A typical stay generates a predictable series of messages: a confirmation, practical questions before arrival, check-in instructions, a check that everything is fine, a reminder about check-out, and a thank-you afterwards. Most of these say much the same thing for every booking, which is why scheduled messages and templates have become standard practice.
What to automate
The best candidates for automation are messages whose content is the same for every guest and whose timing matters:
- the booking confirmation, with the essentials of the stay;
- arrival instructions, sent at a fixed interval before check-in;
- a short message the morning after arrival, asking whether everything is in order;
- check-out information the evening before departure;
- a thank-you after the stay.
Each of these should be written once, carefully, in plain language, and reread every few months. They are, in effect, part of the property's documentation.
What not to automate
Automation works badly whenever the guest has asked something specific, is unhappy, or is in difficulty. A generic reply to a complaint, or a cheerful scheduled message sent to a guest who has just reported a broken boiler, does more harm than a slower human answer. Some practical rules help:
- pause scheduled messages for any booking with an open issue;
- never let an automated reply be the only answer to a question it does not address;
- keep a human available, or at least reachable, at the times guests arrive.
Templates and AI assistants
Saved replies to frequent questions — parking, luggage, early check-in, cots — save time and keep answers consistent across a team. AI writing assistants built into messaging tools can go further and draft replies from the property's information. They are useful for speed, but they can state wrong facts with confidence. A sensible rule is that anything sent to a guest is something a person would be happy to have written, and that the information the assistant draws on is kept accurate and complete.
Tone
Whether written by hand or scheduled, the messages that guests appreciate share a few traits: they are short, they use the guest's name, they answer the question in the first line, and they sound like a person who knows the home. "The heating switch is behind the kitchen door, on the left" is worth more than three paragraphs of pleasantries.