Salesforce Inbox: Let Customers Choose the Meeting Slot

As a very easy-to-use tool for increasing sales teams’ productivity through the Gmail and Outlook integrations, Salesforce Inbox has been used widely for a long time. 

Salesforce have even decided to make it available at no extra cost for their Unlimited and Performance editions. 

Salesforce Inbox: Quick Overview

With a Salesforce Inbox license, users are able to: 

• Access Salesforce data directly from a side panel on their email page.
• Easily share availability and schedule meetings.
• Access the Inbox mobile app.
• Track emails… and more.  

Read More: 

• Sales Cloud Unlimited: What Does it Actually Include?
• What Is Salesforce Professional Edition?

What’s New?

By far one of the most time-saving features available with Salesforce email integrations is the ability to send meeting invites to either customers or internal colleagues (or both), with just a couple of clicks. 

While you may already be familiar with the Availability tab within the side panel, the Scheduling Link which was made Generally Available to Inbox users in December 2022 and Next 3 Available Times that will become available as part of the Spring ’23 release, are brand new.

As you can see below, this means that right now you have both of the following options: 

• Preferred Times: Send out specific meeting times the customer can choose from.
• Scheduling Link: Allow customers to be in full control of the time, and simply pick an available slot directly from your calendar. 
• Next 3 Available Times: Automatically send out the first available meeting slot from each of the next three business days, including the current business day. If one of the days is a holiday, it will be skipped. 

While the Next 3 Available times will only show up as an option in the side panel within your Outlook or Gmail inbox for now, the Scheduling Link will also become available when sending emails directly from the Lightning Email Composer following the Spring ’23 release. These new features will allow the sales and business development teams to have a fast way to share availability at their fingertips at all times! 

How Does It Work? 

As noted above, the new features are literally two clicks away. Moreover, if users pin the side panel in their inbox, this will go down to just one click!

Scheduling Link

Once a sales manager clicks on Scheduling Link, their calendar availability will be inserted into the email in the form of a Book a Meeting link the recipient can click on. Then it’s simply a matter of hitting send!

Keep in mind that availability is taken directly from the user’s calendar, ensuring the recipient will have accurate information whenever they decide to click on the dynamic link (available for 90 days).

After the recipient clicks on the link from the email, the sales manager’s up-to-date calendar will appear for the prospect or customer to rapidly choose whichever slot is best suited for them. Once they do, a meeting invite will automatically be sent out on the sales manager’s behalf. 

Next 3 Available Times

As the name suggests, this feature will allow Inbox users to automatically attach (to the email they are writing) their next three available slots, as well as a link to the available times in case none of the three times work for the recipient. 

This seemingly simple feature will drastically increase users’ efficiency, once again removing the need for further conversation regarding availability. The booking process is just as simple, as the recipient will only have to click on the slot they want, and that’s it! 

Regardless of the option form the Availability section the Inbox user decides to use, after the meeting is confirmed, the recipient(s) will receive a meeting invite, and the host will also be notified via email that a time was selected.

Summary 

And that’s it! The tedious back-and-forth conversations for choosing the right slot never even happened, giving both the sales manager and the prospect time to focus on more important day-to-day tasks. 

Don’t forget to check out the Salesforce Inbox release notes for Spring ‘23, and if you are already an Inbox user, make sure you check out the new Scheduling Link option! 

Note: Since, at this time, there isn’t a developer edition available to try out Salesforce Inbox functionality outside your organization, you should reach out to your account executive for further licensing information and a possible trial.