When to Send a Scheduling Link - Etiquette and Mutual Availability

Have you ever heard the story of Turtles, Oysters, and the arbitrary rules of etiquette? 

Two English Gentlemen were stranded on a desert island, and because they’d never been formally introduced, they never spoke for years.

Instead, they each confined themselves to their half of the island, surviving on either turtles or oysters. 

It’s a comedic poem, entitled ‘Etiquette’  by W.S. Gilbert (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame) and it beautifully illustrates the problem we all have when it comes to making polite introductions. 

In other words, how do we navigate the sensitive calendar invite etiquette of sending links from an online booking system like YouCanBookMe or Calendly, without being rude? 

You should be worried about calendar invite etiquette and how to send a calendar invite properly.

But, why? 

One simple reason:

You think you’re saving all the back and forth, but actually, you’re just offloading the task onto your bookers, making them do all of the work to get a time scheduled.

Sure it saves time for you—no back and forth emails and it’s easier than creating a calendar invite because the tool will do that for you. But like with anything in our business, we need to ask ourselves: are we making our customers’ lives easier?

So when it comes to calendar invites and booking links, we really ought to ask ourselves: does this really save time for my bookers? 

In many cases, no. They still have to spool up their own calendar and compare both times side-by-side.

Taking a look at YouCanBookMe data—across over 1 Million bookings, we found that around 70% of bookings are managed on mobile devices. This makes it even more frustrating for our bookers, because they have to switch around from app-to-app, potentially sifting through multiple calendars, just to figure out the best time to book an appointment with you. It can be a lot of work.

At YouCanBookMe, we’ve always felt uncomfortable with a common phrase you likely encounter at least once a week: “feel free to grab some time in my calendar.”

It just does sound presumptuous (even if you’re not British!)

This poses another important question that we’ve been muddling over for a while at YouCanBookMe: 

Why can’t the booking page integrate with everyone’s calendar and see free slots that match both schedules?

A solution for balancing calendar invite etiquette with saving time

The solution here is so obvious when you think about it, but actually quite hard to do, and only one scheduling software, YouCanBookMe, actually nails it. 

We’ve done our homework, we promise! 

👉 Jump to the calendar overlay comparison of YouCanBookMe, Calendly, and other alternatives.

A two-way Calendar Sync means that instead of awkwardly trying to suggest your YouCanBookMe or Calendly link, instead you can say things like:

• Please let me know when you’re free by overlaying your calendar on this shared scheduler link.
• I’d love to find a match when we’re both free and can set up a demo. You can match your free times with mine here.
• I’ve added my times next week when I’m free—it works with your calendars so you can match your times with mine.
• Share your availability with me here on this page and we’ll find a time to talk more.
  My scheduler can handle your calendar times feel free to grab a slot for both of us.

You get the idea. But there’s a million and one ways we can phrase this!

At YouCanBookMe, we want to help, not get in the way. So with YouCanBookMe you can also overlay a Calendly schedule.

Yes, we actually integrated with our competitor because it’s the right thing to do. Calendly etiquette isn’t an island, the same rules apply as any other booking solution, so our overlay system connects seamlessly.

If you’re sharing YouCanBookMe booking links, now you can also say:

• I can see you use Calendly—if you click on my link, you’ll be able to share your calendly availability straight over my free times.
• Since we both use scheduling links, feel free to overlay your Calendly availability onto my page as it will work for both of us.

How does calendar overlay work?

Let’s dive into more about how Calendar Overlay works and what to expect:

If someone goes to your YouCanBookMe page, they’ll automatically see the option to ‘Overlay Availability’ and, alongside some helpful prompting, will be taken to this page:

You can see the options to connect your calendar, which will prompt you to give the system the permissions to view events.

Your bookers will now be able to see ALL the calendars they want to use to overlay times onto your page. Plus, they’ll be able to see individual conflicts for times when there isn’t a match (we load a minimum possible amount of data to offer this).

The good news is for any booker who wants to, they can disconnect their calendars right within the interface - there’s no land grab for their data or forcing them to create an account, this is all about making this easy and convenient for them. 

We believe what’s good for your bookers is good for you!

Polite ways to share your scheduling link!

So we’ve collectively agreed that “book a time in my calendar” is just not the vibe of 2024 anymore. Instead, here are the five best ways to share times and links with your clients and customers

1. Your personal scheduling link over email—best for people you know want to book you in the most convenient way - such as regular client
2. Paste suggested times into email—when you want to offer only a few slots to someone, who can cross check if they’re free with Overlay Availability- but you don’t have to worry about too many choices!
3. Embedded on your website—best for new clients setting up calls and demos with you, allows you restrict your times to only when you have got time free to devote to setting up new relationships
4. QR code—best for signatures and offering a mobile-friendly way to grab your scheduling times
5. One-off Booking link—create a custom page just for one of your clients to book on a ‘non reusable’ page, so you can control who gets to book into your schedule

However you choose to share your times, we’ve built Overlay Availability to work with each one.

This means that: 

• Booker data is protected and they don’t need a YouCanBookMe account to overlay their times.
• It works on mobile, making it so easy to book on the go.
• Booker’s don’t double book themselves and create confusion with rescheduling.
• You are respecting their times as much as offering access to yours.

You both get to enjoy scheduling again!

Now that's a solution W.S Gilbert would be proud of.

Improving the customer experience: Calendar overlay comparison

Want to know why we think YouCanBookMe has nailed Overlay Availability over Calendly or other Calendly alternatives?

Here are the comparisons:

• Calendly refers to its overlay feature as mutual availability. The feature only works with other Calendly accounts, and the feature is not mobile-friendly.
• SavvyCal has an overlay feature that requires a SavvyCal account and the feature is not available on mobile.
• Cal.com has an overlay feature only on desktop, requires an account, and it doesn't have browser data protections.
• YouCanBookMe is leading in every category.