What Is Click-to-Call? A Guide for Sales and Support Teams

What is click-to-call?

Click-to-call (also known as click-to-dial, click-to-talk, or click-to-text) allows people to make phone calls in real-time using VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology—just by clicking a button.

You can also add click-to-call technology to a web page, as well as in pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements, map listings, and anywhere else your brand lives online. If you’ve ever seen a phone icon or button with a “call us” call to action (CTA) while browsing the web, that’s click-to-call in action!

How does click-to-call work?

Essentially, click-to-call lets you make phone calls by clicking a phone number instead of having to actually dial the phone number. It may not seem like you're saving a ton of time, but imagine a sales team or outbound contact center team that makes hundreds of phone calls a day. That really adds up.

(Implementing a click-to-call button on your website can be as easy as applying a WordPress plugin like the call now button, and it’s one of the simplest ways to connect website visitors directly to your contact center or call center.)

Here are a few ideas for how you can use click-to-call technology:

CRM click-to-call

Fun fact: Dialpad’s click-to-call integrates seamlessly with your CRM of choice, allowing customer service representatives to launch outbound calls with a single click. Integrated dialing allows a customer’s entire contextual record to pop up on the agent's screen as they're talking to the customer:

How click-to-call works in Dialpad

Dialpad offers click-to-call in the browser, in CRMs, and in internal tools, so reps can start calls where they already work. Every call runs through Dialpad's communications platform, with the same caller ID, recording, and AI features as any other Dialpad call.

In the browser with the Dialpad Extension

The Dialpad Extension for Chrome highlights phone numbers on supported websites. Reps can click a number to call or right-click it to send a text, and the Dialpad CTI opens right in the browser. If a number isn't highlighted, reps can select it and use the right-click menu instead.

The extension works with web apps such as Zendesk, HubSpot, Zoho, Copper, Kustomer, and Microsoft Dynamics. Admins can add other domains too, such as an internal tool or the company's own site, and customize settings by office. Once the extension is installed and enabled for the company, click-to-call works without extra setup.

In your CRM

With the Dialpad integration for Salesforce, reps can click to call from Salesforce Lightning. Calls placed from a Case or Opportunity record page log to that record, which can help keep activity history accurate without manual updates.

In HubSpot, teams can use the Dialpad integration for HubSpot to set Dialpad as the calling provider and click to call through the HubSpot call widget. For support teams, the Dialpad Extension also works in Zendesk, and Dialpad offers a range of contact center integrations for help desks and other systems.

App or browser calling

Let's say a customer comes across your brand on a website or in an app, and want to talk to someone from your team. You can easily add click-to-call to any website or app using VoIP. You've probably noticed some online map services like Google Maps, which now include click-to-call in their location-based company listings!

This way, customers don’t have to remember or search for your name or number to call later—they can just click a button to reach you directly.

Request callback

As an alternative, you can also ask customers to enter their phone numbers and request an immediate callback through a CTA button or link.

The advantage to this approach is that you can then pull relevant information about the customer, including their name, the web page they’re currently visiting, and any other relevant information, while the call is being established. This information is then passed to the customer service agent so that the customer doesn’t have to repeat or enter any of it again during the call.

Once the customer clicks on the “call me” or “request a call” CTA link, it triggers an outbound call to the their phone number. They should (theoretically) then receive highly personalized customer service with just one click!

Why use click-to-call? What are the benefits?

Used correctly, click-to-call can be a powerful tool to drive growth for your business. From increasing your conversion rate to saving your sales reps valuable time, the benefits can be pretty wide-ranging.

It helps you gather customer data

Beyond reducing friction in the customer experience, incorporating a click-to-call dialer on your website also gives you more opportunities for collecting information about your customers.

For example, it can streamlines this flow with your other phone system features like call tracking, call recording, and speech analysis. Again, with a CRM integration, you can also automatically log calls from your computer to your CRM. Here's how it looks with Dialpad's Zoho CRM integration, which not only lets you click-to-call, but also auto-logs and pulls up customer information on the screen:

Because sales calls, support calls, and other customer conversations happen on one platform, they add up to conversation intelligence that can help teams understand their customers more deeply, from recurring objections to the issues that drive repeat calls. In Dialpad, calling, messaging, meetings, and contact center work all run on the same platform, so they share one app and one set of customer data. The result is a way to turn interactions into operational insight.

That shows up in productivity too. According to an IDC Business Value Study based on interviews with Dialpad customers, sales teams were 19% more productive with Dialpad.

Click-to-call is one piece of Dialpad's AI platform for customer experience, which brings together Dialpad Connect for business communications, Dialpad Sell for outbound sales, Dialpad Support for contact centers, and Dialpad Resolve AI agents for voice and digital interactions.