Edge-case playbook

The situations the main procedure does not settle on its own, and exactly what changes in each.

The prospect's lunch is unknown

The default lunch of 12:00 to 13:00 in their zone holds for most office roles. Adjust before scoring when there is evidence:

Signal	Adjustment
Early-shift roles (plant, warehouse, logistics, field operations)	Workday 07:00 to 15:30, lunch 11:00 to 11:45. The post-lunch window moves to 11:45 to 12:30.
Their booking page shows no slots between 12:00 and 13:00 but offers 11:00 to 12:00 and 13:00 onward	Treat 12:00 to 13:00 as confirmed lunch.
Their page has a gap at some other hour across most days	Treat that gap as lunch and shift the windows to match.
No evidence at all	Use the default. Do not ask the user; a wrong lunch guess costs a few points, not the meeting.

The first hour of their workday is the safer pick when lunch is uncertain, because the start of the day is easier to infer than lunch.

International, no shared business hours

When the overlap between the user's workday and the counterparty's workday is under 2 hours, or zero:

1. List the overlap explicitly in both clocks.
2. Within the overlap, the rubric still applies. Often the only overlap is the counterparty's last 90 minutes (20 points) or the user's early morning.
3. If the overlap scores 30 or below for a revenue meeting, offer the user a choice: a slot early or late in the user's own day that lands in the counterparty's first hour, or the weak in-hours slot. Stepping outside the user's hours is the user's decision to make, never the default.
4. For an internal meeting with no overlap, pick the slot nearest an edge of the user's day and say what it costs.

Watch the date line: a Tuesday afternoon for the user can be Wednesday morning for the counterparty. State the day in both zones in the summary and the confirmation.

The routing form asks something unknown

Stop. List the exact questions and answer options the form shows, mark which ones are already known from the thread or the user's profile, and ask the user for the rest in one message. Never select a plausible answer to get past the form: company size or budget answers route the meeting to different people, and a wrong route usually means a reschedule and a worse first impression. If a question asks for something the user would not normally share (a budget figure, a competitor name), flag it rather than answering for them.

Only weak slots this week, a good slot next week

Revenue meetings lose momentum with delay. Use this table:

This week's best	Next week's best	Default recommendation
66 or higher	anything	Book this week.
31 to 65	92 or higher	Offer both; lean this week if the deal has a stated deadline or the counterparty asked for "this week".
1 to 30	92 or higher	Offer both; lean next week unless timing is stated as urgent.
1 to 65	under 92	Book this week's best. Next week is not enough better to justify the delay.
0 (nothing bookable)	anything	Report why and offer next week.

When offering both, phrase it as a two-option question with the tradeoff named, for example: "Thursday 11:30 her time is the only slot this week, right before her lunch. Next Tuesday 1:00 PM is first slot after her lunch. Thursday if you want it moving now, Tuesday for a better conversation."

Reschedules

Rescore from scratch with the current calendar. Do not reuse the old slot's time of day by default. Most booking pages send a reschedule link in the original confirmation; use it rather than booking a second meeting and leaving the first to be cancelled, and only after the user confirms the new slot. Moving a meeting changes someone else's calendar.

Multiple counterparties on one booking page

When the host's page books a group or a round-robin, score in the zone of the decision-maker, not the host. If the decision-maker is unclear, ask.

The user overrides the pick

The user's call wins. Book what they asked for, and if it lands in a weak window or crowds a day, say so once in the report, not before booking.