer, after hours — it tells you exactly where to aim: a degraded rate on Sunday at 10 PM and a degraded rate Tuesday at 11 AM aren't the same problem.