The composition of inbound volume by type: emergency versus scheduled, job type, lead source, new versus existing customer.
Call mix describes what a phone operation is actually being asked to do: the shares of emergency versus scheduled work, of job types and their value ranges, of lead sources, of new versus existing customers. Two operations can run identical processes with identical people and post different numbers purely because their mixes differ.
Mix is the single most common reason two booking rates are not comparable even when both are computed the same way. An emergency-heavy restoration phone books at a rate a maintenance-heavy HVAC phone never will, for reasons that have nothing to do with how either is run — which is why unsegmented industry benchmarks flatter some operations and slander others. The benchmarks page shows how to build a comparison that survives this, and the industry pages describe what each trade's mix does to its numbers.
Classify a month of answered calls by emergency/scheduled, job type, and lead source — the disposition tags your field-service software already carries usually get you most of the way. Segment before comparing: your own January against your own July is a mix comparison first and a performance comparison second.
Related terms: Booking rate · Non-opportunity call · Abandoned call · the full glossary
How to build a comparison you can defend, starting with segmentation.
How call mix, seasonality and job value change what loss looks like, trade by trade.