Our third, and final, suggestion is to communicate clearly about what you would like. Thus, instead of a ping-pong process of messages such as “hi” and “‘available”, the ideal approach would be to have a message which is short and sweet while listing all the information pertinent to an appointment, just like you would do when booking a dentist or visiting a restaurant. As such, something along the following lines would work best “Hi. I would like to ask if Miss X is available on Friday, 1 January, for 1 hour at around 12:00 or thereabouts. Regards, Biff”. Effectively, all the information is listed in a short message, so your odds of receiving a good response are greatly increased.