How to Set Up The HighLevel Call Connect Feature: Lead Follow-up Made Easy and Automated

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Are your clients struggling to follow up with leads effectively? HighLevel’s Call Connect feature offers a simple, cost-effective solution without the need for additional staff or configuring AI. This simple, yet powerful automation facilitates immediate lead connection, improving response rates, and client satisfaction.

How Does it Work?

When a contact reaches the “Call” step in a workflow, a call will be made to the assigned user (or business phone number) in the subaccount. The user will then hear a customizable “Whisper Message”, which will prompt them to connect with the contact in the workflow. The user can then press any key on their phone to immediately initiate a call to the contact’s provided phone number. If the user does not answer the phone, the workflow will continue through the remaining steps.

Prerequisites

Before diving into the setup, ensure you have:

1. A HighLevel account
2. A working phone number in the sub-account you’ll be using, and access to phone number settings
3. Access to a phone for testing (ideally 2, one to act as the client’s phone, one to act as the lead’s phone)

Terminology

For the purposes of this article:

• “Client” refers to the assigned user or business phone number in the subaccount
• “Lead” refers to the contact in the workflow

Initial Setup – Make Sure Call Connect Feature is Enabled

Navigate to:

1. Settings -> Phone Numbers
2. Click the 3 dots on the right hand side of the phone number > “Edit Configuration”
3. Ensure “Enable Call Connect Feature” is toggled on

Setting Up the Call Connect Workflow

Step 1: Create Your Workflow

1. Click “Create Workflow”
2. Use the pre-installed “Fast Five” recipe (or create your own)
3. Set up your trigger(s) (e.g., Form Submitted, Contact Tag Added)

Step 2: Configure Pre-Call Connect Workflow Steps (Optional)

Add any workflow steps that need to be completed prior to triggering the call connect step. Examples include:

• Updating opportunities/pipelines
• Adding Tags
• Initial SMS or Email Contact
• Internal notifications
• Assigning users to contacts
• Wait steps and Conditional logic (If/Else)

If you’re using the Fast Five Recipe, You’ll need to:

1. Configure the “Create Opportunity” action 
2. Configure the default email step
3. Edit the default SMS message for your purposes, ensuring it includes a yes/no question

Step 3: Set Up Call Connect

Once you’re ready to trigger the call connect feature, configure the call connect action with these settings:

1. Add a “Call” action
2. Configure the whisper message. This is the message that the client will hear before they are connected with each lead. Best practices include having the following in the whisper message:
   •  Lead source (Name of the Ad Platform, Name of Your Agency, etc.)
   •  Using custom values to include the full or first name of the lead
   •  Important: Include the words “press any key to connect” in your whisper message. This ensures the client knows how to connect with the lead as quickly as possible. (Without a keypress, the whisper message will repeat 3 times, and then automatically call the lead)
3. Set call timeout for desired length (see next section for best practices)

Advanced Configuration Options

Voicemail Detection

Default Setting: Enabled

Considerations: 

• Enabling creates a slight connection delay on calls
• Disabling will cause the HighLevel phone system to interpret voicemails as answered calls
• If a call to a lead reaches voicemail, and stop on response is turned on in the workflow settings, further workflow actions will not fire.

Recommendations

• Keep Voicemail Detection Enabled unless the slight delay is a significant issue.
• If you decide to disable Voicemail Detection, set the Call Timeout to between 14-19 seconds to avoid triggering the lead’s voicemail and causing false answers. (Most voicemails start between 15-20 seconds)

Stop on Response

Default Setting: Disabled

Considerations:

• Enabling will stop the workflow for a lead if the lead responds to any workflow step (SMS, Emails, Calls, etc).
• Disabling means the workflow will continue, regardless of lead response.
• If you’ve disabled voicemail detect, any call that reaches voicemail will be interpreted by the workflow as a response, and your stop on response settings will come into effect.

Recommendations

• If your workflow contains additional actions that assume the lead didn’t respond or answer the phone, turn on stop on response
• If you need to process other workflow actions for leads that did answer the phone (or respond otherwise), consider creating a separate workflow and adding the lead via the “Customer Replied” trigger (Filter by “Replied to Workflow > Select Workflow”)
• If your workflow contains additional actions you want to happen regardless of the lead’s response, turn off stop on response

Connect Call After Keypress

Default Setting: Enabled

Considerations

• Regardless of this setting, if the whisper message plays 3 times, the system will attempt a call with the lead.
• Toggling this off will require the client to listen to the whisper message 3 times before connecting with the lead
• Leaving this on will allow the client to connect with the lead immediately by pressing any key

Recommendations

• If you want the client to be able to quickly connect with the lead via a keypress, leave this enabled.
• If you want the client to be required to wait for the whisper message to be repeated 3 times before automatically connecting with the lead, toggle this off.
• If you leave this enabled, ensure your whisper message includes “Press Any Key to Connect”, so the client knows what to do.

User Assignment

Considerations:

• If the lead in this workflow is assigned to a user, that user’s phone number will ring during the call connect step. (To configure user phone numbers, go to settings > my staff/my profile)
• If the lead in this workflow is not assigned to a user, the phone number in settings > business profile > business phone will ring during the call connect step

Recommendations

• If you would like the leads in this workflow to be assigned to a user and ring his/her phone number, add an “Assign to User” action in the workflow, anywhere before the call connect step.
• If you would like the leads in this workflow to remain unassigned and connect with the main business phone number, do not add an “Assign to user” step.

Time Window

Considerations:

• If your call connect workflow has no time window set, it will fire 24/7/365. This means the client will get calls whenever a lead is added to a workflow, even if it’s after business hours.
• If your call connect feature has a time window set in workflow settings, all workflow actions will wait until the time window to run. 
• If your call connect feature has a wait workflow action with a time window before it, the call connect step and remaining workflow actions will wait until the time window to run.
• If there are multiple leads waiting when the time window begins, the leads will be processed one by one with about 30 seconds – 1 minute of wait time between.
• If the client does not answer the phone, the workflow will continue through the remaining steps.

Recommendations:

• If you want your call connect and all other workflow actions to fire 24/7/365, do nothing.
• If you want the entire workflow to wait if a trigger is fired outside your time window, enable your desired time window in workflow settings. Ensure the client understands they may receive multiple calls in a row when the time window begins.

• If you want the call connect to wait until your desired time window, but actions before it to run 24/7/365, add a “Wait” workflow action immediately before your call step to set your desired time window. Ensure the client understands they may receive multiple calls in a row when the time window begins.

Testing and Implementation

Here’s how to test your call connect workflow action:

1. Publish the workflow
2. Add test contact to workflow
3. Progress through any initial workflow steps
4. Wait for call connect action to fire
5. Verify whisper message works as expected
6. Verify keypress or waiting initiates the call to the lead

Conclusion

High Level’s Call Connect feature provides a powerful solution for automated lead follow-up. By following this guide, you can set up an efficient system that connects your clients with their leads quickly and effectively, improving conversion rates and client satisfaction.