Collman Digital · Mystery-shop study
We ran an after-hours mystery-shop on 40 licensed Florida roofing companies — a homeowner with a leak, calling at night. Here's exactly what happened to those calls, and what it costs a roofer who lets them slip.
In a mystery-shop of 40 licensed Florida roofing companies, only 3 answered an after-hours call with a person and 1 used an AI agent — 36 went to voicemail, and none of those voicemails were ever returned.
Study of 40 roofers · Last updated: August 28, 2026
The findings
Real counts from the run — no rounding, no estimates.
| Outcome | Calls | % of 40 |
|---|---|---|
| Went to voicemail | 36 | 90% |
| Answered by a person | 3 | 7.5% |
| Answered by an AI agent | 1 | 2.5% |
| Called back afterward | 0 | 0% |
That's the exact call a storm-driven homeowner makes at night — and 36 out of 36 times, it hit a machine and stayed there.
How we ran it
A deliberately simple, repeatable mystery-shop — the same test any owner could run on their own shop.
40 actively licensed Florida roofing companies, sourced from state DBPR licensing data — real businesses, real numbers.
Each was called outside business hours, as a homeowner with a roof problem would, using the identical script every time. We logged who answered live, who had an AI or voicemail, and what was said.
Then we waited over the days that followed. The number a roofer returns after a missed after-hours call is the one that wins the job. Callbacks received: zero.
An honest note on the sample: this is a 40-business mystery-shop, not a national census — a small, local snapshot of Florida roofers. But the pattern is stark, it's repeatable, and it lines up with the research below. We report only the real counts; we don't dress them up.
Why it matters
Harvard Business Review's study of 2,241 companies found the average business takes about 42 hours to respond to a new lead — and that firms reaching a lead within the first hour are far more likely to qualify and win it. A homeowner with water coming through the ceiling isn't waiting 42 hours. They're calling the next roofer — who, in our run, almost always sent them to voicemail too. Whoever picks up first has almost no competition.
The fix · inbound only
The leak that's costing you money isn't on the roof. It's the phone nobody answered at 9pm.
Collman Digital builds an AI receptionist — Riley — that answers every inbound call a roofing company gets and currently loses. She qualifies the homeowner (leak or replacement, insurance, urgency), books the estimate onto your calendar, and texts you the lead. It's inbound only, 24/7, with a Florida-compliant recording disclosure on every call — no outbound, no robocalls.
Riley runs on Vapi — the same voice platform Amazon's Ring chose to handle 100% of its inbound calls, across more than a billion calls. So it doesn't sound like a phone tree. In a market where 0 of 40 roofers called a homeowner back, the one that answers on the first ring doesn't have much competition.
We're taking just 5 founding roofing shops onto the Charter — book at (656) 220‑5887.
Straight answers
We called 40 actively licensed Florida roofing companies — pulled from state DBPR licensing data — outside business hours, using the same "homeowner with a roof problem" script on every call, then tracked who answered and who called back afterward.
36 of 40 (90%) went to voicemail. 3 (7.5%) were answered by a person, 1 (2.5%) by an AI agent, and 0 were returned.
In this study, almost none did — only 3 of 40 answered with a live person, and 1 used an AI. The other 36 hit voicemail and never called back.
Usually the job. A missed call is a re-roof or repair going to whichever competitor answers next. HBR found the average business takes ~42 hours to respond to a new lead, and first-hour responders are far more likely to win — a homeowner with a leak is long gone before 42 hours.
An inbound-only AI receptionist answers every call 24/7, qualifies the homeowner, and books the estimate. That's what Riley does for roofing companies — see how it works.
No. It's a 40-business mystery-shop of Florida roofers — a small local snapshot, not a national census. We report only the real, unrounded counts.