For hotels
A room for tonight, or a wedding next summer.
The desk has guests in front of it, and the phone keeps ringing. A caller who can’t get through rarely tries again.
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What we do
Someone wants a price for the weekend, someone will arrive after midnight, and a company wants its team in for a conference. Each needs someone who can see your availability and rates, not just take a message.
Which parts we take on is up to you
It could be your reservations line, or the calls your front desk can’t get to. It could be your guest emails and messages, your wedding and meeting enquiries, or the rooming lists and deposit reminders behind your group bookings.
We can also set up and plan
If you need it, we can set up what the work runs on, for instance your training material, your reporting, or your processes mapped out end to end, improved and written down. And we can work with you to plan how your operations should run, now or in the future.
Who gets in touch, and why.
A hotel can be selling rooms, functions and tables through the same phone line and inbox. What people ask depends on which of them they’re after.
After a room
Before they book, on the way and once they’ve left
- Do you have a room for these dates, and what does it cost?
- Changing or cancelling a booking
- Arriving late, or hoping to check in early
- Parking, pets, cots and breakfast times
- A booking made through a booking site that they now want to change
- A complaint, or something left behind in the room
Planning a wedding, a meeting or a group stay
Weeks or months ahead
- Is the date free, and how many can you take?
- Could we come and look round?
- A block of rooms for our guests
- Who is in which room, and when the deposit is due
- A meeting room for the day
Booking a table or a treatment
Where the hotel has a restaurant or a spa
- A table for Sunday lunch
- A table for ten, for a birthday
- A treatment, or a day at the spa
- Moving or cancelling any of them
What we’d take on.
Each is done in your hotel’s name, in the system you take bookings in. Whether it’s one or several is up to you.
- The reservations lineAvailability and the price checked in your system, and the booking made, changed or cancelled while the caller is on the line.
- Overflow and out-of-hours callsCalls picked up when the desk is busy or after it has closed, and at no other time if that’s all you want.
- Email, chat and booking-site messagesGuests answered wherever they write, before they book and before they arrive.
- Wedding, meeting and function enquiriesThe date, the numbers and what they have in mind taken in full, your brochure sent and a visit booked into your diary.
- Group bookingsRooming lists collected, a reminder sent when a deposit is due, and invoice copies sent afterwards.
- Booking adminBookings that arrive by email keyed in, and reservations from the booking sites checked against your own system.
Wedding enquiry · Saturday afternoon
A wedding next September, around ninety guests
- Date
- A Saturday in September, with a second choice
- Your brochure sent
- Visit booked for Thursday at five
To you
They asked whether the garden can be used if it rains. The brochure doesn’t say.
In your diary, with the enquiry in full
Beyond the reservations line
And the things you hadn’t thought to ask for.
A reservations line may be what you came for. Here are six other things we could run, set up or plan with you.
- We set it up
Guest messages in fewer places
Email, chat and messaging apps brought into one inbox, with the booking beside each message. Booking-site messages can join them where your property system connects to those sites.
Helpdesk set-up - We set it up
Parking, pets and breakfast times, written down
The answers every caller needs, and what each kind of room has, kept in one place so that whoever answers says the same thing.
Processes and knowledge base - We set it up
What callers ask about most
Each call recorded by what it was really about, in enough detail to act on. It shows what your website and your confirmation emails aren’t answering.
Reporting - We run it
What guests write back before they arrive
Replies to your pre-arrival message answered, and the cot, the late arrival or the parking space put on the booking.
Customer service - We run it
Reviews, answered
Reviews replied to where they’re left, or drafted for you to approve, and what guests keep mentioning passed back to you.
Review replies - We plan it with you
One reservations office for several hotels
For a group, whether reservations should be brought together, and how each hotel would still be answered in its own name, planned with you.
Consultancy
The guest in front of you
A day at the front desk, and what the phone brought.
This is how one day might go, with the desk’s busy stretches and the calls that came in while they lasted. Which calls come to the team is yours to decide. It could be all of them, only those the desk can’t pick up, or only the hours it’s closed.
One day at a hotel
An illustration
At the desk
On the phone
Check-out
“Do you have a twin room for the 14th?”
Booked in your system, and confirmed
Check-in
“Can we add a cot for Friday?”
Added to the booking
Late arrivals
“Our flight’s delayed. We’ll be there about one.”
Noted on the booking, and the desk told
A quieter spell
“Is there parking for a van?”
Answered at the desk
Check-in
“A meeting room for twelve, next Tuesday?”
Taken in full, and sent to you to price
The team behind it.
Your guests deal with your hotel from the first call to the last. The team works in your booking system, to your rates and your policies.
On our payroll, coached by our team leads
Trained on your rooms, rates and policies before they take a call. Each team has a team lead whose job is coaching.
How we workWhere your work is done
The Philippines, Portugal or Ireland. The languages your guests speak, the hours and the kind of work decide which, and we agree it with you first.
Where we workGuests’ details and bookings
Named logins, access only to what the work needs, and one client’s information never visible to another client’s team.
Security and data protection
Questions, answered.
The things hotels are likely to ask first.
What kind of work can you help us with?
It could be your reservations line, the calls the desk can’t get to, guest emails and messages, wedding, meeting and function enquiries, the paperwork behind group bookings, or booking admin. We can also set up what that work runs on, and work with you to plan how it should run. Whether that’s one part or several is up to you.
How do we get started?
With a conversation about your operation and what you need. From there, we work out together where we can help and what comes next.How we work
Is there a minimum team size?
No. It can be a single person or an enterprise-scale operation. We build the structure around the work, whatever its size.
Can you take just the calls the desk can’t get to, or cover just a busy season?
Yes. Calls can come to the team only when the desk doesn’t pick up, or only at the hours you choose. How the calls are passed across depends on your phone system, and we’d work that out with you. A busy season you can see coming is planned with you ahead of time.
Does the team make the booking, or take a message for us?
That is yours to set, and it is written down before the team starts. The team can make, change and cancel bookings in your system, at the price it gives for those dates. Or you can keep some of that yourselves, such as a rate you’d want to agree or a wedding to price. Those come to you with the details already taken.
Will the team work in our booking system?
Yes. That might be your property system, a booking system for tables or treatments, and the booking sites’ own inboxes. The team works in whatever you run on. Each person needs a login of their own in each, which is yours to give, because we don’t work from a shared password.
How does the team learn our rooms, rates and offers?
Through training, before anyone takes a call for you. How that training happens depends on what material you already have, how soon you need people, and how much of it you want to run yourselves. New offers and seasonal rates are trained in as they arrive.How we work
How do we know how it’s going?
Real pieces of work are reviewed against your process, and what the reviews find goes into each person’s coaching. You get regular reporting on how the work is going, what we’ve found and what we’re doing about it.How we work
We have more than one hotel. Can each be answered in its own name?
Yes. Each hotel is answered in its own name. Whoever picks up has that hotel’s rooms, rates and policies in front of them. How the work is shared across the hotels depends on how different they are, and we’d settle that with you.
How are deposits and payments taken?
That depends on how you take payment and hold a room today. Some bookings need nothing until the guest arrives. Where a card is needed to hold the room, or a deposit is due, the guest gives it through your own booking page or a secure link from your system. The team never hears or sees a card number. If your system can’t send a link, we’d work out the route with you before the team starts.
What if the work I need help with isn’t listed here?
Tell us about it. This page covers the work hotels are most likely to need, not everything we do. If the work follows a process and happens on the phone, in an inbox or in your booking system, there’s a good chance we can take it on. If it isn’t one for us, we’ll say so.Tell us about your business
How much does it cost?
It depends on the kinds of work, the hours you want covered and the languages you need. We work it out with you once we understand your operation.
More for travel and hospitality businesses.
- Travel, hospitality and leisureThe whole group, from holiday lets to box offices.
- Reception and call answeringReservations and enquiries answered, and the booking made.
- Customer serviceEmail, chat, messages and phone, answered in your hotel’s name.
- All industriesThe other kinds of business we work with.
Let's talk.
Tell us what's going on. If we're not the right fit, we'll point you to someone we trust.
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