Guest requests, turned into tasks for the right person

What guest request management is

Guest request management is how a hotel or rental takes in what guests ask for during the stay (towels, a repair, a late check-out, an extra bed), passes it to the right person and lets the guest know what happens next. It has two halves:

• Intake: hearing the request on whatever channel the guest uses, understanding it and recording the details: who, which room, what exactly.
• Execution: the task in housekeeping or maintenance, done by your staff and tracked in your task or housekeeping software.

Housekeeping and maintenance software handles execution: room status, cleaning schedules, work orders. Una handles intake: talking to the guest, creating the task and sending it where your team works.

Why requests get lost

Requests arrive by phone, chat and message, often when the person who can act is busy or off shift. A request written on paper or left in one inbox waits until someone sees it.

1 in 4

of hand-offs in short-term rentals are about maintenance, the second most common reason after check-in

Una escalation data: 16,163 hand-offs to property teams, Oct 2025 – Jul 2026

≈ 1 in 5

of all hand-offs to the team are requests and maintenance (median across operators)

Una escalation data: 16,163 hand-offs to property teams, Oct 2025 – Jul 2026

≈ 45%

of maintenance hand-offs Una marks urgent, so your team sees them first

Una escalation data: 16,163 hand-offs to property teams, Oct 2025 – Jul 2026

Most requests need a person by nature: someone has to bring the towels or fix the shower.

What Una does with a request

• Understand it in the guest's language, and ask for what's missing: the problem, a good time to come. The guest's reservation is read from your PMS, so the stay and the room come with the request.
• Create the task for the right person or team: housekeeping, maintenance, front desk.
• Send it where your team already works: your CRM, Slack, WhatsApp or WhatsApp groups, or Telegram, with the guest, the reservation and the conversation attached. Reporting "done" back to the guest is left to your managers.
• Mark it urgent by your rules, so problems that can't wait go to the person on duty.
• Tell the guest it is logged, without promising a time your team hasn't confirmed.

Una doesn't fix anything, and doesn't decide about refunds or compensation. Those go to a person.

Complaints

Complaints are a small share of guest conversations, but each one matters. Una acknowledges the problem, records what happened and passes it to your team, marked urgent when it is. A good complaint response, from a person or from Una, follows five steps:

• Listen and let the guest explain without interrupting or arguing.
• Acknowledge the problem and apologize for the experience.
• Act: say what will happen next and who will do it.
• Inform the guest when the plan changes or the fix takes longer.
• Follow up once it's fixed, and check the guest is satisfied.

A short script for the front desk: "I'm sorry about [problem], thank you for telling us. I've asked [team] to [action]. I'll check back with you by [time you can keep]."

The most common complaints in hotels are about noise, cleanliness, room temperature, Wi‑Fi and waiting at check-in. Most are prevented the same way: room inspections before arrival, preventive maintenance, clear arrival information and a fast way for guests to report a problem during the stay, before they write a review.

Ready-to-use wording: maintenance issue and housekeeping note templates, and replies to a complaint during the stay.

Housekeeping and maintenance requests

Housekeeping requests come from two sources: guests (towels, an extra pillow, a cleaning time) and other departments (a room the front desk needs ready early, a maintenance follow-up). Supervisors keep them under control with room assignments, checklists and inspections, and by seeing every open request in one place.

Maintenance is either reactive (fix what a guest reports) or preventive (service equipment on a schedule so it doesn't break). Maintenance software, also called a CMMS, tracks work orders, schedules and the history of each asset. Guest-reported problems enter that flow as work orders; Una sends them with the room, the problem and the guest's contact attached.

In serviced apartments and rentals, housekeeping means turnovers between stays and mid-stay cleans on longer stays; requests come by message, and Una passes them to your cleaners the same way.

Other requests

Guests also ask for early check-in, late check-out, a crib or a room change. Una answers from your rules and the reservation, and passes anything that needs a decision to your team. More on guest messaging, including WhatsApp.

Types of tools for requests and tasks

• Housekeeping software: room status, cleaning schedules, checklists for room attendants.
• Maintenance software: work orders, preventive maintenance, asset history.
• Task management tools: shared task lists for departments, often inside the PMS or a hotel operations platform.
• Guest messaging and AI: where requests come in. Una takes the request from the guest and passes it into the tools above.

How to choose a tool for guest requests

• Does it take requests from every channel your guests use, including the phone?
• Does it create the task in the tool your team already uses, or add another inbox?
• Does it attach the guest, room and reservation, so nobody has to ask again?
• Can it mark urgent requests and send them to the person on duty?
• Does it tell the guest the request is logged, without promising times your team hasn't set?
• Does it keep a record of every request and every hand-off?

For vacation rentals

In rentals there is no front desk to walk to. Guests report a broken appliance or a Wi‑Fi problem by message, often at night. Una takes the details and creates the task for your cleaner or maintenance person; where the answer is simple, the guest gets help to check first.

More on AI for short-term rentals and the Airbnb message templates for maintenance and checkout.