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. 5Tune the tone and the answers to your most common questions.
6. 6Set which situations must escalate to a person instead of auto-replying.
7. 7Pick 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.
8. 8Configure 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.
9. 9Turn it on for a property and watch the first few threads to confirm the answers fit.
10. 10To 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.
11. 11Work 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.
12. 12Correct 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.
13. 13Review 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 under Suggested answers in each property's Guest Directives (Property Details panel). Approve to make one live; reject and it won't be suggested again.
14. 14Monitor 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.
15. 15Check 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.

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 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 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.