The Story
It's lunchtime on a Tuesday, and your office is deciding who is going to lunch first. Your receptionist is on line one, walking a customer through a reschedule, and line two starts ringing: a homeowner calling off your Google Local Services ad. She waits through four rings, gives up around 20 seconds, and calls the next company on the list. Nobody on your team did anything wrong; someone else was already on the phone.
Today, that call costs you a customer. Starting October 1, it also costs you whatever you're paying per lead. Google emailed LSA advertisers in late August: missed calls during business hours will be charged as valid leads once the caller stays on the line more than 20 seconds. Answered or not.
What does that mean for you exactly? If callers hit a menu when they dial you ("press 1 for an estimate"), the 20-second clock doesn't start until they press a number, and no press means no charge. If your line rings straight to a person, the clock starts as soon as it starts ringing. And follow-ups count now too: if the first call didn't qualify as a charged lead, a follow-up call that meets the criteria will, though Google says you're only charged once for follow-ups within 15 days of first contact.
Plenty of people will read this as Google squeezing the same phone line harder, and fair enough. But notice what didn't change: the cost of a missed call. A missed call was always one of the most expensive events in your business. It just never appeared on a bill before. Now those missed calls are costing you money.
The Tip of the Week
Your team answers the phone. Google is about to bill the gaps.
For most tree service companies, this was never about whether anyone picks up. You have a front desk, maybe an admin team, and they answer all day. The misses live in the gaps: the lunch hour, the end-of-day stack-up when crews are calling in, and homeowners are calling too, whatever the situation is. Under the old setup, those gaps quietly leaked customers. Starting October 1, they show up on the invoice at full price. Whether you got to the job or not, that lead is costing you money.
Treat coverage like a schedule, not a virtue. Find where your misses actually cluster, then close those specific windows with overflow routing: if the front desk hasn't picked up by ring three, the call rolls to your ops manager or whoever is next in line, then to a named third. Most office phone systems and call trackers already do this. It's a settings change, not a purchase.
Action steps (this week, before the switch flips):
Pull your LSA call log and sort last month's missed business-hours calls by time of day. There's almost always a pattern: lunch, end of day, Monday mornings, something. (20 min)
Multiply last month's missed count by your lead price. That's the line item Google adds if nothing changed month over month. Hand that number to whoever runs the office; it's their budget case for coverage. (5 min)
Set the overflow chain: front desk by ring three, then a manager, then a named third. If two calls at once beats you today, it bills you in October. (30 min with your phone system or call-tracking platform)
Brief the admin team on the mechanics: the 20-second timer, the key-press rule if you run a phone tree, and same-day callbacks, since follow-ups within 15 days ride the original interaction instead of creating a fresh charge. (15 min)
Worth a Look
Google's lead credits are automated now: charged leads get reassessed by Google's models and credited within about 30 days if judged low quality. There is no manual dispute, just a feedback survey Google may or may not act on, and nothing published yet on how credits treat missed-call leads. You should budget as if every missed-call charge sticks.
Separately, LSA accounts are migrating into Google Ads as pay-per-lead Performance Max campaigns, and migrated accounts lose the manual cap on what a single lead can cost. If your account moved recently, check your lead price before October compounds it.
Bottom Line
Every platform change lands the same way in this business: businesses with loose habits pay for it, and those with tight ones collect a discount they never asked for. If your phone is covered at lunch, covered at 4:45, and covered when two calls hit at once, October 1 changes almost nothing for you, except how much your competitors now subsidize your market.
Google didn't invent the cost of a missed call. It itemized it. The bill was always there. Now you get to feel it.
2 More weeks until Q4 begins. See you all next Saturday!
- Jacob
Whenever you're ready, here's how we can help:
The AI-Proof Tree Service Playbook. Your Google profile, site, and reviews sorted in an afternoon. Get the Playbook
See if AI knows you exist. Homeowners now ask AI who to call before they searcg. Reply "AI" and we'll run your company through the major AI engines and send you what they say.
Come on the show. We interview tree service owners on my podcast Stumped Again. Grab a spot
Go after the commercial money. See what public and commercial contracts are open in your area. Reply "commercial", and we'll show you what's available in your market.
Let us handle it. Rather have our team help? Let's discuss your tree service marketing
How did you like today's issue?
The Backcut
