Click To Call Dissected: The Role Of Social Media

A few days ago I read about the new click to call service for Facebook launched by VoIP Company 8×8 (US only), “8×8 Connect”. Both Om Malik and Andy Abramson shared their thoughts on the service, so I’d like to add my 2 cents to the discussion, being click to call the main business my company is embracing and since it is slowly becoming the #1 revenue source for us. First of all we must define what click to call means. From Wikipedia:

Click-to-call (CTC) refers to the process of converting web-based traffic into direct telephony communication between an end user and some other entity. CTC originates out of the older PC2PC telephony whereby a client is downloaded onto your own personal computer to “talk” to the same client downloaded into the other party’s PC for the conversation (with vendors such as Net2Phone).

It is important to highlight that we can define a few different types of click to call, depending on how these are offered to the market.

Consumer Click to Call

In this case, a person who is subscribed to a certain VoIP service, has the ability to place a button on his website/email to let others call him/her to the phone number provided by that VoIP service. In most cases this phone number is linked to an IP phone or a Softphone. Moreover, people using that click to call feature usually have to use their PC to make the call. The call is free for both the customer and the user.

Business Click to Call

It is similar to the previous case (service offered by a VoIP provider) but the users have now the ability to use it through a call back. This means they can insert their phone number into a form and the system will call them back and connect to the company. A company agent will be likely taking the call from an IP phone. The company will be charged for the call.

Premium Click to Call

In this case users of the service will get some sort of benefit from using it: call to a lawyer for a consultancy, call to an “expert” to get advice and so on. It could also be a way to engage a prospect. In this latter case, the example made by Andy in his posts fits very well. Think of Linkedin offering a service like that, similar to the “InMail”, but through a phone call…

Mobile Click to Call

Most of the times we are referring to a call activated by clicking on a link placed on an app / browser of a smartphone / mobile phone. The user is charged for the call, unless a toll free number is called. In the latter case, sometimes different toll free numbers are used. Usually no VoIP is involved.

Lead Generation / Customer Engagement Click to Call

This is the market where my company operates with Sitofono. In this case a business that wants to engage more users online and convert website’s visitors into customers, activates a click to call service like Sitofono. Free for the user, paid (flat) by the business. In this case the business hasn’t to be subscribed to any VoIP service since the click to call service calls their regular phone number and 99,9% of the users use the call back capability (no PC to Phone since just less than 0,001 % actually use it). Some providers charge per call (pay-per-call) so depending on the number of lead opportunities the service created (not Sitofono, for various reasons). It is important to point out that in this case the placement of the button is crucial since the more calls the business receives the higher the probability to finalize a deal is. For this reason this type of click to call can be splitted into a few sub-types

The list above is not exhaustive, but it covers most of the options available in the market. The monetization strategy for those various click to call options is different and it usually depends on a mixture of elements: target market, available features, target users and so on.

All that said, let’s get back to the Facebook case. Facebook is the biggest social network worldwide where users tend to use a few different methods to interact with each other, mostly through comments to notes/images/wall posts etc., messages, chat sessions and, last but not least, there is an important role played by “pull information“, where users post news and info to their wall or their fan/product page where other users can consume them. The service introduced by 8×8 offers a new for people communicate on Facebook, something that could be used in place of a normal phone call.

The final goal is clear. 8×8 President Dan Weirich confirmed it in the press release:

“Many Facebook users are small business owners or employees in larger enterprises who will use this application in their personal and business lives and will hopefully look to 8×8 when seeking business communications solutions in the future. Making this technology available to a wider audience is something we believe will help 8×8 establish itself as the pre-eminent brand for next generation communication solutions.”

In a word, advertising. Their main business is to provide communication solutions to businesses and enterprises and Facebook is a great way to reach out a wider audience. Good move. I like it because my company does the same with our Sitofono. Owners of Sitofono can place their service on their fan/personal page so that others can see it and, hopefully, get it for their business too. Different business model behind it, different products, but same way to get the most out of Facebook. Here is an example: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cagliari-Italy/Continuita-Territoriale/62498776632?ref=ts

There is a downside, though. The problem is the context where a service like this from 8×8 has been placed. People on Facebook will never use a service like that to call each other and, most importantly, from everyone who comes across their homepage.

On Facebook, taking care of privacy is rule #1 and this service certainly doesn’t help. Andy suggests that a service like this could make more sense on LinkedIn (Premium click to call described above). I agree, but with LinkedIn in the middle. It could be a great alternative to the “InMail”, a service that LinkedIn charges for. I bet that also on LinkedIn most people would rise huge walls to protect their privacy and most calls would end to a voicemail.

Despite this, I can confirm that companies that use Facebook at its best, are getting calls from our Sitofono, so it all depends on how people use the service. I don’t think a click to call placed on a normal Facebook profile would be used too much, but the story is different if we talk about a company/brand that use their page for marketing and promotional purposes. And this could make the difference for 8×8 Connect, too.

In conclusion, I’ll keep looking at this space very closely and I look forward to seeing more and more people using services like that on Facebook, despite I think that most Facebook users will still use it in a different way and trying to take care of their privacy carefully. What do you think?

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Tagged as: 8x8 connect, facebook, Personal computer, Social network, Telephony, Voice over Internet Protocol