Measure before you change anything
Take the last twenty enquiries received by email and WhatsApp and note two times: when each one arrived and when the first useful reply was sent. The resulting average is your starting point, and in high season it gets worse precisely when those enquiries are worth the most.
The three typical causes of delay
At most properties we see, the delay is not caused by laziness but by three sources of friction: scattered channels (webmail, WhatsApp and phone, each operating separately), information that must be found (availability and rates in another system), and repetitive enquiries that clog the queue ahead of the important ones.
The guest does not compare your reply with the perfect one. They compare it with the reply that has already arrived from another hotel.
A sustainable target for each channel
There is no need to promise the impossible. You need a rule the team can maintain even in August. For email, aim to send a useful reply within an hour while reception is open. Outside opening hours, at least acknowledge the request and say when the offer will arrive. WhatsApp follows the pace of messaging: minutes, not hours. Every missed phone call should be returned because it is the only enquiry that leaves no written record.
What happens when the queue clears itself
Properties using Otello move, on average, from hours to minutes for the first response (from 3 hours to 15 minutes with Desk active on email and WhatsApp). Repetitive replies are sent automatically, while quotes arrive ready with PMS data. The team only needs to approve them with one click.