Our new tool, the Scheduler is live! It allows you to create invitation links that display your real-time availability to people you want to meet with. The invitee only has to choose a time that works for them, they don’t need to enter their name or the topic for the meeting. We believe that’s the organizer’s job in order to deliver a more personalized scheduling experience.
The scheduler is also launched with a companion browser extension, currently available on Chrome, that works with key software like Hubspot, Gmail, Salesforce and Zendesk. This means that you can create an invitation link and send it to a contact from the same browser tab!
Once you’ve created your Cronofy account you can link multiple calendars to the Scheduler in order to cross reference your availability automatically and reflect this in the time slots you offer to any invitee. Ideal if you want to ensure that personal and professional commitments do not clash!
After a contact has clicked on the personalized invitation link sent to them, they will only see the time slots made available and won’t access any information about other events in your calendar.
We’ve intentionally designed our Scheduler to be versatile and have a diverse number of uses and applications. Here we call out some of the key use cases and how the Scheduler can be used for each.
Using the Scheduler for sales meetings
The great thing about how the Scheduler works is that it takes away any reliance on the potential customer to fill out forms. In terms of experience it’s a positive one that creates a good brand impression when booking in a sales call or demo. These types of meetings are likely to be an early touch point in the sales cycle. The built-in video conferencing integrations are great for flexibility – demo sessions often require screen sharing and video can also offer an extra dimension of personalization.
A Scheduler meeting request is personalized with a prospect’s details already, and once they click the link they are able to choose a time that fits with their schedule as well as the Cronofy sender’s availability. There’s no back and forth over email and no need to hassle prospects or risk approaching them at times when they aren’t free with phone tennis style interactions.
Our integration with both Hubspot and Gmail through the Chrome browser extension saves time for the organizer by automatically populating the invite setup screen with the prospect’s details – both parties benefit from a slicker and more efficient flow and the likelihood of any human error is hugely reduced. Getting the spelling of names and companies right, for example, is vital for a great first impression in any sales process.
Many sales professionals have busy schedules and the Scheduler’s availability rules and process recognizes this. Each invitation link is single use allowing controlled rather than unlimited calendar access when a potential customer picks a meeting slot.
A real strength of the Scheduler is in situations where professionals are regularly required to meet with others outside their immediate organization. These types of relationship and the meetings that accompany them usually mean that access to diaries and availability cannot be shared without a security compromise. The Scheduler allows both parties to securely determine a time that suits them without full access to each other’s diaries being required. These advantages would also apply to more specialized sales roles such as real estate or partnerships and any CRM based business.
Using the Scheduler for customer support
It’s common for those working in Support roles to need to set up meetings with customers. This is particularly necessary when an issue becomes more complicated and needs detailed explanation or to provide a higher level of service than pure web chat or email can provide. Often a demo is required or customer frustration levels demand a different type of attention.
The Scheduler makes setting up these interactions simple!
The single use invitation link also means that access to the calendar is maintained with none of the security issues based on revealing even free and busy information. The meeting invitation can only be used once, and this is great for busy Support employees or Developers who want to ensure that access to their calendars is not continuous – meetings can only be initiated on a case-by-case basis.
Using our browser integration with Zendesk means that invitation links can be set up in just a few clicks, automatically populated with the customer’s details. The fact that the customer is able to choose a slot that works for them and also matches the calendar availability of the sender means that this can be done easily and efficiently with no tiresome back and forth. The process is proactive and gives a great impression of both the brand and their customer service. A better experience for all!
These examples could also be applicable to Customer Success or Onboarding roles.
Using the Scheduler for hiring
At Cronofy we have experience in working with businesses in the HR Tech sector to improve their scheduling offering. We already partner with many software businesses who provide services and support to businesses for hiring and recruitment through our API. Now any business can offer a quicker and more streamlined interview scheduling flow.
The Scheduler has been specifically designed to improve the hiring process by saving recruiters and hiring managers time, whilst also creating an excellent candidate experience at the forefront of this. For the hiring manager or recruiter, the removal of any back and forth through the real-time availability slot picker is ideal. It means that the candidate benefits as they are able to pick an interview time slot easily, without further onerous data entry (of which there is usually already quite a lot in any application process!) and the time is guaranteed to suit all parties.
The single use invitation link also ensures that candidates don’t have access to your calendar and therefore control and security is maintained. Job applicants won’t be able to tell when you’re free or busy to hassle for application progress updates for example. However, if they need to cancel or rearrange an interview, it’s simple to do by just cancelling in their calendars which will trigger a notification which acts as a nudge for a recruiter to reach out.
These are just a few of the Scheduler use cases that we’ve seen used successfully by our customers so far. We’ll continue to add to and update this blog post as new features are added to the tool and as additional examples of great scheduling use cases are fed back by our users.
Like what you see? Sign up for your Cronofy account to get started with personalized scheduling today!