Case study · measured 22 June 2026 to 25 August 2026
Over nine weeks Sureline held 403 conversations with 225 different callers on Liddell Stor-All's forwarded number. 268 of them, 66%, finished without anyone in the office picking up. The other 135 were handed to a person with the reason attached. The busiest month cost $96.
Every figure below comes from the account's own transcripts and bill. The method is at the bottom of the page, so the numbers can be checked against it.
Disclosure: Liddell Stor-All and Rentals is the founder's own business.
Cost shown at the published rate, carrier time included.
The story
Liddell Stor-All and Rentals is two businesses behind one office door. Storage units on one side, rental property on the other, and a single number for both. Unit availability, listings, applications, online payments, work orders: all of it lands on the same desk, and on the busiest day it landed 44 times.
Sureline picked up in front of that desk. Over nine weeks the agent held 403 conversations with 225 different callers, working from the same listings, rates and policies the staff use. It passed along the 135 that genuinely needed a person, with the reason attached. The other 268 were finished on the spot.
The office kept a third of the volume it used to carry, and the busiest month cost $96.
“Our office was overrun with calls. I couldn’t afford another employee. Then we started using Sureline. Our call volume that reached the office was cut in half! We stopped missing calls, and my employees were able to refocus on a backlog of work that had been building up for months.”
Lance Liddell · Liddell Stor-All and Rentals
Method
Period. 22 June 2026 to 25 August 2026, nine weeks, one forwarded line. The agent answered every call; nothing was sampled.
Conversation. One inbound call or text thread, from the caller's first word to hang-up. A caller who rang twice counts twice; the 225 is the number of distinct phone numbers.
Finished by the agent. The conversation ended with no hand-off of any kind: no live transfer, no callback booked for a person, no message left for one. 268 of 403.
Handed to a person. Everything else: a live transfer to the office, a callback, or a message with the reason the agent gave. 135. A call the caller would have been happy to end with the agent still counts here if the agent chose to pass it on.
Cost. The account's bill for the calendar month with the most conversations, at the rates published at the time, carrier time included. $96.
"Cut in half" is the owner's description of the calls reaching the desk. The measured figure is that 66% of conversations never needed one.
FAQ
It is one account, measured, and the point of publishing it is that the numbers are real. A business with a simpler set of questions finishes more calls on its own; one that takes a lot of quotes hands more over. Two thirds finished without a person is a fair first expectation for an agent that takes availability, pricing and how-to questions.
The same listings, unit rates, hours, payment instructions and policies the office staff use, read from the website and filled in once through the setup interview. It was built from the self-storage receptionist template with rentals added as a second line of work.
The busiest month was $96. Across nine weeks the 403 conversations used 518 minutes, about 1.3 minutes each: most callers wanted one fact and got it.
A conversation is finished when it ends with no hand-off: no live transfer, no callback booked for a person and no message left for one. Anything the agent passed on, with the reason attached, counts as handed over, even when the caller would have been satisfied either way.
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