New to Scheduling Links? Here’s your Definitive Guide
What will my clients think? Is it actually faster? Will it feel impersonal? We’re answering your scheduling link questions!
The personal scheduling is one of the fastest ways to schedule a meeting! Last year, 44% of CalendarHero said it was their preferred scheduling method in our annual report. A CalendarHero personal scheduling link help you book meetings faster, eliminate time-consuming admin work, and adds simplicity to your meeting workflow.
What is a scheduling link?
A scheduling link is a URL (e.g., calendarhero.to/sales) that you can use to quickly share your real-time calendar availability with invitees like prospects and clients.
By sharing a scheduling link instead of conventional scheduling methods (like the “when are you free?” dance), you and your meeting guests bypass the typical phone tag or back-and-forth emails to find a mutual meeting time. After clicking on your scheduling link, your invitee goes to a web page where they can view your open time slots and select a time to meet.
To enhance your invitee experience, CalendarHero provides your invitees with the option to sync their Google or Microsoft calendars temporarily. That way, in addition to seeing your real-time availability, invitees can reference their own calendars and spot conflicts right away.
Sharing a scheduling link plus CalendarHero’s private calendar sync is a fast and reliable way to increase booking success.
Using a personal scheduling link or any other CalendarHero scheduling method means you no longer have to waste time on meeting-related tasks that your focus away from more valuable work, including:
Checking and updating your calendar constantly
Asking a contact when they’re free to meet
Copying and pasting video conferencing links into calendar events
Manually sending meeting reminders to your attendees
CalendarHero takes care of all of that and more, so you can prioritize more meaningful work like helping customers, building relationships with prospects, and growing revenue for your business.
Meetings are crucial to hiring new candidates, winning over prospects, or engaging key stakeholders, so it’s essential to ensure the way you ask for and confirm meetings results in a positive experience for your invitees.
Below we share answers to common questions about scheduling links and how online scheduling can benefit your business.
1. “Is it actually faster to use a scheduling link?”
Short answer: yes. Scheduling links are a faster way for meeting organizers and their invitees to confirm a meeting.
As an organizer, conventional meeting scheduling, includes:
Searching through your calendar (s) to find free time slots
Emailing your invitee to inquire when they’re free along with your date and time suggestions
Crossing your fingers in hope that they respond quickly before one of those slots is filled
Reading and responding to a series of of emails to set up one meeting
Manually creating an event in your calendar, adding your video conferencing link, writing up an agenda, and sending out the invitation to your invitee
If your invitee cancels or asks to reschedule, then you’ll then have to send another email and start over
With a scheduling link, all you have to do is copy your scheduling link and paste it in an email, a direct message, or your e-signature. That means you won’t waste hours each week on low-value meeting tasks. If you’re in a profession with a high volume of meetings like customer success, sales, or recruiting, then that’s really good news.
2. “Do scheduling links give my invitee more work to do?”
Wondering whether your invitees understand the value of scheduling links is a common concern for meeting organizers. At first, it might appear that all the benefits of using scheduling links are for the meeting organizer, but that’s not the case. Invitees who can self-book meetings with you through a scheduling link also reap benefits.
When you share a CalendarHero scheduling link as a meeting organizer, you’ve proactively taken care of the meeting details, including video conferencing and your availability window. All that’s left for your invitee to do is choose a time. They won’t have to respond to a back-and-forth email thread or open their calendar app to see when they’re free. As soon as the date and time are confirmed, CalendarHero automatically creates a calendar event.
As we mentioned earlier, CalendarHero’s unique Invitee Private Calendar Sync feature enables your invitees to sync their calendars and see conflicts right away without having to navigate away from your scheduling page. That means your invitee can confidently select a time to meet and confirm your meeting faster.
What if your invitee wants to add guests to your meeting? CalendarHero’s scheduling links take care of that as well. As a meeting organizer, you can turn on the option to allow your invitees to add guests to a meeting directly through your scheduling link. That means if you invite Joe to a meeting and he wants to invite his coworkers Sarah and Emily, he can add them to the meeting instantly instead of coordinating with them on the side. If your invitee adds guests, CalendarHero will automatically share the meeting request with any additional guests and notify the organizer.
The rescheduling process is also commonly a hassle for meeting organizers and invitees. To simplify rescheduling, CalendarHero provides each of your guests with a quick rescheduling link in the calendar event automatically. Instead of writing you an email to reschedule, your invitee clicks a link to reschedule the meeting in seconds.
Scheduling links prioritizes your invitee experience, giving them a fast and on-demand method of scheduling a meeting or appointment with you. They won’t need to wait for an email or fill out a lengthy contact form. In seconds, you both can have a meeting booked in your calendars.
The alternative to a scheduling link is a back-and-forth email thread that requires more inbox time from your invitee to read and respond to your emails and review their calendar. The scheduling link helps you eliminate unnecessary extra work for your invitee, so both of you can meet faster and move along with your days.
3. “Is a scheduling link impersonal?”
To those unfamiliar or new to online booking methods, it may feel like you're reducing your communication with your invitee, which isn't great for relationship building, especially with potential new hires or clients. However, it's important to remember that a scheduling link is only there to automate the logistics of organizing a meeting (when to meet, where, how long). The framing of your meeting request is entirely up to you.
Examples of how to ask for a meeting with a scheduling link:
Please pick a time that works best for you via my CalendarHero link
Please select a time that's convenient for you here
Here's my scheduling link to help us find a time to meet for our meeting.
Feel free to use my scheduling link to find a time for our meeting.
It's essential to emphasize to your invitees that the scheduling link is a quick and effortless scheduling method for them. With CalendarHero, they won't need to open a separate calendar app or manually suggest times. In seconds, invitees can choose their preferred meeting time, and a calendar event will be created for them automatically.
Learn more about our CalendarHero's scheduling features →
There are also a variety of settings that help you tailor your scheduling links to your invitees and meeting goals. For instance, you can create multiple scheduling links customized to the invitee's name or company. Add personal instructions to clarify the purpose and expected outcomes of your meeting. To get on the same page faster, insert Invitee Questions to your scheduling page to learn more about your invitees. You can add payment collection for meetings that require payment, like consultations or coaching sessions. That way, your invitees can quickly pay and book online at the same time.
Scheduling links remove administrative logistics from your conversations with invitees, facilitating more space for sharing value about your company and why you're excited to meet. In turn, your discussions with stakeholders, candidates, and customers become more personalized and focused.
4. “What about time-sensitive meetings?”
When sharing a scheduling link, there might be a concern that an invitee can pick a meeting time that’s way into the future and not during your ideal time frame. Your invitee might also feel like they’re not a priority to you if there’s no apparent urgency to meet with them.
That’s an easy fix with CalendarHero. Your scheduling link doesn’t have to show invitees your endless real-time availability — it can also be customized to specific time frames. With CalendarHero, you can customize settings, including:
The duration of the meeting (ex. 30 minutes, 1 hour)
Your availability window (ex. Monday - Friday, 8 am - 4 pm)
Date range (when you want the meeting to take place)
By customizing the date range, you can ensure that a meeting booked through your scheduling link happens within two days, two weeks, two months or more. It’s up to you and the purpose of your meeting.
If you limit the date range in your scheduling link, your invitee will still benefit from the ease of being able to quickly select a time for your meeting, but it will be within a smaller booking window.
CalendarHero also has a unique feature that enables you to schedule over other meetings to prioritize VIP invitees. If you're organizing a meeting with a critical invitee (ex. potential client, investor) that you want to prioritize over other calendar events, turn on this feature.
Once enabled, CalendarHero will detect internal meetings that are already on your calendar and offer those time slots to your invitee along with your other open time slots. This behind-the-scenes work is invisible to your invitee. All they see are more open dates and times to choose from.
In this case, it’s clear that CalendarHero personal scheduling links can give you much more flexibility when prioritizing important invitees and time-sensitive meetings.
CalendarHero is the future of meeting scheduling
Beyond scheduling links, CalendarHero is an all-in-one solution that simplifies and speeds up the way you book meetings. With other intelligent features like Meeting Briefings, Timezone Detection, and People Insights, you can dramatically improve your meeting scheduling process and restore valuable time back into your workday.
Simplify meeting scheduling with CalendarHero
Book faster, manage your time, and track your meetings with powerful scheduling software.
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