Handling hotel booking enquiries without losing them
In a small hotel, enquiries arrive through four different channels and each can end up on a different phone or in a different inbox. An unanswered enquiry usually goes unnoticed, and the guest books somewhere else.
Where enquiries get lost
- Phone: calls missed at busy times, and dates discussed without a note. The number to call back stays on a scrap of paper.
- WhatsApp: messages pile up on a single reception phone or in a staff member’s personal account. When the shift changes, nobody is sure who replies.
- Email: enquiries are buried among newsletters and platform notifications, or land in the spam folder.
- Website form: messages go to an address nobody checks regularly, or are never delivered at all. We explain how to check this in this guide.
The common problem is that the enquiry is never recorded in one place, and nobody knows who is supposed to answer it.
A simple system
- One form: a short form asking for check-in and check-out dates, number of guests, room preference, name and contact details. Every “booking enquiry” link on the site leads to it.
- A log: each enquiry becomes a row in a sheet: reference, time received, dates, guests and status (new, answered, booked, not booked). Reception adds phone and WhatsApp enquiries to the same sheet.
- An instant reception alert: when an enquiry arrives, a one-line summary with the dates and number of guests goes to reception’s WhatsApp or email.
- A guest acknowledgement: the guest gets a short email confirming the enquiry was received, with the reference and when to expect an answer.
- A multilingual FAQ: a page or assistant that answers common questions such as check-in time, breakfast, parking, getting there and pets, using only the hotel’s own published information. Questions without an answer are passed to reception.
Check dates and guest count on submission: is check-out after check-in, is the date in the past, does the guest count exceed room capacity? An enquiry that looks wrong is still logged and sent to reception, but the guest does not get the automatic acknowledgement.
What to avoid
- Saying “your booking is confirmed” in the automatic email. Nothing should be confirmed until reception has checked availability and price.
- Guessing in the FAQ. A wrong answer about prices, availability or house rules does more harm than no answer.
- Keeping enquiries only on one person’s phone or in a personal inbox.
- Asking for payment details such as card numbers in the form, the sheet or messages.
- Sending the alert to everyone. If it is unclear who replies, everyone assumes someone else did.
- Never testing it after setup. Send a test enquiry once a month and check that it reaches the sheet, the reception alert and the acknowledgement email.
Example concept and ready-made template
We describe the part that answers guest questions on the hotel guest assistant page. The assistant answers each guest in their own language from the hotel’s approved information, and passes unanswered questions and price or availability requests to reception with the dates and number of guests.
For the enquiry log, you can use the template we published on n8n.io, Log hotel booking enquiries to Google Sheets with WhatsApp and Gmail. It checks the dates and guest count of an enquiry from an n8n form, logs it to Google Sheets, alerts reception with a WhatsApp Business Cloud template message and, for valid enquiries, sends the guest an acknowledgement through Gmail. The WhatsApp template message must be approved by Meta beforehand.