Set up AI guest messaging

1. 1Open Guest Messaging and review the default protocols.
2. 2Set up the instant new-inquiry reply first (Settings → Instant new-inquiry reply). When a new booking inquiry arrives from Airbnb or Vrbo, the guest gets a short acknowledgement within seconds — with a promised reply window — whether or not AI automation is switched on. Choose that window carefully: it is a promise, and it only helps if the assigned person can hit it.
3. 3Assign who owns new inquiries — one team member for Airbnb/direct, one for Vrbo. They get the bell notification, and the conversation is stamped with their name. Leave either unassigned to notify all ops/admin instead.
4. 4Find new inquiries in the inbox with the 'New inquiries' filter — conversations with no booking attached where the guest spoke last. Vrbo inquiries have their own queue at Vrbo → Replies.
5. 5Vrbo guests are in the same inbox (channel filter Vrbo). They arrive by email, so each message shows up within about 15 minutes of the guest sending it. The AI reads and drafts them like an Airbnb message, and Send replies by email on the Vrbo thread, which Vrbo puts straight into the guest's conversation. Booking requests are the exception: accept or decline those in the Vrbo app, because Vrbo treats an email reply to a request as accepting it.
6. 6Answer an inquiry with something the guest can click: open the conversation and press Invite to book (top right, or the Quotes tab). The dates and party size are prefilled from the inquiry; press Preview price to see the exact total OwnerRez will quote — rent, fees and taxes, the same as a direct booking — then Send invitation. OwnerRez emails the guest its quote with a Book Now link, a short note lands in the conversation telling them to look for it, and the Quotes tab shows when it went out. Switch on Hold these dates to block the calendar until the quote expires. Booking-site requests under Leads carry the same Invite to book button.
7. 7Tune the tone and the answers to your most common questions.
8. 8Set which situations must escalate to a person instead of auto-replying.
9. 9Pick who is on call under Settings → Urgent escalation — WhatsApp. When the AI flags a message as urgent, or can't answer it safely, everyone on that list gets a WhatsApp message straight away. Add people from the Candidates Portal so their number lives in one place, and use the toggle to take someone off call without deleting them.
10. 10Configure escalation timing under Settings → Escalation timing. Set how long a guest escalation may sit unanswered before on-call managers are paged via WhatsApp, and how long after that a follow-up call is made if the page goes unacknowledged.
11. 11Turn it on for a property and watch the first few threads to confirm the answers fit.
12. 12To charge for an upsell mid-stay, open the property's upsell settings in the new Upsells tab and use Text a payment link — the guest gets a secure Stripe link by SMS.
13. 13Work the Action Items tab daily: the summary cards show critical, due-today, unassigned, and stale tasks — click a row to open its detail panel, assign a teammate, set a due date, reply to the guest, or create a work order without leaving the page. When creating a work order from a guest action item, the default guest repair vendor is pre-selected if set.
14. 14Correct a bad draft with the thumbs-down button on the AI draft toolbar: pick what was wrong (Tone, Facts, Length) and — this is the part that teaches it — type what it should have said. That correction feeds the same nightly pass, so the AI stops repeating the mistake at that property.
15. 15Review learned answers weekly: the AI studies the replies your team actually sends, the drafts you edit before sending, and the drafts you thumb down, then proposes new property-specific answers. Review all of them in one place under Guest AI → Knowledge → Suggested answers (grouped by property; the same list also appears inside each property's Guest Directives). Approve to make one live, edit the wording first if it's nearly right, reject and it won't be suggested again. Nothing reaches a guest until you approve it.
16. 16Monitor noise levels directly from the guest thread if the property has a noise sensor installed. This helps in assessing noise-related incidents without leaving the conversation.
17. 17Check the door code section in the guest messaging sidebar to see the code published for the stay, labeled with the lock's brand. You can copy the code directly from there. Below the code, check the guest entry status to see if the guest successfully entered. The status is based on the lock's door log and may show as successful, failed, or unknown.
18. 18Review device statuses in the Property Device Cards. Devices may show as 'Offline', 'Missing', or indicate a fault with a timestamp of when the issue began.
19. 19Use the deep-link feature to open a specific guest conversation directly by appending '?thread=' followed by the thread ID to the URL. This will open the specified thread upon arrival, ensuring you can address guest issues promptly.
20. 20Use '?property=' to filter the inbox to one property's conversations. This helps focus on issues related to a specific property.

If something's off

• If the AI answered something it shouldn't have — add that topic to the escalation list so it routes to a human next time.
• If a draft is wrong and you want the AI to stop getting it wrong — thumbs-down it and write what it should have said. A tag on its own records that you were unhappy but teaches nothing — the written correction is what the nightly pass turns into a Suggested answer for that property.
• If a non-guest email appears in the inbox as an 'Airbnb Support' conversation — only mail actually sent by airbnb.com is ingested now — newsletters, internal mail, and your own outbound emails are ignored. Older mis-filed threads were archived and no longer count toward 'needs attention'.
• If an urgent guest message escalated but nobody was messaged — check Settings → Urgent escalation — WhatsApp. If the list is empty, or everyone is toggled off call, the thread just waits in the inbox. Pages go out over WhatsApp only, so a recipient whose number has no WhatsApp account will never receive one.
• If you want the escalation WhatsApp to go somewhere else — toggle the person off call and add the right one from the Candidates Portal — the number always comes from their candidate record, so correcting it there fixes it everywhere.
• If Send on a Vrbo conversation says it is a booking request — open the Vrbo app and accept or decline it there. Rentology never answers a booking request by email, because Vrbo reads an email reply to a request as accepting it.
• If replies feel off-brand — adjust the tone profile and give one or two example answers to steer it.
• If a guest needs an upsell payment link — use Text a payment link in the property's upsell settings in the Upsells tab — it sends a secure Stripe link by SMS.
• If you see a warning about one sender per property — ensure that only one messaging system is active per property to avoid conflicts.
• If an error occurs during a simulation — check the error message for details and ensure the property selection is correct.
• If an action item is guest-impacting and overdue — it's flagged red in Action Items — open it and use Reply & create work order (or Reply to guest) so the guest hears back while the fix is dispatched.
• If several tasks are done at once — tick their checkboxes in the Action Items list and use Resolve selected to close them in bulk.
• If you switch off 'Enable Automated Messaging' and it turns back on unexpectedly — ensure you save changes after switching it off, as unsaved edits now persist across refetches.
• If a noise incident is detected — review the noise level and incident details directly in the guest thread to decide on escalation.
• If Invite to book says the property is not connected to OwnerRez — the home has no OwnerRez id on its property record, so OwnerRez cannot price it — connect it under the property's settings first. Airbnb inquiries can be invited too, but Airbnb strips links from relayed mail, so for those a Special Offer inside Airbnb is the surer path; direct-site, Vrbo and Booking.com inquiries get the email straight.
• If Invite to book says there is no email address for the guest — OwnerRez needs one to send the quote. Ask the guest for it in the conversation, add it to the thread, then send the invitation.
• If a guest got the instant acknowledgement but no real answer — open the 'New inquiries' filter — the conversation is flagged for attention until a person replies. The acknowledgement buys you the promised window, it does not close the thread.
• If you don't want the instant acknowledgement on a channel at all — switch off 'Acknowledge new inquiries instantly'. It is a separate switch from 'Enable Automated Messaging' on purpose — turning the AI off does not turn the acknowledgement off.
• If a Vrbo reservation request wasn't auto-answered — that's deliberate. Replying to a reservation request can accept the booking, so those always go to a person — they're pinned to the top of the Vrbo → Replies queue.
• If the AI is in Auto mode and no acknowledgement was sent — that's correct — in Auto mode the AI sends a real answer within seconds, so a 'we'll get back to you' would just be noise ahead of it.
• If you need to notify team members about escalations — add them to the escalation list in Guest Messaging Settings. They will receive an email and a WhatsApp message if their number is available.
• If a device is missing from the Seam workspace — the device will be marked as 'device missing' in the Property Device Cards, indicating it is not expected to come back online.
• If a draft is dismissed or cleared before sending — the AI now logs this event as 'dismissed' with any feedback provided, ensuring that the feedback is not lost and can be used to improve future drafts.
• If a device shows as 'Offline' or has a fault — check the timestamp of when the issue began in the Property Device Cards to determine the next steps.
• If a directive is saved — if it's property-specific, it queues as a suggested answer for approval in Guest AI → Knowledge. If it's org-wide, it queues for every property and requires approval in Guest AI → Knowledge before use.
• If you need to dismiss guest action items — use the dismiss option to mark them as 'dismissed' with a note if no further action is required. This keeps them auditable but removes them from active queues.
• If an open issue needs review — use the Open Issues List to check if any replies have been sent since the issue was raised. If not, address the issue or dismiss it if resolved.
• If you use a deep-link to open a specific thread — the thread will open directly upon arrival, allowing you to address guest issues promptly without navigating through the inbox.
• If a link to a booking or property resolves to nothing — a message will indicate that no guest conversation is linked to that booking or property yet.
• If an error occurs while loading booking details, pricing dates, or sending an invitation — the error message will now provide a clearer explanation of what went wrong, improving troubleshooting.