Guide 04
Voice agents for hotels
Guide 4: the owner scans a postcard and talks to their own front desk
4 min read10 steps10 promptsfreeThe offer
Hotels live on phone calls about availability, check-in times, parking, pets, directions, and cancellations, and a small hotel misses a lot of them because the front desk is checking someone in, or it's 2am, or the caller speaks a different language. A missed call at a hotel is often a missed booking worth hundreds of dollars.
The offer is a voice agent that answers those calls. It knows the hotel's details, answers questions naturally, speaks multiple languages, and never sleeps, and the way you sell it is to build it first and let the owner experience it before you've said a word to them. Every step below comes with the exact prompt to paste in.
Step 1: Set up the agent
The install and the two agent options are on the agent setup pageUse a strong model, because this pipeline involves judgment calls and a weak model makes expensive mistakes with real mail.
After that, give it the keys for the job. In chat, tell the agent which accounts it's working with and paste the credentials when it asks: a Google Places API key from Google Cloud Console with the places API enabled and a budget cap on it, an ElevenLabs or Vapi account with its API key for the voice agents, and a postcard API account with Lob, PostGrid, or stannp. On Grok bot you can also log into a website once in the bot's browser and it stays logged in.
Step 2: Filter for independent lodging
The agent filters the places scrape for lodging, meaning hotels, guesthouses, bed and breakfasts, and small resorts, and it skips the big chains because they have call centers and you'll never reach a decision maker. You want independent properties, which usually means moderate review counts and no corporate brand in the name. Keep the rating at 4.0 and above and make sure a phone number is listed, since the whole product is about their phone.
use my google places api key to pull all lodging in [city] and the towns within [x] miles: hotels, motels, guesthouses, bed and breakfasts, small resorts. save name, address, phone, website, rating, review count, amenities, and the text of their 20 most recent reviews. skip anything with a corporate chain brand in the name (marriott, hilton, ihg, wyndham, choice, best western and similar). filter to rating 4.0 or higher and a phone listed. put it in a google sheet called "[city] hotels" and wait for my approval.Step 3: Collect each hotel's details
A receptionist is only as good as what it knows, so before building anything, the agent collects the details guests actually ask about for every hotel on the list. It reads the hotel's own website for check-in and check-out times, parking, pets, breakfast, and cancellation rules, and it reads the reviews for the things guests mention over and over, like the walk to the beach or the noise from the road.
for every approved hotel, visit their website and read their google reviews, and fill in a details sheet with: check-in time, check-out time, parking (free, paid, none), pets allowed, breakfast, wifi, pool, room types, cancellation policy, distance to the main nearby attractions, and the 5 things guests mention most in reviews. if something isn't on their site, write "not listed" instead of guessing. show me 3 finished details sheets.Step 4: Write the receptionist template
Both ElevenLabs and Vapi let you build a voice agent from a prompt and give you a link where anyone can talk to it from the browser. You write one hotel receptionist template covering the greeting, the tone, how to handle booking questions, and what to do when it doesn't know something, and then the agent fills in each hotel's details sheet per prospect. This is the template i'd start from:
you are the front desk at [hotel name] in [city]. you are warm, calm, and brief, like a good receptionist on a busy day. greet callers with "thanks for calling [hotel name], how can i help?"you know these details about the hotel: [details sheet]answer questions using only these details. if someone asks something you don't know, say you'll have the team call them back, and take their name and number. if someone wants to book, tell them availability changes quickly and offer to text them the booking link. if a caller speaks another language, switch to it. never make up prices or availability. if someone asks for a person, take their name and number and tell them someone will call back shortly.
It doesn't need to be perfect or connected to anything yet, but it does need to answer "what time is check-in at [hotel name]" correctly, because that's the first thing the owner will test it with.
Step 5: Build the demo agents
For every hotel on your list you generate a working receptionist that already knows that specific property, one template with the details sheet filled in per hotel. The agent builds each one in your Vapi or ElevenLabs account and then calls it itself to check it gives the right answers before any postcard goes out.
for every approved hotel, create a voice agent in my [vapi / elevenlabs] account using my receptionist template, with that hotel's details sheet filled in. name each agent "[hotel name] front desk". then test each one by asking: "what time is check-in?", "do you allow dogs?", and "is there parking?", and check the answers match the details sheet. fix any that don't, and send me links to 3 agents so i can talk to them myself.Step 6: Build the demo page
The QR should lead to a page with one button that says talk to your front desk. Both Vapi and ElevenLabs give you web call widgets you can embed, so the owner is talking to the agent within seconds of scanning without a form or a signup or a video to watch first. They ask the questions guests ask them all day, hear their own hotel's answers come back, and the sale is mostly done. You can also attach a real phone number to the demo so they can dial it like a guest would.
for every hotel with a tested agent, build a demo page: a photo of the hotel at the top, the line "[hotel name] now has a 24/7 front desk", one big button that says "talk to your front desk" using the web call widget for that hotel's agent, and underneath: "built by [your name]. want it answering your real phone? call [your number]." host each on its own link. if my plan includes demo phone numbers, attach one per hotel and show it on the page.Step 7: The postcard
Postcard APIs like Lob, PostGrid, and Stannp mail real printed cards from an API call for a dollar or two each. The front says something like "[hotel name] now has a 24/7 front desk. Scan and ask it anything." And the QR goes to the demo. The card doesn't need to explain what a voice agent is, because the call does that better than any copy could.
design a 6x9 postcard per hotel. front: a photo of their hotel with "[hotel name] now has a 24/7 front desk." in large text. back: "scan and ask it anything, the way your guests would." with a qr to their demo page and my name and number: [your name], [your number]. show me 3 samples. after i approve, send the batch through my [lob / postgrid / stannp] account and log every send.Step 8: When they call it
The agent watches every demo, and when an owner talks to their front desk for more than 30 seconds, you get a message with the hotel name and a transcript of what they asked. That transcript tells you what they care about before you've spoken to them, so when you call, you already know if it was parking or late check-ins or foreign callers.
whenever someone talks to a demo agent for more than 30 seconds, message me the hotel name, their phone number, how long the call was, and the transcript. every friday, send me a list of hotels that opened their demo page but never started a call, and draft one short follow up email for each from me, for my approval.Step 9: Going live
When a hotel signs, connect a real number through the platform and start with the safest setup, where the agent only answers calls the front desk misses plus everything after hours. The hotel sets their phone to forward unanswered calls to the agent's number, so staff don't feel replaced and the agent only catches calls that were going to voicemail anyway.
Give it the hotel's full details, have it take messages, text callers the booking link, and send the owner a summary of every call each morning. From there you can expand into taking reservations directly once the owner trusts it.
[hotel name] signed. buy a local number in my [vapi / elevenlabs] account and connect it to their agent. update the agent with anything new the owner told me: [notes]. after every call, text the caller the booking link if they asked about staying: [booking link]. send the owner a summary every morning at 8am with each call's time, caller number, what they wanted, and anything that needs a call back. tell me the number so i can send the owner forwarding instructions.Step 10: This isn't only hotels
Hotels are the cleanest starting niche because the questions are predictable and the missed calls are expensive, but the same pipeline works for restaurants with reservations, clinics with appointments, and home services with quote requests that come in while the owner is on a job. It's the same scrape and the same demo-first postcard with a different template, so pick one, run it, and then reuse everything for the next niche.
copy my hotel pipeline for [restaurants / dental clinics / plumbers] in [city]. change the receptionist template so it handles [reservations / appointment requests / quote requests] and the details sheet so it collects what those callers ask about. keep every other step the same and save it as a new skill.The full prompt
Once every step above works on its own, this is the whole pipeline in one message. Paste it in, fill in the brackets, and the agent saves it as one skill you can rerun on a new city with a single line.
you are my hotel voice agent sales machine. run this pipeline and check in with me at the marked points.city: [your city]1. use my google places api key to pull all lodging in [city]: hotels, guesthouses, bed and breakfasts, small resorts. save name, address, phone, rating, review count, amenities, and review text. skip anything with a corporate chain brand in the name.2. filter to: rating 4.0 or higher, independent, phone number listed. show me the list and wait for my approval.3. for each approved hotel, fill in a details sheet from their website and reviews, then create a voice agent in my [vapi / elevenlabs] account from my receptionist template, loaded with those details. it must correctly answer "what time is check-in at [hotel name]".4. build a demo page per hotel with one button that says "talk to your front desk", using the web call widget, and attach a real demo phone number if my plan includes one.5. design postcards: "[hotel name] now has a 24/7 front desk. scan and ask it anything." with the qr to the demo page and my number: [your number].6. send me links to 3 sample agents so i can call them, plus 3 sample postcards. after i approve, send the batch through my [lob / postgrid / stannp] account.7. log every send, and alert me with the transcript whenever someone talks to a demo agent for more than 30 seconds.rules: no mail without my batch approval. cap api spend at [$x] without asking. save this workflow as a skill.