Inbound or outbound scheduling – What shall I use and when?

Nowadays with people setting up meetings online using a meeting scheduler becomes indispensable. There are many types of scheduling scenarios that we need to cope with in our business and social life. These scenarios can be divided into two broad categories; Inbound scheduling and Outbound scheduling. Lets start with a definition of each category:

Inbound scheduling: is where you define your availability in advance and people schedule time with you based on that availability. Inbound scheduling can be automatic, where once a time is selected it is automatically scheduled, or manual, where you will be selecting and confirming the time.

Outbound scheduling: is where you initiate the meeting invitation and propose one or more times. People respond with their availability and you select and confirm the time.

Now lets see which scheduling scenarios fall under each category:
Inbound scheduling can be used in three scenarios:
1. For scheduling customer appointments – People select a single time and the appointment is automatically booked.
2. For scheduling repetitive activities of the same type – Such as review sessions, product demonstrations, interviews, etc. Here as well people select a single time and the appointment is automatically booked.
3. For scheduling one on one meetings – People select a few times and you pick the one that works best for you. This scenario covers one on one meetings that may involve different types of audiences.

Outbound scheduling can be used in two scenarios:
1. For group meetings – You propose a few times, people respond with their availability and you pick and confirm the time.

2. For one on one meetings – Same as group meetings but with one person only.

We can see from the above that one on one meetings can be scheduled via inbound and outbound scheduling. Let’s explore when to use each type:
With outbound, you do the “work” of creating the invitation and proposing times. All your invitee does is respond with availability. With inbound, the roles are reversed – The person who wants to meet with you creates the invitation while you simply pick a time.
As a rule of thumb, when you want to meet with someone, use outbound – you’re doing the asking, so you do the “work”. When someone wants to meet with you, simply send them the link to your inbound page and have them submit an invitation.
Another important factor in the decision is the level of control that you need. If you want to be the one proposing the times then outbound is your choice. If you are fairly flexible with times then inbound would be a better choice.
When using inbound and outbound, but especially with inbound, it's important that people don't view it as an act of disrespect. At the end of the day it's all about how you position it. For example, you can apologize and say that you currently have no access to your calendar and ask the person to do you a favor and submit an invitation through your inbound page. The more meetings you schedule through inbound, the more efficient you will be, and as you schedule more meetings, you will find that most people are responding positively and are having a good experience which saves them time as well.

About ScheduleOnce:
ScheduleOnce is an online meeting and appointment scheduler that makes it easy to schedule time with the people in your business and social life. ScheduleOnce is not a calendar. It is an online booking application that connects to your existing calendar and makes your scheduling more efficient. ScheduleOnce is tightly integrated with Google Calendar and can also connect with Outlook and iCal.
Contact information:
Rami Goraly | CEO | +1.650.485.3428 | contact@scheduleonce.com
Schedule time with me: http://meetme.so/rami
ScheduleOnce, 723 Partridge Ave, Menlo Park 94025 CA, USA
http://scheduleonce.co.uk/

Find out more about ScheduleOnce:
http://blog.scheduleonce.com/
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http://www.youtube.com/scheduleonce

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