CallTone
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Appointment Scheduling

Let your voice agents book appointments directly during phone calls with automatic calendar management, confirmation emails, and a self-service portal.

Overview

CallTone's appointment scheduling feature allows your AI voice agents to book meetings during live phone calls. When a contact expresses interest in scheduling an appointment, the agent checks your real-time availability, proposes open time slots, and confirms the booking — all within the natural flow of the conversation.

Once booked, the system automatically sends confirmation emails to both parties, schedules SMS reminders before the appointment, and provides the contact with a self-service portal link to manage their booking. Appointments appear on your dashboard calendar where you can view, reschedule, or cancel them.

Enabling Appointments on an Agent

Appointment scheduling is enabled per agent. Not every agent needs to book appointments — a customer support agent might not need this feature, while a sales agent likely does.

To enable appointment scheduling:

  1. Navigate to Dashboard > Agents and select the agent you want to configure.
  2. Open the Settings tab and find the Appointment Scheduling section.
  3. Toggle Enable Appointments to on. The agent will now have access to your calendar availability during calls and can offer to book appointments.
  4. Optionally, configure the agent's prompt to specify when and how it should offer appointments. For example: "If the contact expresses interest, offer to schedule a 30-minute demo call."

When appointments are enabled, the agent automatically gains the ability to check open time slots and confirm bookings using CallTone's scheduling tools. You do not need to write custom scheduling logic into the agent's prompt.

Calendar Configuration

Before your agents can book appointments, you need to configure your organization's calendar settings. Go to Settings > Calendar to set the following:

  • Timezone — Your organization's primary timezone. All appointment times are displayed and communicated in this timezone. The agent will also communicate times in this timezone during calls (e.g., "How about Tuesday at 2 PM Eastern?").
  • Working days — Select which days of the week appointments can be booked. Typically Monday through Friday, but you can include weekends if your business operates on those days.
  • Working hours — Set the start and end time for your availability window (e.g., 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM). The agent will only offer time slots within this window.
  • Meeting duration — The default length of appointments. Options include 15, 30, 45, and 60 minutes. You can also set custom durations. The agent uses this to calculate available slots and communicates the duration to the contact.
  • Buffer time — Optional padding between consecutive appointments (e.g., 15 minutes). This prevents back-to-back bookings and gives you time between meetings.
  • Advance booking window — How far in advance appointments can be booked (e.g., 1–30 days). Prevents contacts from booking too far in the future or too close to the current time (minimum lead time).

How It Works During a Call

When the conversation reaches a point where scheduling is appropriate, the agent seamlessly handles the booking process:

  1. Availability check — The agent queries your calendar in real time to find open slots. It accounts for existing appointments, buffer times, working hours, and the required meeting duration.
  2. Proposing times — The agent offers the contact two or three available options: "I have openings on Tuesday at 10 AM, Wednesday at 2 PM, or Thursday at 11 AM. Which works best for you?"
  3. Confirming the booking — Once the contact selects a time, the agent confirms the details: date, time, duration, and meeting type. It repeats the information to ensure accuracy.
  4. Collecting contact details — If the contact's email is not already on file, the agent asks for it so a confirmation email can be sent. The agent spells back the email to verify.
  5. Booking confirmation — The appointment is created in your CallTone calendar instantly. The contact receives a confirmation email within seconds of the call ending.

The entire scheduling interaction typically adds 30–60 seconds to the call. The agent handles edge cases naturally, such as when no slots are available in the requested timeframe or when the contact needs to check their own calendar.

Confirmation Emails and SMS Reminders

After an appointment is booked, CallTone sends automated communications to keep both you and the contact informed:

  • Confirmation email — Sent to the contact immediately after booking. Includes the appointment date, time, duration, meeting type, and a link to the self-service portal for managing the appointment. The email uses your organization's branding if custom email domains are configured.
  • Internal notification — Your team receives a notification (email or in-app) when a new appointment is booked, so you can prepare.
  • SMS reminder (24 hours before) — A text message is sent to the contact 24 hours before the appointment as a reminder. The message includes the appointment details and a link to confirm, reschedule, or cancel.
  • SMS reminder (1 hour before) — A final reminder is sent one hour before the appointment.
  • Voice call reminder (optional) — You can enable automated voice call reminders through Vapi, where the AI agent calls the contact to confirm their appointment. This is configurable per organization in Settings.

Reminder timing and channels (email, SMS, voice) can be customized in Settings > Calendar > Reminders. Contacts can reply STOP to opt out of SMS reminders at any time.

Self-Service Portal

Every appointment confirmation includes a unique link to a self-service portal where the contact can manage their booking without needing to call back or send an email. The portal allows contacts to:

  • Confirm — Verify that they will attend the appointment. Confirmed appointments are marked with a green status in your dashboard.
  • Reschedule — Select a new date and time from your available slots. The portal shows real-time availability just like the voice agent does during a call. Rescheduling automatically updates your calendar and sends updated confirmations to both parties.
  • Cancel — Cancel the appointment with an optional reason. Cancelled appointments free up the time slot for other bookings. You receive a notification when a contact cancels.

The self-service portal is branded with your organization name and colors if custom branding is configured. Portal links are unique per appointment and do not require the contact to create an account or log in.

Viewing Appointments in the Dashboard

All appointments are visible in the Dashboard > Appointments section, which provides both a calendar view and a list view.

  • Calendar view — A visual calendar showing appointments by day, week, or month. Appointments are color-coded by status: green for confirmed, yellow for pending, red for cancelled, and blue for completed.
  • List view — A sortable, searchable table of all appointments with columns for date, time, contact name, meeting type, status, and the agent that booked it.
  • Appointment detail — Click any appointment to see full details, including the contact's information, the call recording and transcript from the booking call, and the appointment's history (created, confirmed, rescheduled, etc.).

From the dashboard, you can also manually create appointments, edit existing ones, or cancel bookings on behalf of a contact.

Meeting Types

CallTone supports three meeting types that can be offered during the booking process:

  • Phone call — The meeting takes place over the phone. The confirmation email includes the phone number to call or indicates that your team will call the contact at the scheduled time. This is the default meeting type.
  • Video call — The meeting takes place via video conference. CallTone generates a unique meeting link (or integrates with your Zoom/Google Meet account if connected) and includes it in the confirmation email.
  • In-person — The meeting takes place at a physical location. The confirmation email includes your office address or a custom location that you configure in Settings. The agent communicates the address to the contact during the call.

You can configure which meeting types are available for each agent. If multiple types are enabled, the agent will ask the contact for their preference: "Would you prefer a phone call, video meeting, or in-person visit?"

Best Practices

  • Set buffer times of at least 10–15 minutes between appointments to avoid scheduling conflicts and give yourself transition time.
  • Keep your working hours accurate and up to date. If you take a day off or have a blocked period, mark it in your calendar to prevent bookings during those times.
  • Enable both email and SMS reminders. Contacts who receive multi-channel reminders have significantly lower no-show rates compared to email-only reminders.
  • Use the self-service portal link in all communications. Contacts who can easily reschedule are less likely to no-show — they will move the appointment rather than simply not attending.
  • Review your appointment analytics regularly. Track no-show rates, cancellation rates, and reschedule patterns to optimize your booking process and agent scripts.