By: Todd Lokken I am the owner and manager of a trucking repair company located in the mid-west. My business provides tractor-trailer repair services both in-house and on the road for owner/operators who are in transit. I say "in transit" because a large portion of our business comes from trucks which have broken down on the road. We travel over 200 miles in all directions to get them up and running as fast as we can. Additionally, we offer diagnostic services and preventive maintenance such as oil changes, plug and wire changes and tune-ups. Located between two fairly large cities, we see a lot of business come in as drivers generally prefer to avoid having to stop near major metropolitan areas as it can often mean several hours of down time. Consequently, we get a lot of calls coming in at certain times of the day, while at other times our phones might not ring for an hour or more. I recently had a trunk study performed on our phone lines, to determine if we were missing calls during our busy times. I wanted to know if adding more phone lines might improve business. I was shocked at the results. We were missing a lot of incoming calls, more than I had imagined. With the phones ringing off the hook, I really had no idea just how many people were unable to get through. After I received the trunk study results, I added four more lines and hired more customer service representatives. Within a month of doing this, I had to add two extra bays to our building to accommodate the increase in trucks coming in. In short, my business has grown by thirty percent from having the trunk study performed. The alternative would have likely been a decrease in business as drivers might have decided to stop trying to schedule with us as a result of never being able to get through. It just reminds me that what you don't know can hurt you, or certainly your business.