Review sites like TripAdvisor and Google weigh how often you respond to reviews, so replying to the negative ones matters twice over. It moves the algorithm in your favor, and it tells the guest they were heard.

The hard part is finding the words after a long day. You're smiling through gritted teeth, your feet are sore, and your hair smells like the breakfast buffet. A tactful reply is the last thing you have energy for, and putting it off just lets the review sit there working against you.

Responding to a review with AI.

You can prompt a general AI tool like ChatGPT to draft a reply. Explain the situation the way you'd tell a friend, then paste the review in. A prompt to start with:

Respond to the following review like a hotel general manager. Format it as an email. Do not offer any incentives.

Skip the incentives on purpose. You don't want to hand a dishonest reviewer a reason to leave a bad review just to get something for it. If you want to make good with a real guest, do it privately over chat or email.

A few things to watch with a general tool: give it your brand voice or it sounds generic, keep it under 200 words or it rambles, and check any claim it makes before you post. It doesn't know your pet policy or your check-in time unless you tell it every single time.

Or let Akia write it, grounded in your property.

Akia already knows your property, so she drafts the reply in your voice with your real policies built in. She sees the reservation behind the review and hands you a response that's ready to post. Nothing to prompt, nothing to fact-check. You read it, approve it, and it's live.

Better yet, keep the bad review from happening.

The best reply is the one you never have to write. Most one-star reviews start as a problem the guest would have told you about, if you'd asked while they were still there. Akia asks.

Start the moment they book. Reputation doesn't begin at checkout. Akia greets guests before arrival and asks about special requests, so the whole experience starts right.

Check in during the stay. Akia messages guests mid-stay to see how it's going. A guest who mentions a cold room on day one is a fix you can make, instead of a review you read a week later.

Catch the unhappy ones with a survey. A quick in-stay survey puts a number on the stay. Anyone who rates below a 5 gets flagged to your team while the guest is still on property, so you can make it right before they get home to a keyboard.

Send the happy ones to Google. At checkout, Akia routes the happy guests to your public review pages and keeps the private feedback coming to you. Your best stays turn into five-star ratings.

Handled well, a rough moment becomes a loyal guest and a better rating. See how Akia manages your reputation start to finish.