Someone is looking at your course page at 8 pm with one question about the hostel. A form promises an answer tomorrow, and they have three other tabs open. The web call widget adds a button to your site: they press it, allow the microphone, and talk to your agent in the browser. They need no app and no phone number.
It takes a few minutes to install. Think about the following first.
Anyone can press it
Every web call is billed by the minute like a phone call, at the web-call rate for its voice, and anyone who can open your website can start one. That includes your curious nephew, your competitors, and a bored student with an hour to spare. Most sites will be fine. You should still put these limits in place on day one:
- A line limit: how many calls this widget takes at once. Over that, visitors are turned away.
- Calling hours: calls come in only during the agent's or team's hours. Others are turned away and not billed.
- A wallet you watch. When the wallet runs out, calls stop. Low-balance warnings go where you set them.
If something looks wrong, switching the widget off takes effect at once. Resetting the key stops the code already on your site, at once, and you will need to paste in the new code when you want it back.
Which pages should get it
You don't have to think of it as a sitewide decoration. A pricing page, a course page or a product page with complicated options all suit it, because visitors there have questions. Each agent or team has its own widget and embed code, so your admissions pages can reach the admissions agent, and your support pages another.
Remember that your hours apply. A button on a site where most visits arrive after your hours will turn most of them away. Inbound hours follow the agent's own setting, so set them to when you actually want calls. The 9 am to 9 pm IST limit is for outbound calls, and a visitor calling in follows your agent's hours. If you open it to late evenings, make sure the agent can cope without a person to hand over to.
Give it something to answer from
A visitor on your website can ask about anything, unlike someone called for one reason on a campaign. A widget agent with a short script will say “I will find out” a lot. Link a knowledge base with your fees, policies and FAQ, and use Try a question on the top ten things people ask. Keep in mind that each call that looks something up is charged the knowledge-base price for every billed minute.
Ask for the number, in a human way
You get the visitor's number only if they give it on the call. Your team is alerted once per call, after it ends, and only when the caller gave a number. So script the moment when the agent offers something worth giving a number for: “Shall I have our counsellor call you tomorrow? What number should they use?” Without this, you will get a call in your logs and no way of following up.
A number given on a call becomes a warm lead with a transcript. A workflow can take it from there. The widget's own counts show how many called, for how long, how many left their details, and how many were turned away.
A few setup traps
- Design and behaviour edits do nothing on your website until you press Save.
- Switching the widget on or off is instant, unlike those edits.
- An agent that is a Draft takes test calls only. Press Go live, and read what that switches on.
- A recording notice is still your concern. If recording is on for this agent, a recorded call opens with the notice unless you turned it off.
- An agent doesn't volunteer that it is an AI. If a visitor sincerely asks, it says it is a virtual assistant, and it never claims to be human. If you want that said up front, write it into the greeting.
Try it before your visitors do
Try it on your own site from a phone, on mobile data, and from a laptop. Browser microphones can be awkward, and if a visitor refuses the permission there is no call. Try the difficult questions too. You can also hear how a live agent sounds on our own demo page, with no account.
When not to use it
If your site gets a lot of casual traffic and few serious buyers, you may pay for a lot of chatty calls and get few leads. Try it on one or two high-intent pages first and compare the time and money spent with the leads that come out. If your visitors mostly want a form and a brochure, keep the form. A call button works best where the question is complicated and the visitor is already serious.
The widget depends on your plan, and it is included on the trial within the trial's calls and minutes. The web-call rates are on the pricing page.