Why 'Where are you?' calls cost more than you think

Your phone buzzes for the third time this morning. It's not an emergency and it's not a new job — it's Mrs Patterson wanting to know if you're still coming and how much longer you'll be. You pull over, answer, reassure her, hang up, get back on the road. Thirty seconds, easy.

Except it wasn't the first one today, and it won't be the last.

If it feels like half your day goes on fielding "where are you?" texts instead of actually working, you're not imagining it. It's one of the most underrated drains on a tradesperson's time and focus — and the fix is simpler than most people expect. Here's what the interruptions actually cost, why customers keep ringing, and how to make the whole problem go away.

First, count them for a week

Most tradespeople underestimate how many ETA calls they get, because each one feels harmless on its own. Thirty seconds here, a quick reply there. It's only when you count that the total gets uncomfortable.

So count. Keep a tally on a notepad in the van or a note on your phone, and mark every single time a customer contacts you to ask where you are or when you'll arrive. For one week. Not just the ones that annoyed you — everything.

The ones people forget to count are usually:

• The quick "you still coming?" text you answer without thinking
• The call from a customer whose partner has just asked them the same question
• The follow-up twenty minutes later, because your first answer was vague
• The message that goes to an old number and gets forwarded on
• The call you miss and have to return, which is two interruptions, not one

Once you've got a real number for your week, you can put a real cost on it. Which is the next bit.

If you'd rather skip straight to the system, our guide on how to stop "where are you?" calls for good walks through the message templates step by step.

The cost isn't the thirty seconds

Here's why the tally undercounts the damage. The phone call is the cheapest part of the interruption. Four other things ride along with it:

1. Driving distraction. Answering or glancing at your phone between jobs is a genuine safety risk, not just an inconvenience. Hands-free or not, it takes your attention off the road.
2. Broken concentration. If you're up a ladder, under a sink or mid-wire, stopping to answer breaks your focus — and getting back into the flow of fiddly work takes longer than the call did.
3. Longer jobs. A few minutes here and there. Across a day, those add up to a longer working day for exactly the same amount of paid work.
4. The domino effect. Running ten minutes behind on one job pushes back every job after it. By three o'clock you're apologising to your fourth customer of the day — and that's a reputation cost sitting on top of the time cost.

That last one is the reason a small number of interruptions does outsized damage. One call doesn't just cost you one call; it costs you a slice of every appointment that follows.

Do the sum on your own week rather than trusting anyone's average. Take the tally you counted. Add a realistic recovery time to each one — not the length of the call, but how long it took to get properly back into what you were doing. Multiply by your hourly rate. Then ask how much of your afternoon overrun this week traced back to a morning that started ten minutes late.

Whatever number you land on, it's yours, and it's the only one worth acting on.

The interruption never feels expensive on its own. It's the accumulation — distraction, delay, and the ripple through every job after it — that quietly eats a week.

Why customers ring in the first place

They're not ringing to annoy you. They're ringing because they're anxious and they can't see anything.

Put yourself on their side of it. They've taken time off work. They're waiting in for someone to come to their home. And they've got no way of knowing whether you're five minutes away or an hour behind.

Now think about your own experience as a customer. A parcel gets a tracking link. A taxi shows up as a moving dot on a map. A takeaway tells you exactly when it'll land on the doorstep. Every other service people use has trained them to expect visibility as standard — and when a tradesperson gives them silence instead, ringing is the only tool they've got left.

That's the real point. The calls aren't a customer service problem to manage better. They're a visibility gap. Give people the information before they have to ask, and the urge to ring simply doesn't arrive.

Ignoring the calls doesn't work

Letting them go to voicemail feels like the cheap option. It isn't. A missed call reads as poor service to someone who's already waiting, and that frustration tends to surface later as a review rather than a conversation.

The pattern goes like this:

• They call once, no answer — mild irritation
• They call again, still no answer — actual frustration
• You arrive, possibly late, and the tension is in the room before you've said hello
• The job goes fine, but the impression left behind is "hard to get hold of"
• That impression shows up as a lukewarm review, or as no second booking

Repeat work and referrals are the backbone of most trades businesses, and both run on trust. Someone who felt ignored — even unintentionally — is measurably less likely to ring you next time, and much less likely to mention you to a neighbour.

Ignoring the symptom leaves the cause exactly where it was. The customer still doesn't know where you are; now they're annoyed as well.

The one-tap fix

The answer isn't managing the calls better. It's removing the reason to make them.

That's what OnMyWay does. One tap as you set off sends your customer a live WhatsApp link showing your name, your Google rating and your real-time arrival estimate. Nothing for them to install, nothing for you to type.

In practice:

1. You finish one job and head to the next
2. You tap once — no typing, no writing a message from scratch
3. Your customer gets a WhatsApp message with a live tracking link
4. They open it in their browser and see when you'll actually arrive

There's no learning curve on their end either. Ofcom's Online Nation 2025 report found 90% of UK online adults use WhatsApp — 44.2 million people — and 76% use it daily. They open a message in an app they already live in, see the same kind of tracking a delivery firm would send, and the anxiety that used to trigger a call never builds.

It's not a CRM and it's not another system to learn. No setup, no importing customer lists, no training — it works on the first job you send it on. There's more on the mechanics in our guide to ETA notifications for customers.

What actually changes about the day

The difference isn't dramatic, which is rather the point. It's the same day with one recurring interruption removed from it.

• Before: several interruptions before lunch, a missed call from someone who's now annoyed, a rushed last job because you're behind, and an apology text to your final customer.
• After: one tap from the driver's seat before you pull away, quiet for the rest of the drive, and a customer who already knows you're two minutes out before you knock.

There's a second benefit that comes free with it. Marking a job done automatically fires a Google review request — at the moment the customer is most pleased with you, rather than days later when they've forgotten what you fixed. More reviews, less admin, running in the background while you get on with the trade.

It's all one plan: a flat £25/month with everything included, no tiers and no per-user pricing. There's a 14-day free trial with no card required, so you can test it on next week's jobs before deciding anything.

Frequently asked questions

What is an ETA notification for customers?

It's a message — usually by text or a messaging app — telling a customer roughly when a tradesperson will arrive. Instead of them ringing to ask, the update goes out proactively, often with a live tracking link showing real-time progress, much like a parcel delivery tracker.

Do customers need to download an app to see their ETA?

No. With OnMyWay the link arrives over WhatsApp and opens straight in the customer's phone browser — nothing to download, no account to create. They tap the link and see the live arrival estimate, exactly like tracking a takeaway or a taxi.

How much time do automated ETA updates save?

That depends entirely on how many ETA calls you currently get, which is why it's worth tallying them for a week before deciding. The saving isn't only the calls themselves — it's the concentration you don't have to rebuild afterwards and the knock-on delay that doesn't reach your afternoon jobs.

Is sending an ETA update complicated to set up?

No, deliberately so. There's no CRM to configure, no customer database to import and no training required. You send the first update from your phone in the van, minutes after signing up.

The bottom line

"Where are you?" calls feel small in the moment. Tallied across a week they cost real time, real focus and — through late-running jobs and frustrated customers — real money.

The fix isn't better call management. It's removing the anxiety that causes the call, by giving customers what they want before they have to ask for it.

If you'd like that handled in one tap, OnMyWay sends the live WhatsApp ETA when you set off and asks for the Google review when you're done. There's a 14-day free trial, no card required.