Reply to reviews with AI help: draft, publish and automatic replies
By GuestChat Team ·
Replying to reviews is one of those tasks everyone knows they should do and almost no one does on time. A well-written reply is read by your next guests, so it's worth a couple of minutes. With the AI, those minutes come down to one.
All in one place
In your profile menu, Reviews brings together the ratings of your properties on Airbnb and Booking.com. At the top you see the Overall rating, all properties and the breakdown By property. Below, the list of reviews with filters by property, by channel and Unreplied only, plus a search by guest or text.
Reviews in other languages already appear translated into your dashboard's language, and one tap shows you the original. Your reply is published in the language of the review: if you write in another one, it's translated automatically.
Reply to a review
- Tap Reply on the review.
- Write it yourself or tap Draft with AI to get a draft. If you don't like it, Regenerate with AI.
- Tweak whatever you want: the name of something specific in your home, a detail you remember about the guest.
- Publish reply. First it asks you to confirm: the reply is public and permanent, and future guests will see it too.
What makes a good reply
- Short: three or four sentences.
- Specific: mention something the guest said, not a formula that would work for anyone.
- Written for the next guest: whoever reads your reply is deciding whether to book.
- When facing criticism: thank them, acknowledge what was true, explain what you've changed, and don't argue in public.
Automatic replies
In Automatic AI reply you can turn it on per property and per booking site. It's off by default, and when you turn it on it warns you what that means: the AI will publish the reply by itself as soon as a new review with text comes in, without anyone checking it first.
There's an important safeguard: if the reply mentions a refund or a discount, it is never published on its own. It's saved as a draft for you to review.
In the list, the replies the AI published on its own are marked Replied automatically by AI (no one reviewed it), so you can read them afterwards.
Automatic or by hand?
- Automatic makes sense if you have lots of properties and mostly good reviews. Check what it has published every week.
- By hand with a draft is better if you have few apartments or very detailed reviews. It takes you a minute and you control every word.
Many hosts combine both: automatic for the apartments with high, steady ratings, and by hand for the one that's recovering from a bad patch.
Get better reviews
Reviews start before check-out. A message during the stay asking if everything's going well lets you fix problems in time. The More reviews flow in Automatic messages is designed for exactly that, and the Farewell on departure day never asks for a review from someone who didn't have a good stay.
Common mistakes
- Replying in the heat of the moment to an unfair review. Generate the draft, let it sit for an hour and read it again.
- Copying the same reply onto every review. It shows, and it hurts you.
- Trying to reply to reviews with no text. The ones that only have a rating can't be replied to; focus on the ones that can.