The Guest Messages a Chatbot Shouldn't Answer: Handling Reservation Changes and Refund Requests in Japan
We’ve automated a lot of our guest messaging. Door codes, directions from the station, luggage storage, trash separation, how the air conditioner works: a chatbot grounded in each property’s own information answers those in seconds, and it’s usually more accurate than a tired human at 11pm.
One group of messages still comes to me, though, and I don’t think that’s going to change: “Can we move our dates?”, “One of us can’t come anymore, can we get money back?”, “We arrived late because of a typhoon, can you refund the first night?” These are the ones that take real judgment, so this post covers how we handle them.