Don’t forget to pick up the phone.

Optimizing your website for lead generation is important because good leads convert to better. Don’t take our word for it, though. Marketing guru Neil Patel thinks so too.

An underrated yet effective way to hit the iron while it’s hot — in this case, a lead — is a phone call. Why? A phone call strikes a perfect balance between personalization and convenience. After all, communicating by voice is faster, easier, and more effective than sending messages back and forth.

A Google study found that 61% of mobile searchers described calling as an important part of the buying process.

Credit: Google, The Role of Click to Call In the Path to Purchase, September 2013

The study also found that 59% of customers preferred calling because they want a quick answer, while 57% called as they want to talk to a real person.

These findings are supported by a BIA/Kelsey study outlining “call commerce” — an upsurge of calls to businesses from mass adoption of smartphones. These calls are expected to exceed 169 billion per year by 2020.

Given the financial implication of direct calls, businesses should include contact information on their websites — and they do, but often submerged at the bottom of the page, which may prove to be counterproductive since most visitors linger longer “above the fold”.

Novocall’s click-to-call widget aims to solve this by proactively engaging potential customers through timely prompts.

Have a company rep call you through Novocall’s widget.

To capture inbound calls, the widget cues visitors to input their phone numbers to schedule a call instantly or for later. When it’s time, Novocall speedily connects the prospective customer to the most relevant agent based on the customer’s form. Personalized text is then sent to the prospect after the call.

The widget is designed to operate round the clock. During off-days and/or after-hours, it automatically schedules calls for the next business day, so no calls are left unattended.

Post-calls, business owners can evaluate the quality of their interactions through behavioral data that details the journey from source to conversion, all in real-time for any adaptive measures to be made instantaneously. The calls are also attributed to analytics platforms for marketers to optimize their ad campaigns.

Novocall founders (from left to right): Huang Jing Jie, Amos Choo, and Jionghan Ng.

Novocall was founded by three Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) alumni: Huang Jing Jie, Amos Choo, and Jionghan Ng.

The idea for Novocall came when Amos was interning at a telco company, during which he experienced the inefficiencies of a dated customer experience. It was a call to disrupt and they answered.

According to the company, Novocall is currently used across 42 countries globally, by over 2,000 businesses (including 50 from Singapore and Malaysia) that have clocked over 400,000 minutes on its platform through 100,000 calls.

Before our seed funding, Novocall received grant funding of S$30K from Enterprise Singapore’s SG Founder Grant in partnership with SMU’s Business Innovation Generator (BIG).

By tapping into an underplayed segment of lead generation, we believe Novocall will help businesses acquire better conversions through well-optimized, click-to-call machinery.

Follow Novocall on Facebook, Twitter, and its official website for updates.

500 Startups is a venture capital firm on a mission to discover and back the world’s most talented entrepreneurs, help them create successful companies at scale, and build thriving global ecosystems. In Southeast Asia, 500 Startups invests through the pioneering 500 Durians family of funds. The 500 Durians funds have backed over 200 companies across multiple sectors from internet to consumer to deep technology. It continues to connect founders with capital, expertise and powerful regional and global networks to help them succeed.

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How Novocall’s click-to-call widget converts leads to sales