At two in the morning one person is the desk, the phone and the door
A small hotel's night is covered by one person, and every ring pulls them away from somebody standing in front of them. Most of those calls are the same handful of questions, and a guest asking whether reception is still open should never be the reason a check in waits.
From $99 a month · Robocalls are never billed
Incoming callTomasz Wierzbicki“My flight's delayed, will anyone be there at half past one?”
Late arrival noted on the booking · Access explained · No desk interruption
- Late arrivals
- Noted on the booking with the access instructions given, without waking the desk
- Direct bookings
- A caller who reaches a person books direct instead of going back to an OTA
- $0
- billed for robocalls and sales calls, on every plan
The call that separates a hotel agent from a voice
Every AI receptionist on this results page books appointments and speaks well. This is the hotels call where that stops being enough.
The caller says
“Do you have a room for tonight, and is there parking?”
What a generic AI receptionist does
A generic AI receptionist takes a message and promises a callback. That caller is choosing between three hotels on their phone right now and will have booked one of them, probably through an OTA at fifteen per cent, before anybody rings back. A direct booking was available for the length of that phone call and nothing in the flow could take it.
What this one does
It answers from your availability and your rates, states what is included, confirms parking and the check in window, and takes the booking direct. The call that would have become an OTA reservation becomes a direct one, and that margin difference is the entire business case on this page.
AI receptionist for hotels: what is actually configurable
Each of these is something the product does on a real call. Where it refuses to act, the refusal is the design rather than a limitation.
It answers the repeat questions all night
Check in and check out times, parking, whether breakfast is included and until when, pets, late arrival, airport distance, whether there is a lift. Every one of them is a fact you set, and together they are most of the night's calls.
It takes direct bookings rather than deflecting them
Availability, rate, what is included, and the reservation made on the call. The difference between a direct booking and the same guest arriving through an OTA is the commission, and it is decided by whether anybody answered.
It handles late arrivals without waking the desk
Flight delayed, arriving at one thirty, needs to know about access. Noted on the booking, access instructions given, and the night porter left alone with the person actually standing in the lobby.
It routes what genuinely needs a person
A guest in the building with a problem, anything involving safety, a complaint. Those go straight through under your rules rather than being handled. Everything else stops interrupting.
What it asks on a hotels call
Not a name and a preferred time. Each of these has an operational reason behind it, and every one of them is yours to change.
“How many nights, and how many guests?”
Rate and availability both depend on it, and a two-adult booking and a family of five are different rooms at different prices.
“Roughly what time will you arrive?”
A late arrival that nobody flagged is the commonest overnight failure at an independent property: a held room released, or a guest at a locked door.
“Do you need step-free access, or any other accommodation?”
Asked at booking rather than discovered at check-in, when the accessible room has already gone to somebody who did not need it.
“Is this a direct booking, or are you calling about an existing one?”
The first branch. A new booking is revenue with no commission on it; an existing reservation made through an OTA has different modification rules and a different record.
“Are you calling from a room in the hotel?”
It separates a guest request, whether towels, the air conditioning or a noise complaint, from an enquiry, and routes it to the night desk rather than to the booking flow.
“Parking, pets, or an early breakfast?”
The three things people ring to check before booking, and the three most likely to be answered wrongly by somebody guessing.
What it will never do on a hotels call
You are handing your phone to software that talks to your customers when you cannot. These are the lines it does not cross, and the exact words it uses instead.
It won't invent a rate or an availability
Rates and inventory come from what you have configured. Where a rate is not set it says the desk will confirm, and it does not improvise a number that a guest will hold you to at check-in.
What it actually says
“I don't want to quote you the wrong rate for that one. Let me have the desk confirm it and call you straight back.”
A safety or security call goes to a human immediately
A guest reporting a smell of smoke, an intruder, a medical problem or a fire alarm is not a request to be logged. It escalates to the night auditor and to your protocol at once, and where the answer is 911 it says so.
What it actually says
“I'm getting the front desk to you right now. If anyone's in danger please call 911 first.”
It won't confirm who is staying
Not to a caller who says they are a relative, an employer or a police officer. Whether a named person is a guest is not something an answering service establishes at 3am, and a wrong disclosure there is the kind that ends up in a newspaper.
What it actually says
“I'm not able to confirm anything about our guests. If you'd like, I can put a message through to the front desk.”
The four things it answers from
Configuration rather than something a model has been asked to remember. Change one at eight in the evening and the next call uses the new value.
King room
$189 + tax
Check-in
3pm, desk staffed 24h
Pets
$40 per stay
Parking
Free, on site
What hotels say before they say yes
In the words they are usually put in. Where the objection is right, it says so.
“Hospitality means a human voice.”
It means the person at the desk is with the guest in front of them rather than on the phone. Nobody experiences warmth from a ringing handset across a lobby, and the guest at 1am asking about parking does not need warmth, they need the answer.
“Most of our bookings come through OTAs.”
Which is partly a consequence of who answers the phone. The caller who rings the property directly is trying to avoid the OTA, and every one of those calls that goes unanswered is fifteen per cent handed back voluntarily.
“Guests will ask it things it cannot answer.”
They will, and it says so and routes rather than improvising. What it does not do is guess about a room type, a rate or an accessibility question, because those are facts you configured rather than things it composes.
It books into the calendar you already keep
Google, Outlook, Apple, Exchange, CalDAV. An AI receptionist that emails you a summary has built a nicer voicemail; this one creates the appointment and texts the caller.
…and a lot more besides
- Warm transfersWarm transfersAnnounced — who is calling and why, before you take the line.
- Spam never billedSpam never billedRobocalls are spotted, zero-rated, and never become a customer.
- A number per sourceA number per sourceVan, yard sign, Google listing — see which line brings the work.
- Team & on-callTeam & on-callTries you, then a second number, then whoever is on call.
- Run it by textRun it by textReply to a text to move a job, block a morning, clear a day.
- Clear a day, everyone toldClear a day, everyone toldCall off a wet Tuesday; every customer is told and re-offered.
- Never invents an answerNever invents an answerNo price or slot it was not given. It takes a message instead.
- Any trade, no codeAny trade, no codeGoal, questions and guardrails are settings, not a rebuild.
Can it take a booking?
It answers from your availability and rates, confirms what is included, and makes the reservation on the call, which is what turns a phone enquiry into a direct booking rather than an OTA one.
Does it handle late arrivals?
It notes the arrival on the booking and gives your access instructions, so the desk is not interrupted and the guest is not left guessing.
What about guests already in the building?
Anything from a guest in house, and anything involving safety, is routed to a person immediately under your rules rather than handled.
Does it speak Spanish?
English and Spanish on the same number, switching mid call when the guest does, with any confirmation sent in the language they spoke.
What does it cost?
From $99 a month, flat, with unlimited call flows and a monthly talk time allowance. Robocalls are never billed, and there is a free tier for testing the agent first.
Comparing against a human answering service instead?
That is a different question with a different answer, and it has its own page: the hotel answering service, with a full hotels call played second by second.
Trades that answer the phone the same way
The same archetype, which is what the product actually branches on. Every trade has one of these pages.