In development
Built for the guest who messages at midnight.
Reception is a WhatsApp assistant for hotels and homestays. It is designed to answer guests from a fact sheet you fill in, and to note booking enquiries for you to confirm.
Reception is in development, so there is nothing to try yet, and the chat on this page is an illustration with a fictional hotel. More about Reception.
What guests ask, and how it is built to reply.
Cedarfold Hotel
Automated assistant
- Guest:
Hi, do you have a double room for two of us from 12 to 14 December? What's the rate? 11:47 pm
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You are chatting with an automated assistant for Cedarfold Hotel. Your messages are saved by the business and read by an AI service so it can draft replies. A person can take over any time — just ask. Yeh Cedarfold Hotel ka automatic assistant hai. Aapke message business ke paas save hote hain aur jawab likhne ke liye AI service padhti hai. Kisi bhi waqt insaan se baat karne ke liye bas kahiye.
- Reception:
A double room is ₹3,000 a night, with breakfast. I can't see the bookings, so I've noted a double room for two guests, 12 to 14 December, for the hotel to confirm. 11:47 pm
- Guest:
What time is check-in? 11:48 pm
- Reception:
Check-in is from 12 noon, and check-out is by 11 am. If you arrive early, you can leave your bags at the front desk. 11:48 pm
- Guest:
We're coming from Guwahati. Do we need a permit? 11:50 pm
- Reception:
Yes. Indian visitors from outside Nagaland need an Inner Line Permit. You can apply for it online before you travel. 11:50 pm
- Guest:
Can you give us a discount for two nights? 11:51 pm
- Reception:
Thanks for your message — let me check with the team and get back to you shortly. 11:51 pm
Tap a question
Illustration with a fictional hotel. Reception is built to answer only from the hotel’s own fact sheet, and to note the dates, guests and room a guest asks about for the owner to confirm. It is instructed never to confirm that a room is free, and it is designed to pass anything the fact sheet does not cover, such as a discount, to the owner. It is in development, so this shows how it is designed to reply, not a real chat.
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Is a double room free on the 12th?
Booking enquiries, late at night
A guest writes long after you have gone to bed. Reception is designed to reply from your fact sheet, and to note the dates, number of guests and room they ask about, for you to confirm.
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What's the rate for a double?
Rates, only as you wrote them
It is designed to quote only the rates written in your fact sheet, and it is instructed never to average them, give a range or turn a nightly rate into a total. If a drafted reply has an amount written as money that is not in your fact sheet, software throws it away: the guest gets a short holding message, and it is built to alert you on WhatsApp.
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So the room is ours?
Availability, which you confirm
It cannot see your booking calendar, so it is instructed never to confirm that a room is free, even one the guest has just named. It notes what they asked for, and you confirm the booking yourself.
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Do we need a permit?
The Inner Line Permit, directions and check-in
Your fact sheet has a section of its own for the Inner Line Permit, beside check-in and check-out times and how to reach you. A guest coming from outside Nagaland is meant to get your answer, not a guess.
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I want my advance back.
Refunds and complaints, passed to you
It is designed to pass refunds, cancellations, complaints, damage, and anyone asking for the manager or the police, to you. The guest gets a short holding message, and it is built to alert you on WhatsApp.
[[TODO: approve these lines]]
Your part is the fact sheet.
Reception is built to answer only from what you write in it. It comes in nine parts.
What stays with you.
- Every booking
- It notes the dates, the number of guests and the room. Confirming the booking is up to you.
- Any chat you want
- When you or your staff reply in a chat, Reception stops replying there until you hand it back.
[[TODO: approve these lines]]
Fact sheet
- Rooms and rates
- Check-in and check-out
- Getting here
- Food
- Facilities
- House rules
- Payment
- Inner Line Permit
- Contact
What it won't do.
[[TODO: approve these lines]]
Message a guest first
Every message it sends a guest is a reply to one they sent. It sends no reminders and no follow-ups.
Read photos or voice notes
A photo, voice note or location gets a short holding message, and the chat is passed to you.
Act as an emergency service
A message with an emergency word, such as "fire" or "chest pain", gets a fixed reply telling the guest to call 112, and it is built to alert you on WhatsApp. It is a plain word list: it calls no one, and it can miss an emergency described in other words.
Messages and privacy, in plain words.
What happens to a message sent to your business, as Reception is built today.
You are chatting with an automated assistant for Cedarfold Hotel. Your messages are saved by the business and read by an AI service so it can draft replies. A person can take over any time — just ask. Yeh Cedarfold Hotel ka automatic assistant hai. Aapke message business ke paas save hote hain aur jawab likhne ke liye AI service padhti hai. Kisi bhi waqt insaan se baat karne ke liye bas kahiye.
- Customers are told it is automated
- Before its first answer to a new customer, it is built to send a one-time notice, in English and in Hindi typed in English letters. It says they are chatting with an automated assistant for your business, that their messages are saved by the business and read by an AI service so it can draft replies, and that a person can take over if they ask.
- Each business's chats are kept apart
- Conversations are kept separate in the database, so people at one business cannot read another's. Anyone with a login for your business can read all of your business's conversations. We can read them too, but we open them only to run, fix or improve your service, or when the law requires it.
- Where a message goes
- Messages travel through WhatsApp (Meta) and Gupshup, our WhatsApp provider, and our copy is kept with Supabase in Mumbai. To draft a reply, Reception sends Anthropic, a US AI company, the message, up to ten earlier messages from the same chat and your fact sheet. It does not send the customer's phone number or WhatsApp name. Anthropic's terms bar it from training its models on them, and it deletes them within 30 days, with a few exceptions.
- Deleting a customer's messages
- A customer can ask to have their messages with your business deleted. We then remove every conversation for that number from our database, and keep a record that the deletion happened: a scrambled form of the number, the date, and how much was removed. Copies outside our database, such as alerts on staff phones, files you have exported, WhatsApp's and Gupshup's own records, and backups, are not reached.
[[TODO: say how a customer asks for their messages to be deleted]]
Questions.
For anything else, ask us on WhatsApp.
Can I try it?
Not yet. Reception is in development, and the chats on these pages are illustrations with fictional businesses. We are also not yet approved to connect other businesses’ WhatsApp numbers, so we cannot connect yours today.
Message us, and we’ll tell you where it stands.
[[TODO: approve this answer, and update it when the first business can go live]]
Do I need a new number?
Not necessarily. Reception is built to answer on your business’s number through Meta’s official WhatsApp Business Platform, and Meta allows a number you already own. We are not yet approved to connect other businesses’ numbers, so we cannot connect yours today, and we cannot say when that will change.
Some WhatsApp providers can now connect a WhatsApp Business app number and let the business keep using the app, with its chats. Reception is not built for that, so any WhatsApp account on the number, personal or business, would have to be deleted first, and its chat history would be lost. The number would still take calls and texts.
What happens when it can't answer?
Reception is built to hand the chat to a person. The guest or patient is sent a holding message, which in English reads: “Thanks for your message — let me check with the team and get back to you shortly.” If opening hours are set (the same hours every day), a written question outside them gets a line naming your opening time instead.
The staff you list are sent a WhatsApp alert with the customer’s message, and answer by replying to it. WhatsApp allows that alert only if they have messaged your business number in the past 24 hours. At present Reception has no other way to send it.
Who can see the messages?
Anyone with a login for your business can read its chats. No other business can.
We can read every chat too, but we open them only to run, fix or improve your service, or when the law requires it.
Messages travel through WhatsApp (Meta) and Gupshup, our WhatsApp provider, and our copy is kept with Supabase in Mumbai. To draft a reply, Reception is built to send Anthropic, a US AI company, the message, up to ten earlier ones and your fact sheet, but not the chat’s phone number or WhatsApp name. Anthropic’s terms bar it from training its models on them, and it deletes them within 30 days, with a few exceptions.
What if I want to stop?
Reception is in development, so no business pays for it yet. Once it is offered, you can cancel it at any time, with no notice period. It keeps running until the end of the month you have already paid for, then stops, and part of a month is not refunded.
The details are on our cancellation and refunds page.
What do I need to give you?
A fact sheet that you fill in yourself: plain questions about your business, such as your rates or fees, your timings, how to find you and your house rules. Reception is built to answer only from what you write there.
Connecting your WhatsApp number also depends on approvals from Meta and our WhatsApp provider, so we do not quote a set-up time yet.
[[TODO: approve this answer]]
Which languages does it use?
Its fixed messages, such as the notice that it is automated, the message that passes a chat to your staff and the call-112 message, are written in English and in Hindi typed in English letters.
It has no fixed messages in Nagamese. It is instructed to pass a Nagamese question to your staff rather than write an answer, and that has not been tested in live chats yet.
[[TODO: approve this answer. The Hindi wording has not been checked by a native speaker yet]]
What about Hornbill Festival rates?
Write them in your fact sheet as rates of their own. Reception is instructed never to work a rate out: no averages, no ranges and no totals for a stay. If a drafted reply has an amount written as money that is not in your fact sheet, software throws it away, and it is built to alert you on WhatsApp.
[[TODO: approve this answer]]
Tell us about your hotel or homestay.
We'll talk it through with you. Reception is in development, so there is nothing to sign up for yet.