Hotel answering service: why every missed call costs revenue

The phone rings while three guests are waiting at the desk. Someone has to choose, and the call usually loses. At a busy front office that choice repeats itself every evening, and each unanswered ring can be a booking that goes to another hotel. A hotel answering service is one way to make sure the call is picked up by someone who knows the property and can close the reservation, without pulling the receptionist away from the guest in front of them.

Tanja Chakraborty has worked on both sides of that desk. After almost twenty years in front office, operations and guest experience in Germany, Australia and the United Arab Emirates, she founded her own remote reception service with a strong focus on the telephone. Her view: many hotels lose more on the phone than they realise.

What a missed call really costs a hotel

A busy front desk cannot answer every incoming call. In Chakraborty's experience, some callers try again later, but many simply book somewhere else, and the damage is larger than a single reservation.

“While some callers will try again later, others won't, and that means lost revenue.”

Tanja Chakraborty, 15:53

She sees three kinds of loss behind one unanswered ring:

• The booking itself, which goes to whichever hotel picks up.
• The long-term guest, who might have returned several times.
• The upsell, because a caller who wanted a standard room might have taken a suite if someone had offered it.

Speed matters as well. A traveller comparing several hotels by phone tends to book with the one that answers first, especially for a stay that same evening.

Why smaller hotels miss the most calls

Large hotel chains, she says, usually have processes in place for the phone. The gap is in smaller, privately owned hotels. Staff are hard to find, so the receptionist often also helps with breakfast, and with a queue at the desk, picking up the phone feels rude.

“And I think that in those kind of hotels, a lot of times, these calls are ignored because that's kinda the last thing that's important to them right now.”

Tanja Chakraborty, 18:03

She calls this a missed opportunity, and the numbers from one of her clients show why. The hotel is a private four-star property with roughly sixty rooms. Her service covers its phones from 6 to 10 PM, Monday to Friday. On average about five calls come in per evening. With one or two people at the desk that is real work: a new booking can take ten minutes while the caller asks about room categories.

Two of those calls show what a hotel answering service can bring in:

• A guest who had booked through a third-party platform called to extend his stay by five nights in the same room. That was about 600 euros for the hotel from one call, booked directly, so without commission.
• A caller who wanted to book for a family asked a few questions first. She offered two options, a standard room and a higher category with more space and a nice view. The booking, in the executive category, came to 400 euros for two nights, starting that same evening.

Ways to handle hotel phone calls without disrupting the front desk

Hotels need to handle incoming calls professionally without disturbing the guests at the desk. Chakraborty sees several workable setups, and no single one fits every property:

• Forwarding calls to an external reservation department or hotel call center, as some large chains do.
• A dedicated, trained team inside the front office that only handles the phone.
• Phone systems that manage the call flow, such as an answering machine during peak hours, which some private hotels use.
• A remote reception or hotel answering service that takes the calls at set hours, such as the evening, for a small team.

What every hotel needs, in her view, is a clear strategy: a structured approach that works for guests on the phone, guests on site and the front desk team alike.

What good guest communication on the phone sounds like

Whoever picks up, the quality of the conversation decides whether the call helps. At a front desk in Munich, Chakraborty noticed that short automatic answers brought guests back with follow-up questions.

Her fix was the proactive answer. Instead of only giving the breakfast times, the receptionist adds where the restaurant is and suggests coming around ten for a quieter meal. That small change, she found, prevents complaints, saves time and makes guests feel cared for.

Small requests are where things go wrong: a Wi-Fi complaint feels minor at a busy desk, while the guest cannot join an important online meeting.

“The best way to prevent this is through continuous training and attention to detail, I'd say.”

Tanja Chakraborty, 7:29

For guests who call with a problem, she works through a few steps:

• Let the guest talk first and take notes, so you never have to ask them to repeat themselves.
• Repeat back what they said, so they know you listened.
• Ask follow-up questions to judge how urgent the problem is.
• Offer a solution right away instead of a promised call back that may be forgotten, such as a room move or, when availability allows, an upgraded room.
• Write the request down, follow it up, and escalate it to a manager if you cannot solve it yourself.

Upselling by phone without feeling pushy

Many receptionists dislike selling. Chakraborty's answer is a change of mindset: you are not pushing a product, you are helping the guest towards a better stay. The easiest example is breakfast: when a reservation has none, a simple question and a special rate often get a yes, because many guests just forgot it.

Room upgrades need more training, but the principle is the same. A family with two children in a small room may welcome a junior suite with a second bathroom. Sometimes the next category is only 20 euros a night, and in her experience guests often reward the thought with a positive review. Structured reservation agent training makes this a habit for the whole team.

Can AI replace a hotel answering service?

Voice assistants and hotel chatbots are improving, and standard questions such as breakfast times or prices can already be answered automatically. But guests often call with specific questions a bot does not cover, such as whether a large car fits in the parking, and many still prefer a person to a menu of options.

Her view is that AI should assist the reception team rather than replace it, and that hotels should not ignore it either. To hear more, watch the full conversation.

Frequently asked questions

What does a hotel answering service do?

It takes the hotel's incoming calls at agreed times, for example in the evening, so the front desk can focus on guests on site. In the setup Tanja Chakraborty describes, the service answers questions, makes bookings, extends stays and offers upgrades, so calls turn into revenue.

How much can one missed hotel call cost?

More than one booking. In Chakraborty's experience a missed call can cost the reservation, a guest who might have returned several times, and an upsell. In one example, a single evening call to extend a stay by five nights brought a hotel about 600 euros.

Which hotels miss the most phone calls?

In her view, smaller and privately owned hotels. Large chains often have call centers or a dedicated phone team, while smaller hotels run the desk with one or two people who also cover other tasks. When guests queue at reception, the phone is ignored first.

Will AI take over hotel phone calls?

Chakraborty expects AI to handle more standard questions, such as breakfast times and prices, but not to replace human contact completely. Guests often call with specific or urgent questions. She sees AI as a tool that assists the reception team, while the human touch becomes more valuable.