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Guide · 3 min read

The 168-Hour Front Desk: How to Work Out What Your Phone Coverage Actually Costs

A business week is 168 hours. This guide walks one example through five steps — count the gap, see where it falls, price it, weigh the ways to close it — and links each step to the free tool that runs it on your own numbers.

Updated August 2026

  1. Set your real hours

    A business open 9 to 5 on weekdays posts 40 hours. Posted and covered are different numbers, and the gap between them is where the argument lives.

    The example week, as one barPosted open: 40 hours, Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. Actually answered: 35, because the lunch hour goes to voicemail every day. Everything below follows these two numbers.
    35
    128
    A caller reaches a personPosted open, phone unansweredClosed — voicemail or nothing

    The guide's example — a weekday 9–5 that loses the lunch hour — not a finding about your business.

    The rest is not idle time. It is the time your number is still being dialled.

    Draw your own week, hour by hour → Coverage score

  2. See where the dark hours fall

    Missed calls aren't spread evenly. They cluster, each cluster behaves differently, and only two of the four leave anything behind.

    The example's 133 dark hours, by where they fallThe same hours as the bar above, split into the four clusters they land in. Only the solid ones leave anything behind.
    80
    48
    Leaves a voicemail — you can count itLeaves nothing — no record at all
    After close80 hrs

    VoicemailThe biggest block — and more often a new customer researching than a regular rescheduling.

    Weekends48 hrs

    VoicemailA voicemail left Saturday morning is answered Monday. That's 48 hours to call someone else.

    Lunch and busy stretches5 hrs

    No recordShort, frequent, and logged nowhere.

    Overflow—

    No recordTwo calls at once. The second one waits; a caller comparing options doesn't.

    Weeknights and weekends counted from the example's Monday-to-Friday hours. The Coverage Score draws a real Saturday.

    A report of missed calls is a floor, not a count — half the gap never reaches it.

  3. Price the gap with your own figures

    Two numbers from your own records, one judgement call, one multiplication. A model you can't check is a model you won't act on.

    The whole calculation, four stepsThe example's figures. The ROI calculator runs the same four steps on yours.
    1
    Calls missed each week — from your phone logs, or a fortnight of counting12 calls
    2
    × 4.33 weeks, to get a month52 calls
    3
    × the share you'd expect to book if someone answered — be conservative; a third is a defensible starting point, and the example uses 35%18 bookings
    4
    × the average value of a booking — $350 in the example$6,365 a month

    That's $76,381 a year against the example's 133 dark hours.

    An estimate from the example's numbers, not a promise. Some missed callers ring back and some leave a voicemail — both push it down, neither to zero.

    Run it on your own numbers → ROI calculator

  4. Compare the four ways to close it

    Once the gap is hours and dollars, the four options compare — another receptionist, an answering service, self-serve AI software, or a managed service. While it's a feeling, they don't.

    Which one is right depends on the gap you measured — which is why measuring it first is the actual advice here.

    The four options side by side → How we compare

  5. See the week with the gap closed

    The same week, drawn twice: as measured, and with the phone answered around the clock.

    The same week, answeredThe example week as measured, against the identical week with the phone answered around the clock. The bracket is the difference.

    The example desk today

    35
    133

    Answered around the clock

    168

    Those 133 hours are where the example's $6,365 a month from step 3 is sitting.

    The lower bar is coverage — the hours a caller reaches someone — not a claim about what happens on any one call. Luna Front answers 24 hours a day, every day; what a given call books depends on the caller and on your business.

Measure your own gap. Then hear it closed.

Bring your score and your ROI figure to a 15-minute consultation and we'll talk through what covering those hours looks like for your business — or listen to Luna Front answer a call first.