Sometimes visitors to a site need to make an appointment, especially if a conversation needs to take time (e.g.: creation of a project, detailed estimate, etc.). The appointment booking feature allows you to connect iAdvize to an existing scheduling platform (whether your company already uses it or not) to allow them to benefit from this type of service. The following article explains how this works and details how to install this solution.

1. Principle

This functionality allows your visitors to make an appointment from a conversation with a bot or a human respondent:

• • to work and set the appointment, you will need to connect iAdvize to a third-party scheduling platform (such as Calendly, Outlook calendar, etc.)
  • during a conversation with a bot or a human respondent, your visitors are offered a link to an online calendar
    
  • you can offer them an appointment via chat, call or video, or with an in-store advisor
    
  • following their booking, your visitors receive a confirmation email or SMS containing a link
    
  • if the appointment is scheduled online, this link redirects your visitors to a specific page or engagement rule on your site in order to put them in contact with the right respondent, via the right channel.

Here is an example of a visitor's experience of making an appointment with a respondent:

Here is an example of an appointment booking experience with a bot seen by a visitor:

By selecting this link, the visitor can choose an available slot from the agendas of your respondents.

The visitor then receives an appointment confirmation with a link to the page of your site or the targeting rule to which the visitor is referred on the D-day. The visitor can modify, cancel the appointment or add it to his calendar directly from the confirmation email or sms.

You can choose to dedicate a page of your site to the appointment booking (see example below) or if it is not the case to send the visitor to a particular targeting rule.

2. How to create an appointment scheduling experience with iAdvize?

2.1. Connect iAdvize with an external appointment scheduling solution

To open a modal on the side of the chatbox, you can define this requirement directly in the iAdvize tag.

Here is an example with the external appointment scheduling solution Calendly (you will have to adapt the code according to the external solution chosen).

• Modify the iAdvize tag to detect your external appointment scheduling solution
• To do this, add the two files for the Calendly style and script in your HTML header:

• Add to your iAdvize tag the handleClickedUrl method to iAdvizeInterface as follows::

2.2 Configure your external appointment scheduling solution

2.2.1 Synchronize your teams' diaries

• Synchronize your teams' diaries to provide consistent and up-to-date appointment availability slots. 

  • Make sure you connect your team's calendars (whether individual or shared) with your external solution. This will ensure that your visitors have access to the latest appointment slots during the appointment booking experience.

2.2.2 Create online appointment slots dedicated to shops

• To do this, create teams (this will depend on the external solution chosen), i.e. a group of users who share the same location or the same skills

• Then create a distribution logic between these groups.

   

This will allow you to offer a choice of shops directly when your visitors make an appointment.

2.2.3 Activate the confirmation emails or sms

Your visitors will then be able to modify, cancel or add the event in their calendar.

You can personalize these emails with your brand colors.

2.2.4 Insert a link for an online appointment (video, chat, phone)

Provide a link for each shop page or for each targeting rule created to connect visitors with the sellers of a particular shop.

Here is an example of a Calendly link to a targeting rule:

https://{{utm_source}}/?booking_meeting_reserved_email={{invitee_email}}

Here, we have inserted two variables:

• The Calendly utm_source variable which contains the URL to a page on your website dedicated to video meetings. You have defined it above in the section Connect iAdvize with an external appointment scheduling solution
• The Calendly invitee_email variable (optional) which contains the email address of the person who booked the meeting

2.2.5 Insert a link for a physical appointment in a shop

Insert the address of the shop and the necessary indications to get there.

2.3 Create the appointment booking experience within the iAdvize administration

2.3.1 Create your appointment booking scenario for your bot

Go to the Automation section and click on bot then bot builder to do so.

Remember to :

• Ask for the visitor's email address beforehand so that you can pre-fill it in your appointment booking tool (optional step)
• Ask the visitor if they would like an appointment in person, online, or with a particular skill (optional step)
• Propose a rich message including the URL that will open your appointment booking form. This link can be formatted using markdown.

Here is an example of a URL to insert:
[Book an appointment](https://calendly.com/product-iadvize/30min?email={email}
&hide_gdpr_banner=1"Book an appointment")

• In green, the text displayed to the visitor
• In blue, the URL of your form (example here with Calendly) for your online appointment
• In red, the Calendly optional parameter that you must add just after the URL in order to pre-fill the visitor's email address in the appointment booking form (optional step)
• In yellow, the Calendly optional parameter that allows you to hide the GDPR banner of the external appointment scheduling solution if your visitor already accepts GDPR and cookie via iAdvize or on your website (optional step)
• In grey, the description of the link that is not displayed to the visitor.

2.3.2 Create your appointment booking scenario for your respondents

• Go to the "team" section in the iAdvize administration to add pre-recorded links to your respondents' canned responses library. Each respondent will then be able to propose an appointment to a visitor during a conversation.

• Insert a URL that will open your appointment booking form. This link can be formatted using markdown. You can reuse the same URL as for the bot experiment above.