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Hotel Answering Service

A guest calls to ask whether you hold rooms past 6pm, and the phone rings at a desk where someone is checking in a family of five. Magellan Solutions answers your hotel's line when your own team can't — day, night, weekends and the check-in rush — taking the booking inquiry, answering from your own property notes, and getting anything urgent to the person on duty.

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1-800-371-6224

At a Glance

Best For Independent hotels, boutique hotels, motels, inns and B&Bs, hostels, and franchise properties running a small front-desk team
Core Support Live call answering, message taking and routing, reservation inquiries and bookings, after-hours and overnight cover, overflow during peaks
Channels Phone, with messages delivered by email and SMS
Delivery Philippines-based agents on a shared team, working from your property's own call guide and — where you give access — inside your reservation system. Sized and priced for properties that don't need a reservations department

Nobody Is Free to Pick Up, and the Caller Doesn't Know That

A forty-room hotel does not have a phone team. It has a front desk, and the front desk is also the check-in desk, the concierge, the complaints desk and the person carrying a bag to room 12. Calls do not wait for a gap. They arrive at four in the afternoon when three arrivals are in the lobby, at eleven at night when the desk is covered by one person, and on Sunday morning when it isn't covered at all.

 

An answering service is the simplest fix for that: a live person picks up every time, works from the information you have given them, and hands you what needs you.

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A Missed Call Doesn't Leave a Message

The caller who can't reach you is rarely calling to complain. They are asking whether you have a room, whether the rate includes breakfast, whether they can arrive late — the questions that come immediately before a booking. When the phone rings out, most of them do not try again and do not leave a voicemail. They open the app they were already comparing you on, and the reservation goes to a property that answered, at a rate that pays commission.

 

The cost is invisible in a way a bad review is not. There is no record of the call that didn't connect, so a property can lose bookings this way for years without ever seeing the number.

Our Hotel Answering Services

Agents answer in your hotel's name, from a call guide you approve — room types and rates, what's included, parking, pet and cancellation policy, arrival and departure times, and who to reach when a caller needs someone on site.

Live Call Answering

Every call answered by a person in your hotel's name, inside a few rings, around the clock. Callers get an answer to what your call guide covers rather than a recording and a promise to ring back.

Message Taking & Routing

Anything the agent can't answer is written up with the caller's details and what they wanted, and sent where you tell us — front desk email, the duty manager's phone, or straight to the owner.

Reservation Inquiries & Bookings

Availability, rates, minimum stays and what's included, answered from your own information. Where you give system access, agents take the booking on the call. Where you don't, the inquiry is captured in full — dates, party size, rate discussed, contact details — and passed to your team.

After-Hours & Overnight Cover

The hours a small property cannot staff a phone — overnight, early mornings, weekends and public holidays — covered without putting anyone on a night shift.

Overflow at Check-In and Peak Season

Calls that arrive while your desk is busy roll to us instead of ringing out, so the arrivals queue and the phone stop competing for the same person.

Answering Service by Property Type

What a property needs from a phone line depends on how it runs. Six shapes cover most of it.

Independent Hotels

One property, one front desk, no reservations team behind it. Cover goes where the desk is thinnest — overnight, the check-in rush, and the shifts one person holds alone.

Boutique Hotels

Guests pick a boutique property partly for how it treats them, and the phone is the first test. Agents use your wording, not a generic greeting, and anything needing judgment goes to your manager.

Motels

Late arrivals, drive-up inquiries and "anything tonight?" calls, mostly after hours. The job is the overnight window: a straight answer on availability, and directions.

Franchise & Branded Properties

Brand standards dictate how the phone is answered. Agents follow your brand's script and escalation rules, so the call meets the standard without funding a phone shift to do it.

Inns and B&Bs

Often owner-run, often no desk at all. We act as the property's phone line — inquiries answered, bookings captured, messages passed on — so the owner isn't tied to a handset.

Hostels

High volume, low value per call, endlessly repeated — dorm availability, check-in windows, luggage storage, finding the entrance. The routine five stop reaching your team.

Why Hotels Use an Answering Service

A property that cannot justify a phone team still has a phone. Outsourcing the line is the way to answer it without hiring for it.

 

No Night Shift to Staff

Overnight and weekend cover without recruiting, rostering or paying premium hours for a shift that might handle six calls.

Capacity That Flexes

Volume moves with the season and the service moves with it. You are not carrying quiet-month capacity to survive a busy one.

A Live Person, Every Time

The alternative to an answering service is usually voicemail. One of them takes bookings.

Your Front Desk Gets Its Attention Back

Guests in the lobby stop losing to guests on the phone, because the two are no longer the same person's problem.

What We Handle, and What Stays With You

An answering service works when both sides know where it stops. Here is where we draw the line:

 

We answer from your call guide. Your room types, rates, policies, directions and arrival instructions are the source. If a caller asks something the guide covers, the agent answers it. If it doesn't, the agent takes the details and routes it to you rather than guessing at an answer your guest will hold you to.

 

This is a shared team, not your own. Agents cover several properties and are trained on your call guide and greeting, not embedded in your operation. That is what keeps the service affordable at the size most properties need it, and it is the honest trade: broad coverage, standard handling, no dedicated headcount.

 

Your call guide sets what agents can do. Which booking types they take, which changes they make, which rates they quote, and what needs your approval first. Inside that scope they act; outside it they document and route to you rather than deciding on your behalf. Rate changes, opening and closing dates, and refunds beyond a threshold you set stay with your team.

 

Escalation is only as good as the list. Anything urgent — a guest locked out, a maintenance failure, a caller who needs a decision — goes to the contact you nominate, in the order you set. We can reach the right person in minutes. We can't be on the property, and we don't pretend otherwise.

When You Need More Than an Answering Service

An answering service is the right shape while calls are mostly inquiries, messages and after-hours cover, and while your own team is confirming the bookings. That changes at a certain size. Once the line carries real reservation volume — bookings, date changes, cancellations and group inquiries that need finishing on the call rather than passing on — a shared team working outside your systems starts to cost you more than it saves.

 

At that point the service you want is hotel contact center outsourcing: a dedicated team, trained on your property, working inside your reservation system, so the booking completes before the call ends.

 

Both run on one contract, and moving from one to the other does not mean starting again.

Compliance and Data Security, Built In

An answering service holds less of your data than a contact center does, and the safeguards are the same either way. Agents handle caller names, contact details, stay dates and whatever your call guide tells them — held under the same certified standards as every other account we run.

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Certified Standards

Magellan holds ISO 27001 and PCI-DSS certifications — the recognized benchmarks for information security, payment data, and protected customer information. See our certifications.

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Controlled Data Access

Network and IT infrastructure sits in secured, IT-only locations. Workstations and servers are password-protected across access levels, and physical data-entry points are disabled to prevent unauthorized transfer.

Enforceable Confidentiality

Every employee signs a confidentiality agreement before job assignment — subject to Philippine law and prosecutable on breach. Access to your data is limited to the team working on your account.

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Continuity You Can Count On

Continuous data backup with off-site copies, a co-location plan with a backup center outside a 10-mile radius, and power-blackout protection — so customer support doesn't stop when circumstances change.

Want to know more?

Explore our services further by filling out the form below, and we'll reach out to you soon!

    Our Onboarding Process

    Requirements Setting

    1

    1

    Call center outsourcing

    Recruitment

    2

    2

    Agent Training

    3

    3

    Campaign Incubation

    4

    4

    Campaign Go Live

    5

    5

    Frequently Asked Questions

    FAQ
    How much does a hotel answering service cost?
    Pricing follows call volume rather than headcount, which is what makes the service work for a property that could not justify hiring for the phone. What you pay depends on how many calls you take, the hours you want covered, and how much your call guide asks agents to handle. Send us a typical month and we'll quote against it — there's a form on this page, or call 1-800-371-6224.
    What's the difference between an answering service and a hotel contact center?
    Staffing and depth, not capability. An answering service is a shared team: agents cover several properties, work from your call guide, and handle everything it covers — including taking bookings in your system where you've given them access. A hotel contact center is a team assigned to your property alone, trained through incubation on your rate plans, brand standards and procedures, with supervisors and quality monitoring behind it. Most properties start here and move across when call volume justifies the dedicated headcount.
    Do your agents take bookings?
    Yes. Where you give system access, agents work inside your reservation system and take the booking on the call rather than passing a message back. Your call guide sets the scope — which booking types, which rate plans, which changes they can make on their own and which need your approval. Anything outside it is documented in full and routed to your team.
    Is the team dedicated to my hotel?
    No — this is a shared team, and that is deliberate. Agents are trained on your call guide, your greeting and your escalation list, and cover several properties. That is what the price reflects. Dedicated agents, with deeper training and supervisors behind them, are the contact center service.
    Do you answer in my hotel's name?
    Yes. Agents answer with your property's greeting and work from your own information. Callers are not told they have reached an outside service unless you want them to be.
    What hours can you cover?
    Anything from after-hours only to 24/7. Common patterns are overnight and weekend cover for a property that staffs its own desk in the day, and full coverage for owner-run properties with nobody on a desk at all.
    How do messages reach us?
    However you want them — email to the front desk, SMS to the duty manager, or both, with urgent calls routed by phone to whoever is on your escalation list at that hour.

    We'd be happy to walk you through your options.

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      Toll Free: 1 800 371 6224

      US:  +1 650 204 3191

      UK: +44 8082 803 175

      AU: +61 1800 247 724