No calendar

Can you offer customers meetings without a connected calendar?

Yes: without a connected calendar, a Muzau agent offers your customers meetings within the hours you have set. It books the chosen slot in Muzau so no other customer can take it, then sends the same calendar invite to the customer and to you, for a Google, Outlook or Apple calendar. Only meetings booked by Muzau block a slot. You decide whether it books on its own or after your click.

Why the calendar is missing when you offer a meeting

A customer writes that they would like to see you. To answer, you need to know when you are free, and that is often where the reply waits: the calendar is on a phone, mixed in with private life, kept on paper, or you do not want to open its access to a tool just yet. The reply goes out in the evening, then the back-and-forth begins: "Tuesday?", "Thursday would suit me better", "What time?".

Offering a meeting does not require reading your whole calendar, though. You need to know when you see people, and never promise the same moment twice. Without a connection, that is what the agent keeps track of: it starts from your hours and keeps a record of the slots already booked.

How the agent goes about it

Input

A meeting request, and the hours when you see people

It does

Offers slots, books in Muzau the one the customer chooses

It delivers

The same calendar invite, for the customer and for you

Without a connected calendar, slots taken within your hours

When you create the agent, and then on its page, you set the open days, the start and end times, the meeting length, the minimum notice before a meeting and the gap between two. By default, the agent offers 30-minute meetings, Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., never less than 4 hours ahead. It first offers up to three slots, each on a different day, within the next 14 days. If the customer asks for another time, the system checks that it fits entirely within your hours that are still free before holding it.

A slot is never given twice

The chosen slot is booked in Muzau for the whole business, and it drops out of the next offers. If another customer has just taken it, nothing is booked: the agent asks the customer to reply to receive other availability. The details of this lock are on the page stopping a slot from being booked twice.

The same invite for the customer and for you

The customer receives the confirmation with the calendar invite attached. You receive the same one in a "New meeting" email: it is the same meeting on both sides, which each of you adds to a Google, Outlook or Apple calendar. By email, no meeting is booked without a note from the agent saying who the person is and what they are looking for. When the agent has summed up the request, that summary appears in the meeting description; for an in-person meeting, the address you gave is written there. For a video call, the invite carries no link: see indicating video call or in person.

The meeting booked on its own, or after your click

Just before creating the agent, you choose: either it books the meeting on its own, or it submits it to you in a "To approve" card, and one click books it and sends the confirmation. In the website chat, the visitor leaves their email to receive the invite; by SMS, the agent asks for the customer's email before booking. In both cases, the invite goes out from your business's email, and if your settings do not let the agent book on its own, it passes the request to your team, who get back to the customer to confirm it.

Offering meetings without a shared calendar: the method

With or without a tool, booking meetings without a calendar comes down to a few rules, to check before your first "I can offer you".

• Set your availability once and for all: days, hours, length. A slot offered outside it becomes a conflict to undo.
• Keep a single record of the slots given. Two offers sent the same morning to two customers can land on the same Thursday: as soon as one customer accepts, that moment drops out of all the other offers.
• Add to that record whatever is decided elsewhere: a meeting made by phone, a move, an absence. What is not in it will be offered.
• Offer few slots, on different days, written the way people say them: "Tuesday at 10 a.m.", not "10:00". See how many slots to offer.
• Keep a gap between two meetings and a minimum notice, so you never get a booking for an hour from now.
• Confirm with a calendar invite, not a simple "noted": the customer adds it to their calendar, and you keep the same one. Put in the place or the video link, and the purpose of the meeting in one line.

The day the commitments noted elsewhere become numerous, the record is no longer enough: that is when to connect the calendar, so that slots take your real meetings into account. See booking meetings with a connected calendar.

What it does not do

• It does not see your other commitments: a meeting noted on paper or in your calendar blocks no slot, only those booked by Muzau do.
• The invite sent without a calendar contains no video link: for a video meeting, the link is still for you to send to the customer.
• Your copy of the invite goes to the account owner's address: without that address, only the customer receives it.

Frequently asked questions

How do you add a video link to a meeting booked without a connected calendar?

The invite a Muzau agent sends without a connected calendar contains no video link: you send it to the customer yourself. With Google Calendar connected, the agent adds a Google Meet link to the video meeting; with Outlook, your account's video tool provides it.

How do you send a calendar invite to a customer?

Attach a calendar invite to the confirmation email: the customer adds it to their Google, Outlook or Apple calendar. Without a connected calendar, a Muzau agent attaches it for you and sends you the same one in a "New meeting" email: it is the same meeting on both sides.

Can you book a meeting by SMS without a connected calendar?

Yes, Muzau's SMS agent does it: it offers slots within your hours, asks for the customer's email when they choose one, then books the slot and sends the invite by email. It books one meeting per conversation; if your settings do not let it book on its own, it passes the request to your team, who get back to the customer.

What changes if you connect Google Calendar or Outlook later?

With Google Calendar or Outlook connected, a Muzau agent reads the busy times in your calendar, without seeing the subject or place of your meetings, and adds the meeting to it. Your availability hours still limit what it offers.

How do you avoid the back-and-forth to fix a meeting with a customer?

Offer a few specific slots straight away, on different days, and ask the customer to pick one. A Muzau agent does this within your hours, even without a connected calendar: up to three slots in the next 14 days, and another time if the customer asks for one that is free.