Making sure your customers have a quick and easy way to contact you is essential for running a business in 2024.

That’s especially true if you run an e-commerce website – when there are online orders, payments, and deliveries involved, users will typically have a lot of questions or complaints. 

One of the most popular ways of contacting a business is a phone call: talking to an actual person often beats live chats or social media channels.

To make sure customers that are browsing your website have an easy way to get in touch, you’ll probably want to display your phone number in a clear and easily noticeable way. However, some companies go one step further and include a direct call widget on their website, allowing customers to call directly from the website, with one click.

That’s called a “call us now” button and in this article, we will be explaining why it’s important and how you can add it to your website with the help of VoIP tools.

The importance of calls in 2024

You might be asking yourself whether phone calls are even a thing in 2024. After all, new technologies like smart AI chatbots and live support chats are gaining popularity in recent years. It’s even questionable whether new generations like making phone calls at all.

According to some studies, people still like hearing other people, and 61% of customers are likely to call a business when they’re in the purchase phase of the sales funnel. It seems that this trend is rising: with the wide adoption of smartphones, more people are calling businesses than before, with predictions that people will soon be making more than 169 billion calls to companies worldwide.

This is supported by the fact that form submissions can be an awkward experience that takes more time and effort than simply picking up a phone and talking to a person. Not to mention that getting answers to complicated questions is much easier verbally than in written form.

What is a “call us now” button?

Ringblaze call us now widget
Source: Ringblaze call widget

A “call us now” button (also referred to as “click-to-call”, “click to dial”, “click to talk”) is a website widget that enables a person to call a business by simply clicking a button or text. This starts a conversation in real-time that can happen either via a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) connection or a regular phone call.

It doesn’t require your customers to download any new software and it’s one of the most direct ways they can contact you through your website.

The main purpose of a “call us now” button is to save time. Instead of browsing the website, looking for your number, and dialing it manually, users have the convenience of clicking a button. However, this function doesn’t have to be performed by a button – a click to call link can be set up to trigger with a hyperlinked text.

Types of call widgets

Depending on how they work and look, there are several types of call widgets. There are distinct differences between these, so you need to pay close attention when choosing a VoIP provider or any kind of software that offers a “call now” button.

“Click to call” links vs. “click to call” buttons

If you’re looking to add a click-to-call widget to your website, pay attention to whether it’s a link or an actual button.

A “click to call” link is a hyperlinked text that, once clicked, will open the keypad of a user’s phone. The user then proceeds to make the call to the business whose website they’re visiting. More often than not, the link in question is the actual phone number of the company. Since most smartphones can interpret these phone numbers, a click on a number will automatically trigger a pop-up that asks the user whether they want to make a call.

A “click to call” button, however, is a more simple solution, where the purpose of the button is clearly displayed with an icon. You can link this button to your VoIP business phone so that your customer support answers the call.

“Call back” button vs. “call now” button

Another important confusion to avoid is mistaking a “call back” button for a “call now” button.

The key difference between the two is that the “call back” button doesn’t enable the user to call the company at all. After clicking on this button, the user will be instructed to leave their number so that agents will contact them. This is often used when generating sales leads.

If you’re looking to provide your customers with a way of instantly contacting you, steer clear of the “call back” button.

How to add a “Call now” button to your website

Adding a direct call widget to your website can be fairly easy when you have the right tools.

It all depends on whether you prefer an easy approach where a tool would do everything for you, or you’d like to roll up your sleeves and maybe learn a little coding along the way.

Adding the link manually in HTML

If you have no prior coding knowledge, this will be the hardest way to do it. On the other hand, if you’d like to learn some simple HTML, this could be good practice!

For a coding beginner, adding a “click to call” button can be quite hard, but adding a “click to call” link won’t require too much experience.

All you’ll need to do is add these lines of code to your page:

<a href=”tel:+1-877-538-5888″>1-877-538-5888</a>

<a href=”tel:+1-877-538-5888″>Click to Call Us!</a>

This code uses a simple HTML hyperlink combined with a “tel” protocol that will enable your users to call you by clicking on the text. Again, note that this method won’t give you a designed “click to call” button, but rather a simple text version of the widget.

Installing a WordPress plugin

If you run a WordPress website, adding a “click to call” button can be as easy as installing a plugin and setting it up.

The plugin is called WP Call Button, and it’s not hard to set up if you have experience with this content management system.

There are two obvious downsides to this method. The first one is that you can’t do this if your website isn’t WordPress, which a lot of e-commerce websites aren’t. The second one is that if you aren’t familiar with WordPress and don’t know how to set up plugins, you might run into some issues like theme compatibility.

Using Ringblaze to add a “Call us now” button

What’s the one thing that both of these previous methods have in common?

They both require some effort from your part – either poking around your website’s code or playing with the WordPress admin panel. They might not look like too much work, but if your “click to call” is not working, you’ll be in for a treat!

If you’re a business owner that doesn’t like to dabble with things you aren’t familiar with, you need a simple solution that will give you a great result without having to learn coding or WordPress.

You can get all this and much more with Ringblaze.

Adding a “call us now” button is made extremely easy, as you only need to do a simple setup and it’s ready to go. The design is highly intuitive – the button will be prominent on your website and it will be clear to your users that clicking it will trigger a call.

Ringblaze app for desktop and mobile

Once the user clicks on the call button, a small window will open up, instructing them to make the call.

Ringblaze call widget customization
Ringblaze widget works around the world

This feature also works great with other Ringblaze features like call forwarding and call controls, so you’ll be in charge of the whole process: from the moment a user visits your website, until the moment your agent completes the call. And the best part – all of this is completely free for your users, regardless of when or where they’re calling from.

Ringblaze app for desktop and mobile

So, sign up for Ringblaze now and make use of this awesome feature!

Why should you add a direct call widget to your website?

If you’re still not convinced that your business could benefit from a direct call widget, we’ll leave you with some hard numbers to think about:

  • Increase your ROI: Studies show that a “call us now” button can result in a 143% increase in ROI. Forrester Research found that adding this button provided them with $2.5 million across a three-year period.
  • Close more sales: You’re up to 15 times more likely to close a sale or schedule a follow-up activity over a phone call to your business than through a digital form.
  • Gain a competitive edge: Research shows that close to 90% of companies compete over providing their customers with the best experience. Taking the next step and giving them a chance to contact you easily might be crucial!

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