Messages

Find a conversation

1. 1Pick a chip: "All", "Unread", "Needs reply" or "Requests" (requests to book and inquiries).
2. 2Narrow by "Unit", "Channel" or "Assigned", or type in "Search guests, units, messages". ⌘K finds any guest, listed or not.
3. 3A waiting guest reads "Needs reply · 3h": amber after an hour, red after 10 hours. A request reads "Answer · 23h left", red in its last two hours.

Reply

1. 1Type your reply and press "Send" (⌘ Enter). It shows "Sending", then "Sent". Your signature from Settings goes under it.
2. 2Attach a photo or file with the paperclip; each file goes as its own message, up to 10 MB.
3. 3Type "/" and pick a saved reply. A fill-in the unit doesn't have, like the door code, stays in the text and blocks sending until you fill it in.
4. 4Press "Draft with AI" to have Seroia fill the box from the unit's knowledge and the booking. Read it, change it, then send: nothing goes out until you press Send.

Saved replies and fill-ins

1. 1Open Settings, then "Saved replies", and press "New saved reply". Name it, like "Check-in details", and write what it says.
2. 2The "Fill in:" chips put a fill-in at the cursor: the guest's first name, the unit's name, check-in and checkout dates and times, the address, how to get in, the door code, the Wi-Fi name and password. Each fills itself for that guest and unit.
3. 3Admins and managers make saved replies; owners use them in their own conversations.

Notes for the team

Switch the box from "Reply to guest" to "Note for the team", write, and press "Add note". It shows as a dashed card in the conversation and never reaches the guest or the channel.

Notes are the team's: an owner reads the conversations on their homes, never the notes.

Requests, inquiries and changes

1. 1A request to book sits at the top of its conversation with the time left on Airbnb's 24-hour clock. Press "Accept", or "Decline" and pick why for Airbnb. Accepted, the stay is confirmed and its nights close on every channel.
2. 2An inquiry offers "Pre-approve" or "Send an offer" (the whole stay without taxes; Airbnb takes one answer from here). An inquiry can't be declined: left unanswered, it lapses.
3. 3A guest's change shows as "Change to the booking", with its own time left, to "Accept" or "Decline".
4. 4Changing a booking's dates or cancelling it happens on the channel: "Open on Airbnb" or "Open on Booking.com" is in the header.
5. 5A request from your website shows "Request to book from your website": "Mark handled", "Can't host them", or, with payments on, "Accept" and "Send the payment link", good for 24 hours.

Seroia with guests

The "Seroia" link under the conversations opens its page, where an admin sets "Off", "Practice" or "On". It starts in Practice on new units: it drafts a reply to every guest and sends nothing. "Check its practice replies" shows them one by one to mark "Right" or "Wrong"; On opens after 50 are checked, and Off stops it at once.

Each conversation has its own switch, "AI answers", "AI paused" or "AI off": when the account is On, it pauses Seroia for this guest; when the account is Off or in Practice, it turns this guest on.

A payment or a price, changing the stay, damage, legal words, a guest asking for a person and anything about another guest are always the team's: the guest hears the team is checking; the team gets an alert. Complaints and emergencies reach the team at once too; "Tricky messages" under "How it talks" sets what the guest hears. When it holds a reply or says nothing, a note only the team sees says why, like "Seroia left this to you: a complaint or a refund." A fact the unit lacks gets "Add it".

When a person answers something Seroia couldn't, it offers to save the fact to the unit's knowledge: "Save to unit" or "Not now". Nothing saves on its own.

Automatic messages

1. 1Open "Automatic messages" under the conversations. Five are ready, off until an admin presses "Start sending": "Booking confirmed" 5 minutes after booking, "Check-in details" the day before check-in at 10:00 AM, "Settled in?" 2 hours after check-in, "Checkout reminder" the evening before at 6:00 PM, "Thanks for staying" the day after checkout at 10:00 AM, each in the unit's own time zone.
2. 2The "Start sending" dialog first says how many messages each new booking gets, how many upcoming bookings get the ones still ahead, and when the first goes. Nothing already due catches up.
3. 3Open a message to change its words, timing, units and conditions, or press "Create your own". Fill-ins work as in saved replies; "Preview" shows it as one guest will read it.
4. 4In a conversation's details panel, "Automatic messages" lists the stay's copies: "Goes out", "Sent", "Held", "Skipped", "Didn't send". Open one to "Send now", "Edit this one" or "Skip" it.
5. 5"The channels' own messages" lists each owner's Airbnb and Booking.com accounts: each owner switches theirs off once, from their own login, or guests get two of everything.

Keep the inbox tidy

1. 1Press "Done" when a conversation needs nothing more; "Reopen" brings it back. Done also cancels a reply Seroia was waiting to send.
2. 2"Assigned to" in the conversation's menu gives it to an admin or manager; the "Assigned" filter finds yours.
3. 3"No reply needed, tell Booking.com" answers a Booking.com conversation without a message.

What Hostomat does by itself

• A guest's message shows the moment it reaches us. The badge in the top bar reads "Live", "Connecting" or "Reconnecting"; after a drop, everything is read again.
• Read and unread are shared by the whole team: opening a conversation marks it read for everyone.
• Seroia waits before answering (2 minutes, or as set in "Waits before answering") so the team can answer first; if anyone does, it stays quiet. It never answers website guests, anyone while the account is read-only, or a message already half an hour old when it reached us.
• A held automatic message goes the minute someone adds the missing detail, if it still makes sense; one whose moment passed is marked missed and the team told.
• Nothing sent into an Airbnb or Booking.com conversation may carry your website's address: neither allows sending its guests to book elsewhere, so the send is refused with the reason.

If it didn’t work

A message didn't send.

The bubble says why, with "Try again". "Airbnb didn't take the message" (or Booking.com) means the channel refused the words: change them, then try again.

A saved reply won't send.

It holds a fill-in the unit doesn't have, like "Fill in the door code first". Add it to the unit's knowledge, or type the value in.

An automatic message is held.

It waits for a detail the unit lacks, named on the message and on Home: add it to the unit's knowledge and it goes. "Needs you" on the automatic messages page lists every held one.

Seroia won't switch to On.

Only an admin changes it, and On opens once 50 practice replies are checked.

I can't reply.

On Look only, an owner reads without a reply box; a read-only person sees no conversations at all. An unpaid account is read-only: replies are refused, as the banner says.