Have you tried managing your call through your phone’s dial pad? While you can access all controls through your online dashboard, it’s easy to control a call directly from your phone. These features are especially useful when you’re hosting a call on the go.

We asked our sales & customer service teams their advice for the best dial pad controls. Here’s what they had to say!

1* – Mute All Participants

“This one is huge, especially for large or lecture-oriented calls. Otherwise, you end up with disruptions like traffic, bad connections, dogs barking, etc.…all the crazy sounds we’ve heard on calls when the mute feature isn’t managed. Some businesses use hold music, so they’ll put the call on hold and all of the sudden you’ve got elevator music as the background for your sales pitch. Not ideal.”

4* – Mute Your Own Line

“The opposite of 1* – maintain a professional approach when you’re hosting a call. If you anticipate or encounter any background noise you can temporarily mute your line so as not to disrupt the wider group that you’ve prepared for.”

5* – Activate Recording

“Recording your call is essential in many situations, from small collaborative calls to large, presentation-style events. It’s a great way to keep a record and review later for important takeaways and action items after a meeting. Groups will often meet and discuss but without actionable items after the fact, what’s the point? In the case of large events, you’ve committed a lot of time and effort to create this presentation – it would be silly not to record and leverage that content through other distribution channels like online lead generation, dial-in access, and even podcasts.

“And even for smaller groups, allow people who could not attend to catch up as their own schedule permits. Otherwise, you have to track them down and repeat everything you just went over on the call. For a manager, that’s like doing double the work.”

9* – Entry & Exit Tone On & Off

“This feature turns on and off the sound that alerts you to new callers joining the line. When running calls, I like to start pretty close to on-time and don’t particularly like being interrupted by the audio tone once I’ve started. It’s a personal preference. So once I know some folks are in and we plan on getting started, I turn off the notice with 9* for new callers.”

67* – Conference Call Dial-Out

“The dial-out feature is crucial for certain use cases – for those times when we desperately need to get that other stakeholder into the call. Conference call topics can change course through conversation and sometimes, you need to get a new person on the call that wasn’t originally scheduled to attend. Dial-out is a fast and easy way to get that person folded in quickly.”

Once you’ve reached your participant on the line, dial 68* to enter back into the call.

78* – End the Conference Call

“Dial 78* to end the conference call for everyone. It’s the best way to ensure everyone is disconnected – if someone forgets to hang up, you can rack up the per minute charges unknowingly. This way, you can make sure that everyone leaves the call promptly.”

Have you tried using these telephone controls? Which ones are your favorites for running a successful call? Let us know!