Appointment Booking: AI Scheduling Inside DMs

Overview

Booking is a built‑in capability of the AI, included on Free, Creator, Professional, and Business plans. There is no separate integration to enable on the customer side; if a person asks to schedule something on Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, or SMS, the AI moves them through the booking flow in the same thread they messaged you in.

Three things determine how booking behaves for your account:

The AI Booking master toggle, on or off (default: on). When off, the AI politely declines booking requests instead of trying to schedule.
Your bookable services, defined in AI Config › Service Menu. Any service with a duration set is bookable.
Your required fields, configured in the Calendar settings. The AI will collect exactly these and nothing more.

Optionally, connecting Google Calendar adds two extra capabilities: bookings show up on the right calendar in real time, and any service you mark as Virtual can auto‑send a Google Meet invite to the customer by email.

Quick Setup

The fastest path from zero to a working booking agent:

Confirm AI Booking is on. Open Calendar in your portal, click the Settings (gear) button at the top right, and make sure Enable AI Booking is toggled on.
Add at least one bookable service. Go to AI Config › Knowledge Base › Service Menu and add a service with a name, price, and duration in minutes. Duration is what makes it bookable. See Adding Bookable Services.
Set required fields for what the AI must collect (email, phone, address, vehicle, etc.). Defaults are sensible; tune per your business. See Required Fields.
(Optional) Connect Google Calendar in your portal’s Settings page. This unlocks calendar sync and Google Meet invites. See Google Meet & Email Confirmations.

Once steps 1 and 2 are done, the AI is ready to book on every channel you have connected.

Adding Bookable Services

Services live alongside FAQs in your knowledge base, at AI Config › Knowledge Base. Click Add Service to open the form. The fields:

Service Name (required). What the customer hears (“Initial Consultation”, “Tire Rotation”).
Price (required). The AI quotes this when asked “how much?” and uses it as the cost on the booking.
Price Unit. Fixed, per hour, per unit, or quote required. Quote means the AI will say the price needs to be quoted rather than naming a number.
Duration (minutes). This is the field that makes a service bookable. If duration is empty, the service still appears in conversations as a pricing answer but the AI will not try to schedule it.
Virtual meeting. Marks the service as virtual so it can trigger a Google Meet invite + customer email. Requires Google Calendar to be connected and the master Meet toggle to be on (see below); otherwise the checkbox is disabled with a hint pointing you to the missing piece.
Description. Free‑text context the AI can use when explaining the service to a customer.

Saved services show up in the Service Menu list with their duration, price unit, an active/inactive badge, and a Virtual badge if applicable. Deactivate a service to take it out of rotation without deleting it. Each service counts as one item against your knowledge base item limit.

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The AI matches loose phrasing to your services automatically (“a demo” matches a service named “Demo”, “setup help” matches “Consultation”). You do not need to define synonyms; clear, descriptive service names are enough.

Required Fields

In Calendar › Settings, the Required Fields section controls what the AI must collect from the customer before it will book. Service type and date/time are always required and not shown as toggles. The optional fields you can switch on:

Name (auto‑filled when possible). The AI reuses the customer’s name from the platform profile or earlier in the conversation; it only asks if it has no name on file.
Email. Required to send Google Meet invites, so it is locked on whenever Google Meet invites are enabled. Off otherwise unless you turn it on.
Phone.
Address. Turning this on reveals three sub‑toggles: collect city, collect state, collect street address. Collecting state is recommended for any business serving multiple time zones.
Vehicle information. For auto shops, detailers, mobile services, etc. The AI asks for make, model, year, and color.
Cost (auto‑filled). Pulled from the service’s configured price when present, or extracted from the conversation if the customer and AI discussed a number. The AI never asks the customer for cost directly.

The AI batches its asks: it gets the date and time first, then asks for everything else still missing in one message. Anything already known from the conversation or platform profile is skipped, so customers are not retyping their phone number to book a follow‑up.

Google Meet & Email Confirmations

If your services are virtual (consultations, demos, coaching), ChatGenius can create the meeting on your Google Calendar and email the customer a Google Meet invite, all from inside the DM. Three things have to be true for this to fire:

Google Calendar is connected for your account, on the portal’s Settings page.
The master Meet toggle is on: in Calendar › Settings, switch on Send Google Meet invites for virtual services. (This toggle only appears when Google Calendar is connected.)
The service is marked Virtual in AI Config › Service Menu. Each service has its own Virtual checkbox; only services with that flag get Meet invites.

The email field also has to be collected, which is why turning on the master Meet toggle automatically locks the email requirement on. The customer’s email becomes part of the booking and is what Google uses to send the invite.

What the customer experiences when all three conditions are met: the AI walks them through the booking, captures their email, confirms the appointment in the chat with a confirmation code, and Google emails them the calendar invite with the Meet link a moment later. The event also appears on your connected Google Calendar with the customer as an attendee.

ℹ️

In‑person services (services not marked Virtual) still book normally and still show on your Google Calendar if connected. They just do not generate a Meet link or send the customer an email; the AI’s in‑chat confirmation is the record.

How the AI Books

The booking flow runs entirely inside the customer’s normal conversation thread. No links, no redirects, no third‑party booking page. A typical sequence:

Customer expresses intent (“can I book a consult?”, “do you have anything Friday?”).
If the message names a service loosely, the AI matches it to your closest configured service. If genuinely ambiguous, it asks the customer to pick from your service menu.
The AI asks for date and time. It accepts any format (“next Tuesday at 3”, “tomorrow afternoon”, “2pm”) and resolves it relative to your business’s timezone and hours.
It silently checks availability against existing bookings before responding. If the slot is taken, it tells the customer and suggests open alternatives.
Once an available slot is locked in, the AI asks for all remaining required fields in one message (not a separate question per field), skipping anything already known.
It summarizes and asks the customer to confirm. Any of “yes”, “yeah”, “sure”, “sounds good”, “let’s do it”, etc. counts as confirmation; the AI is not picky.
On confirmation, the AI books the appointment and replies with a confirmation code. If the service was virtual and Meet is configured, Google emails the Meet invite a moment later.

Through the flow, the AI is matching the customer’s language and tone, varying phrasing so it does not sound scripted, and keeping replies short (one or two sentences). It will not say an appointment is booked unless the booking actually succeeded.

Solicitation guard

If someone messages trying to sell a service to your business (lead gen pitches, coaching offers, agency outreach), the booking agent recognizes this and does not engage. It thanks them, escalates to your team, and stops; it will not waste their time or yours by trying to schedule something.

Rescheduling and Canceling

Once a customer has an appointment, they can change or cancel it just by messaging back. The AI looks up their appointments by their contact info, asks which one if there are several, then handles the change inside the conversation.

Reschedule: the customer says something like “can we move it to Friday?” or “same day but 5pm”. The AI resolves the new time relative to the existing appointment, checks the new slot is open, and updates the booking. The calendar event moves; if it was a Meet, the updated invite goes back out via Google.
Cancel: “cancel my appointment” or similar. The AI confirms which one and cancels it.
Modify: “add a brake check to my appointment” or similar. The AI updates the existing booking’s notes/scope without creating a new one.

You can also reschedule, cancel, or edit any appointment manually from the calendar dashboard.

The Calendar Dashboard

Everything the AI books, plus anything you add by hand, lives in the Calendar section of your portal. Four views:

Month: the default, a traditional grid with appointment dots per day.
Week: a vertical timeline of the current week with appointments laid out by time.
Day: a single‑day timeline, the densest view.
List: a flat table sortable by date, customer, location, platform, service, or status.

At the top of the page you also get four headline metrics: Today’s Appointments (with how many are confirmed), This Week (with the week‑over‑week change), Confirmation Rate, and Cancellation Rate. They’re a quick health check on how the booking pipeline is running.

Two filters narrow what shows: Platform (All, Facebook, Instagram, SMS, Telegram, WhatsApp if available on your plan) and Location (pulled from the city/state captured on bookings; only shows up if you collect those fields).

Clicking an appointment opens a detail modal where you can change its time, notes, status, or cancel it. If Google Calendar is connected, a Sync Google Calendar button in the header forces an immediate sync in either direction.

Adding Appointments Manually

The New Appointment button at the top of the calendar lets you book directly without going through a conversation. Useful for: appointments scheduled by phone, walk‑ins you want to track, follow‑ups you’re setting yourself, or pre‑loading the calendar before turning the AI on.

Manually‑added appointments behave exactly like AI‑booked ones: they appear on Google Calendar if connected, send Meet invites if virtual and configured, and the same rescheduling and cancellation logic applies.

FAQ

Do I have to connect Google Calendar?

No. Booking works without it. Appointments live in ChatGenius and show on the Calendar dashboard. Connecting Google adds calendar sync (appointments appear on your real calendar) and unlocks Meet invites for virtual services.

Why is my service not bookable?

Check that the service has a duration in minutes set. Services without duration appear in pricing answers but cannot be scheduled.

What if the customer asks to book outside business hours?

The AI knows your business hours and resolves loose time references (“afternoon”, “morning”) within them. If a customer explicitly asks for a slot outside your hours, it will tell them and suggest in‑hours alternatives.

How does the AI know the customer’s timezone?

It defaults to your business’s timezone (set on your account). If you collect state during booking, the AI can use that for time references; for international booking you can also configure the AI to ask about timezone explicitly via custom instructions.

What happens if the slot is taken between the customer agreeing and the booking being created?

The AI runs an availability check immediately before writing the booking. If the slot has been taken in the seconds between confirmation and write, the AI tells the customer and offers the closest open alternatives.

Can the AI handle reschedules and cancels just from a message?

Yes. The customer messages something like “move my appointment to Friday” or “cancel my appointment” and the AI handles it, including updating the calendar event and re‑sending Meet invites where applicable.

Will I get an email when a booking happens?

If Google Calendar is connected, the appointment appears on your calendar instantly and you get whatever notifications you have configured in Google Calendar itself. ChatGenius does not duplicate those notifications; setting reminder preferences in Google Calendar keeps everything in one place.

Can I turn off booking just temporarily?

Yes. Switch off the Enable AI Booking master toggle in Calendar settings. The AI will politely decline booking requests until you switch it back on.

Is booking included on the Free plan?

Yes. AI booking and calendar are included on every plan. The only thing that varies by plan is how many AI conversations you have to handle bookings in. See Plans & Limits.

Next Steps

Knowledge Base for the wider picture of how FAQs, services, and documents shape what the AI knows.
AI Configuration to tune identity, tone, and custom instructions the booking agent inherits.
Escalation & Human Handoff for when a booking conversation needs a person to step in.
Plans & Limits if you’re curious where the conversation budget for booking lives.