Today, most customer service journeys begin on a Web site. Whether it’s research before the purchase, price comparisons, reading reviews or simply looking up contact information, most shoppers begin their process on a company’s Web site or from online ad or organic search results. Savvy companies know this, and help their customers stay connected by allowing them to engage directly from the Web site. While click-to-call may not be a new method of inducing sales leads to come to you, it’s a method that’s gaining new life in the era of the mobile customer.

The very nature of the mobile customer experience means that the telephone is gaining new importance, according to a recent article by Richard Dumas.

“Mobile search lends itself well to phone-based conversions because consumers often find it difficult to type e-mail questions or engage in a Web chat while on the go. Many searches also take place in the car or other hands-free environments where consumers can now simply ask a personal digital assistant like Siri or Google (News - Alert) Now to find (and call) a local business,” he writes. “This trend is only going to grow as consumers began to interact with smart watches and other devices using voice.”

This may give new life to online advertising services such as Google’s click-to-call. Businesses can easily enable customers who find their Web sites and ads online to place an outgoing call directly to the company’s sales department or call center. Dumas noted that earlier this year, Twitter (News - Alert) also began testing its own click-to-call service. As other services and social media channels funnel more and more calls from mobile customers to companies, those companies must develop a viable plan for how they will handle these incoming calls, writes Dumas. This involves a number of considerations, including:

Filtering. Not all calls are created equal, and you don’t want to waste sales team members’ time by sending all calls to them. How will you filter these calls? With a live operator, with an interactive voice response (IVR) system, or with some other method?

Different call types. Not all calls are created equal, so companies should consider carefully where they place click-to-call phone numbers. A flood of calls might seem like a good thing, but not if the calls aren’t of sufficiently high quality to merit live sales rep or agent answers.

Ad metrics. Where are the calls coming from? Ensure that you have a way to track them, so you’ll know which ads and Web sites are generating the most high quality leads and which sources aren’t worth paying for.

Ensure sales teams are prepared. Do inbound call center agents or inside sales team members have everything they need to handle the incoming calls? New sales leads are great, but not if you don’t have the resources to answer them properly in place. Ensure sales agents have information at the ready, and are trained to use the applications they will need to provide an excellent customer experience.