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What is 10x better than Calendly?

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Re: What is 10x better than Calendly?

#11

Post by imarkphillips »

gurtgurt wrote: post #8

You should look to niche down to build a Calendly that is 10x better specific group of users - it is going to be hard to make scheduling 10x better for a general audience. Ex: I've been pretty happy with https://zcal.co which seems to target people who are looking for more personalization of invite links (I've mostly been using it because it is cheaper than other options for all the functionality I care about).

Zcal.co is also my favourite calendaring app.

I include meeting links to our Whereby.com account which is by far the best video conferencing app around. No BS invitations, scheduling, codes etc. Just knock and enter the room.

Re: What is 10x better than Calendly?

#12

Post by Peer_Rich »

notpushkin wrote: post #6
singingwolfboy wrote: post #2

Would be nice if there was a product that also worked with Fastmail Calendars: https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/categories/1500000036101-... Every time I try to use Calendly, it fails because I've disabled Google Calendar from my Google Account. I'm trying to slowly switch to Fastmail instead.

And generic CalDAV support would be even better. Cal.com supports it (in beta): https://cal.com/apps/caldav-calendar But it is hit or miss, e.g. it doesn't work with my Purelymail account.

hey, peer here from cal.com. we have an issue where we track all individual caldav implementations: https://github.com/calcom/cal.com/issues/9990

Re: What is 10x better than Calendly?

#14

Post by miraantabrez »

One problem with calendly is sending links politely without seeming like the other person should bend to your schedule / do the scheduling.

So I‘ve usually said something like: “what’s the best time for you? You can also pick a time here if easier:”

But maybe there’s a product experience that can solve / prevent this problem.

Re: What is 10x better than Calendly?

#16

Post by samsamlh »

miraantabrez wrote: post #14

One problem with calendly is sending links politely without seeming like the other person should bend to your schedule / do the scheduling. So I‘ve usually said something like: “what’s the best time for you? You can also pick a time here if easier:” But maybe there’s a product experience that can solve / prevent this problem.

Within the app I currently have, I handled this by adding validation tied to specific events. So basically you request a slot and get validated or canceled. Maybe there are other ways to make this happen

Re: What is 10x better than Calendly?

#17

Post by samsamlh »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #4

The real question is "what is calendly lacking for {user group}". For me, as a casual user, I would love the calendly type experience to be integrated with the video call. So you send a link, arrange the time, and then the same link takes me onto that call (no separate teams/zoom logging in etc.)

Very specific need, I would handle this by popping up a button when the meeting time approach to "join meeting" in a fast fashion when it's time. That's still 2 clicks away from the call starting from your inbox but at least you don't search among text and other links

Re: What is 10x better than Calendly?

#18

Post by samsamlh »

gurtgurt wrote: post #8

You should look to niche down to build a Calendly that is 10x better specific group of users - it is going to be hard to make scheduling 10x better for a general audience. Ex: I've been pretty happy with https://zcal.co which seems to target people who are looking for more personalization of invite links (I've mostly been using it because it is cheaper than other options for all the functionality I care about).

Thanks I'll benchmark this one, what kind of personalization most people need? URLs? Calendar design? I've embedded forms to fill (w/ image) before taking slots in my existing app in that sense

Re: What is 10x better than Calendly?

#19

Post by from-nibly »

miraantabrez wrote: post #14

One problem with calendly is sending links politely without seeming like the other person should bend to your schedule / do the scheduling. So I‘ve usually said something like: “what’s the best time for you? You can also pick a time here if easier:” But maybe there’s a product experience that can solve / prevent this problem.

Who gets offended by someone giving them a calendly link? I get offended when someone wants to do some ridiculous back and forth with me. Just send me a link and I'll pick a time that works for both of us. When you send me a link you are saying that you value my time more than your own. Which is ridiculously courteous.

Re: What is 10x better than Calendly?

#20

Post by jptoor »

from-nibly wrote: post #19
miraantabrez wrote: post #14

One problem with calendly is sending links politely without seeming like the other person should bend to your schedule / do the scheduling. So I‘ve usually said something like: “what’s the best time for you? You can also pick a time here if easier:” But maybe there’s a product experience that can solve / prevent this problem.

Who gets offended by someone giving them a calendly link? I get offended when someone wants to do some ridiculous back and forth with me. Just send me a link and I'll pick a time that works for both of us. When you send me a link you are saying that you value my time more than your own. Which is ridiculously courteous.

I've been dealing with this a lot recently and seems to be a generational difference. Surprisingly close age wise with completely different responses.

Anecdotally, people ~40+ do take it personally as parent comment mentioned. It's a "your time is more important than mine" feeling by putting the onus on them. Around ~40% of the time, more senior people have ignored a booking link, and responded with times that work for them, requiring additional messages to confirm everything.

People under ~40 almost always use the link without issue, and usually send a confirmation email or message. People Now I use a "Let me know if there's a good time for you. Otherwise, here are 3 slots and my booking link" message.

Even had to make a Google Sheets app script to list my open 1.5+hr slots for the next 3 weeks to help with pre-populating that.

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