Multilingual receptionist for hotels and guesthouses

They started in German

Check-in hour. One person at the desk has a passport and a key in their hands. The phone rings. The caller starts in German, or English, or French — the language they booked in. You do not have that language while the person in front of you is unfinished.

They will not leave a long Greek message. They hang up and ring the next house on the street. If a fluent voice then invents a room, a rate, a driver, or someone waiting at a locked door, they will keep that sentence.

This is a normal afternoon in a small Greek house. A family off the Athens flight starts in English. A couple with your name on a paper in the hire car starts in German. French, Italian, Dutch, in the same week. The cousin in Athens who is booking for someone else starts in Greek. You may have enough English to finish the guest in front of you. You do not have enough of everything, and you do not have it with a passport open.

The number they rang is the one on the English page, the booking site, and the card in the hire car. They did not look for a bilingual receptionist. They looked for a bed. Three names came back on the same screen. They will tap the next one if this goes to a Greek greeting and a beep.

Two ways this call goes wrong

They hang up. That is the first way. They heard Greek, or four rings and a tone, and they went back to the list. You listen later and nobody left a message, and you conclude that German guests write. Some of them do. The ones who rang wanted a bed tonight, or a yes about the twelfth, and they already had another house in the same glance.

They get an answer that is too helpful. That is the second way, and it costs the night rather than a lead. An assistant that speaks German well will want to close the loop: yes, a double, yes, around that price, yes, we can collect you at eleven, yes, someone will wait after the boat. Said clearly, it sounds like a house that is ready. It is still an invented room, an invented figure, an invented driver, and an invented person at a locked door. The caller will keep the sentence. The walk-in in the doorway will not care that the voice was not you.

People who are not in the country yet ask whether they can pay on arrival, whether the house takes cards, whether a third person can sleep on an extra bed. The assistant repeats what you typed in. It does not guess a house rule because it can say the German sentence.

Stay, pickup, or late — still three jobs

The language changes. The jobs do not.

In the English you half have, “tonight” and “we booked” and “can you collect us” get written down as one request. That is how a delayed ferry becomes a new stay, and how a pickup becomes a bed with nobody at the airport. The assistant has to ask the first question in their language, then keep the three jobs apart.

A stay still needs dates, how many people, and the room they asked for, then the book. A pickup still needs a flight or a boat, a time, and whether you even run a transfer. A late arrival still needs the name on the booking and the rule you actually use after the desk closes. None of those become a yes because the German was clear.

A single call can hold two of these, and it often does when they are not in Greek. “Do you have a double for Friday, and can you collect us at eleven?” is a stay and a pickup. “We booked — the boat is late — is anyone there?” is late arrival, not availability. The assistant notes both, in their language, and confirms neither until the book and the roster say so.

Keep the first question in every language you actually hear. One sentence is enough. Skip it because they already sounded sure, and the wrong night goes in the book.

A sentence they will keep

If the assistant says a date is free because it could say so in French, two parties arrive for one room. They will both have the sentence. One of them will have bags in the hall.

It checks the book you connected. If that book shows a free room of the type they asked for, on those dates, it may say so and take the next step you allow. If the book is silent, slow, or down, it does not fill the gap with a yes in their language. Speaking German well does not show a free bed.

Do not put a hopeful sentence in the notes. “There is often a double in June” will be read out in German as if the book had just shown one.

The same test covers the rate. A number quoted in English before anyone has looked at sea view, breakfast, July, or an extra bed is a number the desk then has to take back, often with the bags already inside, in a language you do not speak well. It can repeat a published rate you typed in for those dates and that room type. If you have no published figure for that combination, it takes the request. Do not put a “from” price in the notes. It will read the number out.

A complaint about last night’s room is the same kind of call in any language: take the name, take what they said, put it in front of you. Do not offer a free night from the phone because the German was angry. You look at the room. You decide.

The text they can read when they land

The confirmation is not a courtesy. On a small house it is how they find the door from the port, how they get into the key box after the desk closes, and what time breakfast actually starts.

If they booked in German and the text arrives in Greek, they will stand at the side door with a code they cannot use. If they booked in English and the late-arrival rule arrives in Greek, they will knock at one in the morning because they thought someone would wait.

The SMS follows the language of the call. The book can stay in the language the desk already uses. The message to the person arriving cannot. Test this once with a number you hold. It is the thing houses forget, because the Greek text looks finished on your own phone.

Put the sentences they will need at midnight into what you type in: how to find the door from the port, where the key box is, last check-in, who if anyone still answers, breakfast hours, where to leave bags, whether you have parking. The assistant may repeat those. It may not invent a shuttle, a sea-view table, or a parking space you do not have. If the door is down the lane and not on the main street, that sentence belongs in the first things it can say — in their language, not only in yours.

A call about a broken air conditioner, a noise, or a shower is a note. It is not a promise of a new room, in any language.

After the desk closes, in a language you do not speak

A guest on the last ferry from Piraeus is asking whether anyone will be there, and what to do if not. They ask it in English or German because that is the language of the ticket. You are upstairs, or asleep. The person who could explain the key box in German is the same person who has gone to bed.

The answers have to be short in their language: yes until a time you set; here is how the key box works; ring this number when you are at the door; or no, we cannot take you tonight.

An assistant that answers with “someone will wait” because it can form the English sentence, when you are asleep, has not heard the question. Write the rule once, the way you would text it to a guest at ten. Last time. Key or no key. Who, if anyone, still answers. If the rule is empty, it will invent a welcome you cannot keep, and it will invent it in the language they will still have at the door.

A no-show in the morning is a different call. The assistant does not release the bed or refund it unless you wrote that down. Saying sorry clearly in French does not give the night back.

When they switch, and when someone else booked

Couples ring together. One starts in English. The husband takes the phone in German. The assistant follows the language of the sentence it just heard. Dates already taken stay taken. A pickup already noted stays noted. It does not restart the first question as if a new person had rung. If the switch is messy, it reads the facts back once, in the language that is winning, and confirms. A lost date at the handover is how you give away the twelfth and keep the fourteenth.

If a third person comes on — a cousin in Athens, a colleague who “handles the money”, a parent who will pay — take their name and whether the confirmation should go to them. Do not lose the kind of call you already have.

The cousin who books in Greek for parents arriving from Munich is the ordinary booking, not a special case. The people at the door speak German. If the key-box text went to the cousin, or went to the parents in Greek, they stand at the side door with a message they cannot read. Ask who is arriving, and in which language the night text should go. The booking language and the arrival language are not always the same. The person who needs the code is the person who will be on the step.

A walk-in who rings from the corner in English and a guest who already paid on the site in German are not the same person. The first needs the book. The second needs the reservation that is already there. Ask which they are, in their language, before anyone talks about a free room.

The rule the assistant must obey

Same facts, any language.

It may repeat a published rate you typed in for those dates and that room type. It may say a room is free if the book you connected shows one at that moment. It may tell the late-arrival rule you wrote. It may promise a pickup only if you already offer it and someone is free. It may do those things in 70+ languages.

It may not invent a room because the French was clear. It may not invent a rate, convert a euro figure into pounds, or round a sea-view room down to the garden price. It may not invent a driver. It may not say someone will wait at a locked door. It may not send a Greek text after a German call. It may not move a stay that already lives on the booking site. It may not offer a free night, a refund, or a different room because the caller is unhappy.

When the book is silent, the English sentence is the same as the Greek one: I cannot confirm a room from here; I have your dates and the room type; reception will call you. That sentence, in their language, is what keeps them off the next house without giving away a bed you do not have.

What you configure first

1. The guest’s language as a working language on the published number. Not a second line. Not a note that says if they sound foreign, transfer.
2. The same first question in every language you expect to hear — stay, pickup, late arrival — written so it cannot be skipped.
3. The book you already use. If the book does not show a free room, the assistant takes a request. It does not invent one.
4. Only the published rates it may repeat. Do not give it a number you would take back at the desk.
5. The late-arrival rule, written the way you would text a guest at ten: last time, key or no key, who if anyone still answers. It will be read out in their language.
6. The sentences they need when they land — door from the port, breakfast, bags, parking — and a line that forbids a free night or a new room from the phone.
7. The confirmation text follows the language of the call. Test this with a number you hold. Include who the night text should go to when a cousin booked for someone else.

Then listen to the first twenty calls that did not start in Greek. You are not grading the accent. You are checking that the first question happened, that stay and pickup were not mixed, that no room or rate appeared that is not in the book, that the late-arrival rule was the one you wrote, and that the text went out in the language of the call. If a call fails those, it failed, however smooth it sounded.

Make one test call in English and one in German before you leave it on the published number.

Several calls, one pair of hands

Check-in hour is when the languages arrive together. A couple at the desk in English. A taxi at the door. The phone in German. A second ring in French before the first has finished. The same two hands cannot take the third call. That caller hears a busy tone.

The assistant answers several of these at once. The desk still takes the ones a free pair of hands can take. A forwarding rule sends what you do not answer. Calls the desk picks up never leave the house.

Morning is no quieter. Breakfast is out. You cannot leave the room to explain parking in Italian. Evening is later still: you have locked the desk, and the person on the last boat is still on the water, ringing in the language of the ticket.

These are not odd calls you staff with “the one who has English, when she is at the desk”. They are the ordinary afternoon. English, German, French, Italian, Dutch. You do not set a language per room. You put someone on the number who can continue the first sentence, and who will not invent a bed because they can say it clearly.

What these calls sound like

The order is the language they started in, then the kind of call, then the facts, then the book, then the night rule said out loud in words they will still have at the port. No invented room, no invented price, no driver you do not run, no Greek text after a German call. If it still gives away a bed the book does not show, two parties meet in the hall. Put that caller on a request the desk can finish, or on a bed the book actually shows, with a text they can read when they land.

How CITT handles it

1. Your number stays on the site and the card. A forwarding rule sends what you do not answer.
2. Several calls are answered at once, including a check-in burst in three languages.
3. It picks up the language from the first sentence and stays in it, including when they switch. 70+ languages.
4. It asks stay, pickup or late arrival first, then takes the facts that belong to that request.
5. It checks the real book before it says a room is free.
6. It confirms by SMS in the language of the call — key box, late-arrival rule, breakfast, how to find the door.
7. It escalates an unpublished rate, a room the book will not confirm, a complaint, or a date change on a site booking.
8. You get the transcript and the three requests as fields the desk can use without speaking that language.

What it will not do

It will not invent a free room. If the book does not show one, the caller gets a request taken, not a yes, in any language.

It will not invent a rate, a driver, or a person waiting at a locked door. Pickup is only if you offer it. A night welcome is only the rule you wrote.

It will not send the night text in a language they did not use. It will not move a stay that already lives on the booking site. It will not offer a free night, a refund, or a different room because the caller is unhappy. It takes the request. A human decides.

Rates for the service live on the pricing section of the home page. They are not repeated here.