If we're ever going to share calendars, we have to insist on interoperability between them all.
Let's drain the swamp!
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Google Duplex: A swamp-draining opportunity, lost
Still waiting for some really good swamp-draining news, but this ain't it. I would not appreciate getting one of these calls if I ran a restaurant or a salon. Seems more dehumanizing somehow than having a real person on the other end of the line. I wish they had built something that maps directly into reservation systems themselves & shows free/busy times, but that assumes a level of schedule interoperability that we have yet to achieve, not because standards don’t exist, but because they are not widely supported, and may never be. Instead, it’s basically like a new interruption. Or am I just old fashioned?
The alternatives to Google Duplex exist, but are primarily driven by Appointment Scheduling Vendors. The 2 main ways a business can get a "Booking" link are to use Reserve with Google (which must be set up via a vendor), or use any booking system and put the link on their page.
ReplyDeleteIndividual businesses can, in fact, turn off the Google Duplex feature for their business. However, many don't realize that the "person" calling for an appointment is in fact, an AI Agent.