Why do pre-arrival questions swamp a front desk?
Because every guest asks them, they arrive by email, portal message, and form at every hour, and the desk answers them between check-ins. What time can I check in, is there parking, is breakfast included, is the property accessible, how do I get there from the airport, can I bring a dog. The answers are the same for everyone and live on a fact sheet, and the guest who does not get a prompt answer emails again or books elsewhere. A Customer Support Digital FTE on ftes.ai answers from the approved fact sheet at any hour, and the desk handles the stay.
The answer arriving at midnight in the property's voice is the entire value, and it needs no access to anyone's reservation.
What is the approved fact sheet?
The property's facts as the general manager confirms them: check-in and check-out times and any flexibility rules, parking and charges, accessibility features by room type, what each rate includes, restaurant and bar hours, directions and transport from named points, policies on pets, children, smoking, and deposits, and local practicalities the property is willing to state. It lives in the Brand Brain with provenance and is confirmed quarterly and whenever the property changes something. Every reply cites the fact it answered from; a question the sheet does not answer escalates with a note that the sheet has a gap.
Gaps become proposed additions for the general manager's approval, so the sheet improves from the questions guests actually ask.
- Times, parking, accessibility, inclusions, hours
- Directions and transport from named points
- Policies: pets, children, smoking, deposits
What goes to the desk every time?
Anything about a specific reservation: confirmation, dates, changes, cancellations, upgrades, early or late arrival requests outside the published rules, and payment. Any special request that touches the stay: a room preference, an occasion, a dietary need, an accessibility arrangement beyond what the fact sheet describes. Every complaint, every review, and every guest in distress or difficulty. Each reaches the desk with a four-part summary: what was asked, what the fact sheet said, why it did not resolve, and a suggested next step. The list is fixed at every autonomy level.
The FTE's reply in these cases is an approved holding message that promises a person will respond, with the desk's hours where relevant.
How does the property's voice transfer?
Through the Brand Brain, which the platform pre-fills from the property's site and which the general manager reads and corrects at hiring: how the property addresses guests, how formal it is, which words it uses and avoids, how it signs off. Every reply is drafted in that voice, and the send-back reasons in the first weeks are mostly about tone; by the third week they should be rare. Where the property allows, the FTE answers in the guest's language, from the same facts, and the manager can restrict this to languages the desk can follow up in.
The voice is reviewed quarterly with the fact sheet, and after any rebrand or change of management.
What earns autonomy, and what never does?
General questions answered from approved facts, the class that decides nothing about anyone's stay, can be promoted to auto-send within bounds at the first or second monthly review if the approval rate is clean and the send-backs are about tone rather than facts. Everything on the escalate list stays escalated at every level. A promoted class that starts collecting send-backs steps back one level and the record says why. The value of the role does not depend on promotion; properties that keep everything gated still recover the desk's hours because approving a cited reply takes seconds.
Promote before the season, never during it.
What does the property measure, and how does the first month go?
First response time including overnight and weekends; the share of pre-arrival questions resolved from the fact sheet without the desk; escalation volume by reason and escalation quality; fact sheet gaps closed; approval rate with send-back reasons; and desk hours recovered. Guest satisfaction is measured where the property surveys it and marked unmeasured otherwise. Week one: confirm the fact sheet and the voice, write the escalate list with the desk's receivers and hours, connect the inbox and portal messaging with a scoped account, and record the baseline. Weeks two to four: approve cited replies in seconds, send back with reasons, approve fact sheet additions. Day 30: read the FTE's own report and decide whether general questions have earned auto-send before the season.
By day 30 every pre-arrival question gets a prompt answer in the property's voice, and the desk starts each real request from a summary.