Missed sales calls turned into callbacks
At an Australian small business finance marketplace, I built an automatic follow-up for every sales call that went unanswered: an email and SMS from the salesperson who had just called, triggered from Salesforce. Callback rates rose, prospects told us when to call, and people who weren’t interested could opt out, which saved the sales team time.
Automatic follow-up after a missed call
Challenge
Most prospects were busy business owners, so many first sales calls went unanswered. Every missed call was a lead the business had paid for.
What I did
Connected the phone system to Salesforce, then sent an email and SMS follow-up from the salesperson after every missed call.
Result
Against a control group, prospects took fewer calls to reach, and more became qualified leads.
The challenge
The business handled a large volume of loan enquiries from many sources: referrers, third-party partnerships, and direct channels such as Google Ads and SEO. An offshore contact team, managed from Sydney, made the first call to most of these enquiries before qualified leads went to the Australian broker team.
Reaching people was the hard part. Most of the prospects were business owners, busy running their business during work hours, so many first calls went unanswered. Every missed call was a lead the team had paid to generate and might not reach again.
The head of operations, who managed the contact team, wanted to improve conversion from enquiry to qualified lead. We agreed the goal together: more sales-qualified leads reaching the broker team, with marketing helping the contact team reach people.
My approach
I treated the missed call itself as the trigger. A missed call gave us a reason to follow up straight away, while the enquiry was still fresh, with an easier way to respond than picking up the phone.
I planned the strategy and the data it needed, then worked with our Salesforce developer to build it. For every call, we needed to know who made it, who it was to, when it happened, and how long it lasted. A call under a set number of seconds meant the prospect hadn’t answered, and that became the signal for the workflow.
I used the salesperson’s name, number, and signature in every message, so the follow-up felt connected to the call. We ran it as an A/B test against a control group that got the calls alone.
What I built
Call data in the CRM. With our Salesforce developer, I connected the phone system to Salesforce so every call was logged against the right contact and team member, with its time and length. I chose which fields synced to Autopilot, and worked with the developer to create the new ones the workflow needed.
A missed-call workflow. I designed the workflow, its entry and exit rules, and its segments in Autopilot:
- First missed call: an email from the salesperson who called, explaining who they were, what the enquiry was about, and how to get back in touch
- Second missed call: an SMS from the same salesperson, saying sorry we missed them, why we were calling, and the number to call back on
- Further missed calls: follow-ups continued for up to four missed calls, then the workflow stopped sending messages and the contact left it
- Picked up: as soon as a prospect answered any call, that data flowed into Salesforce and removed them from the workflow, so they never received a "sorry we missed you" message after a conversation
Ways to respond. Every message let people call back when it was convenient, reply with a better time to call, or tell us they didn’t want any more contact. Many business owners preferred to talk after work, and their replies told the team when to call.
Hi Jo,
I tried calling about your business finance enquiry. I’m the specialist looking after it.
You can call me back when it suits, reply with a better time, or let me know if you’d rather not hear from us.
Direct number and signature
Content and reporting. I wrote all of the emails and SMS messages, and ran the reporting. I reviewed the results regularly with our co-founder and the head of operations, and refined the copy and targeting based on what we saw.
Results
The text a prospect receives
Example copy
- Fewer calls, more qualified leads. Compared with a control group, prospects took fewer calls to reach and more became qualified leads.
- More callbacks. More prospects called back or replied with a better time to call, often by email.
- Time saved for sales. People who weren’t interested could opt out in one reply, so the team stopped calling leads that weren’t going to convert and spent that time on the ones that were.
- A standard part of the process. The workflow became part of how the sales team worked.
Losing leads between the enquiry and the first conversation?
I’ll look at where your follow-up could do more.
What I’d do next
- Keep a small control group running, so the uplift stays measurable as the copy and timing change.
- Add a booking link to every message, so prospects could pick a call time themselves.
- Use the preferred call times in the dialler, so the team’s call lists automatically put each lead at the time they asked for.
FAQs
How do you trigger marketing automation from a phone call?
Connect your phone system to your CRM so every call is logged against the contact with its time and length, then sync those fields to your marketing automation platform. We treated a call shorter than a set number of seconds as unanswered, and used it to enrol the contact in the workflow.
Should sales follow-up emails come from the salesperson or the company?
For one-to-one follow-up, I’d send from the salesperson. Using their name, number, and signature means the prospect knows exactly who called and who to call back.
How many times should sales call a lead before stopping?
We stopped the sequence after four missed calls, with a message after each one offering a callback, a better time, or an opt-out. The right limit depends on your sales cycle and how hard each lead was to win.