The list (you already know it)
Try counting how many times your team answers these ten questions in one week:
- What time are check-in and check-out, and can they be brought forward or postponed?
- Is parking available, how much does it cost, and does it need to be booked?
- What are the breakfast times, and how do you handle intolerances and allergies?
- Do you accept pets, what size, and with what surcharge?
- Do you have availability for these dates, and what are the prices? The mother of all enquiries
- How do I get there from the station or airport?
- What is the wifi password? Yes, still
- What are the opening times, and how do I book the spa, pool or restaurant?
- Can I have a cot or extra bed, and how much does it cost?
- Can you send the invoice, change its details or add the required tax information?
None of these requires judgement. All of them take time, and they arrive at the worst moments: during the 16:00 check-in rush, on the phone, or on Saturday evening.
Three possible outcomes
The point is not to reply to everything faster. It is to decide, once, what should happen to each category. Questions with stable answers (wifi, opening times, parking and pets) can be answered automatically. Those that depend on data or involve money (availability, quotes and special requests) deserve a ready-made draft that the team confirms with one click. Everything else (complaints, sensitive cases and anything you want to keep under your control) goes straight to a person.
You do not need to reply to fewer guests. You need to reply to the same question fewer times.
One rule for each category, not each individual case
This is how good automation works: for every enquiry category, you decide how much autonomy to allow and which objective to follow. Anyone outside the boundary still receives a polite reply. At properties using Otello, 40-70% of enquiries are handled autonomously (the range depends on how much the property chooses to delegate), and first response time falls on average from 3 hours to 15 minutes with Desk active on email and WhatsApp.
What remains for reception
The work reception was built for: welcoming arriving guests, resolving genuine cases and selling better. The repetitive enquiries do not disappear. They simply stop passing through the same two people who are expected to do everything else at the same time.