What the agent needs to find in your calendar
To book an appointment, a voice agent needs three pieces of information: where to write it (the calendar of the right practitioner or resource), how long it lasts (the service requested) and when not to put it (breaks, time off, reserved slots). Google Calendar answers the first and third questions very well. The second, the duration per service, is set separately, in the agent's instructions.
The calendar says what is free, the rules say what can go into it. Prepare both, and the agent will only offer real slots, in the right format. The order of questions and the confirmation are covered in our guide to booking appointments by phone.
One calendar per practitioner or resource
The most useful rule: one Google calendar for each person who sees clients, and one for each resource that can only be used once at a time. A practice with two physiotherapists has two calendars; a beauty salon with two treatment rooms has one per room. That way the agent knows who is free, and you keep an overview by displaying the calendars side by side.
To create a calendar, Google gives the following steps, from a browser on a computer (you can't create one from the mobile app):
- In the left-hand column, next to “Other calendars”, click the plus sign.
- Choose “Create new calendar”.
- Give it a clear name, “Mrs Durand, sessions” or “Treatment room 2”, and a description if needed.
- Click “Create calendar”.
The calendar then appears in the mobile app, and whoever creates it becomes its owner.
Think about your personal appointments: if they're noted in a private calendar that the agent doesn't read, they block nothing. Copy these absences into your work calendar, under a neutral title such as “Unavailable”.
Blocked-out slots, breaks and time off
Busy or Free: the setting that matters
In Google Calendar, every event is either “Busy” or “Free”. According to Google's help, for people who can only see your availability, a private “Busy” event shows as a busy block, and a “Free” event doesn't show at all. So a break marked “Free” blocks nothing.
Check this status on every slot the agent mustn't offer:
- The lunch break, as a recurring event: the “Create” button then, next to “Does not repeat”, choose how often it repeats and the end date.
- Admin tasks, the Monday morning bookkeeping, team meetings.
- Reserved slots, for example for emergencies or existing patients. Block them, then tell the agent in which cases it can use them.
- Time off and public holidays. For its booking pages, Google points out that an all-day event marked “Busy” leaves no slots: check this status on every period of time off you enter.
Opening hours
Google Calendar offers “Working hours”, but only for work or school accounts, and they are mainly used to inform people who invite you to a meeting. Don't rely on them to close the calendar in the evening: give the agent your opening hours, day by day, in its rules.
A duration per service, gaps between appointments
Google Calendar doesn't know your services. Its duration setting, in “Event settings”, only applies to events you create yourself. So the duration of each type of appointment is given to the agent, along with the calendar's other rules. Prepare a simple table like this one, whose values are a fictitious example to replace with your own:
| Service | Duration | Who | Buffer after |
|---|---|---|---|
| Haircut | 30 min | All the hairdressers | 5 min |
| Colour | 1 hr 30 | Julie, Sarah | 10 min |
| First physio session | 45 min | Each practitioner | 10 min |
| Follow-up session | 30 min | Each practitioner | 5 min |
Add three rules that prevent most problems:
- Minimum notice before an appointment.
- Buffer time between two appointments, for cleaning or travel.
- A daily cap for long appointments.
If you already use a Google appointment schedule, Google Calendar's online booking page, you may have set a buffer between appointments and a maximum number of bookings per day there. These settings apply to that page: use the same values in the agent's rules, so that customers find the same policy online and on the phone.
Sharing: who sees what, who can edit
When each practitioner has their own Google account, the simplest thing is to bring the practice's calendars together in the account you will connect to the agent. A calendar's owner shares it from “Settings and sharing”, under “Shared with”, then “Add people and groups”. Google offers five levels:
| Access level | Who it's for |
|---|---|
| See only free/busy (hide details) | A colleague who only needs to know whether you're free |
| See all event details | A partner who looks without editing |
| Make changes to events (see private events as free/busy) | An account that books appointments without reading your private events |
| Make changes to events and see event details | The receptionist, the front desk, the practice account |
| Make changes and manage sharing | The owner, and ideally only the owner |
A calendar shared read-only doesn't let anyone write to it, the agent included. With a work or school account, your administrator may restrict sharing: check with them before organising everything.
What Sayelo does in your Google Calendar
Once your Google account is connected, Sayelo reads the list of your calendars so that you can select the one to sync, then relies on the availability information to offer only free slots. During the call:
- the calendar is read in real time, and your manual changes are taken into account;
- a double-booking lock reserves the slot for whoever confirms first; the second caller is offered the next one;
- the appointment is written in with the duration set for the service, according to your rules: open slots, buffer time, minimum notice, number of appointments per day;
- the confirmation goes out by SMS, and the reminder the day before is switched on by default, as explained in our guide to confirmation SMS;
- rescheduling and cancellation are done over the phone, if you allow it, and free up the slot.
In a practice with several practitioners, each one has their own profile, slots and durations. Our physiotherapists and hairdressers pages show a full call. Calendar data is never passed to voice AI services or used to train models. Do you work in Outlook or Cal.com? The Microsoft 365 and Cal.com guide follows the same logic. Wondering about a human answering service instead? Our comparison sets out the differences.
Before opening the line: six test calls
- Ask for each service: is the duration offered the right one?
- Ask for a slot during the lunch break: it shouldn't be offered.
- Ask for a day when you're off: same result.
- Ask for an appointment within the hour: the minimum notice should kick in.
- Move an appointment, then cancel one: the calendar should follow.
- Add an event by hand during the test, then call again: the slot should have disappeared.
This test reveals almost every forgotten setting. For the rest, the Sayelo team sets up and fine-tunes the agent with you. The plans are set out on the pricing page, 14-day free trial included.
