Solving the ironing board problem: automated guest messaging that eliminates the admin

There’s a hotel in Amsterdam where Adam Britton stays all the time. It doesn’t put ironing boards in the rooms. So every visit, he sends a WhatsApp asking for one, and every visit he gets the same generic AI reply: the request has been escalated to the team. 

Then nothing. 

Eventually, he asked the front desk whether anyone actually read those messages. Someone, it turned out, had closed the messaging tab. 

“So you’ve got a system that your hotel owners are paying a lot of money for each month, but you’re not using it because it’s in a completely different platform, out of sight, out of mind,” explained Adam, Director of Product and Engineering at Mews, on the latest episode of Matt Talks Hospitality. 

For many front desk leads, this will sound familiar. It’s the reason Mews built Guest Messaging and Automations, two AI-powered features now embedded in the operating system. Here’s how they change everything. 

One inbox, where staff already work 

Guest Messaging brings Booking.com chat, Expedia, SMS, WhatsApp and the Mews guest portal chat into one view on the dashboard. Adam's reasoning is simple: “Staff live in the property management system. And anything that’s urgent, anything to do with a guest, needs to be in the platform that they’re using all the time.” 

The chat icon also changes color the longer a guest waits. Blue is something that needs to be done. Yellow is an action you need to take soon. Orange is something that needs immediate attention. It’s a simple UI moment that helps staff prioritize. 

Taking the human out of the routing 

The bigger change is what happens after a message lands. Until now, someone read Adam’s ironing board request, saw it was a job for housekeeping, and picked up the phone. Next time Adam is in Amsterdam, “the AI is just actually going to create that task for housekeeping to put the ironing board in the room.” The unnecessary middleman effort is gone. 

Orders can work the same way. A guest can now ask the AI agent for a Coke Zero and a KitKat before bed (or something healthier). The request lands on the dashboard as a pending order where staff confirm it, then mark it processed once it reaches the room. This way is much easier for teams to track stock than manually checking minibars each day, while guests still get what they want quickly. 

Automations: if this, then something thoughtful 

Automations is the if-this-then-that engine underneath. Plenty of hotels already connect Mews to tools like Zapier, n8n and Workato – and they’re good tools. However, when you build it in to the operating system, with templates and guardrails, it spares hotels from procuring another vendor. 

The obvious starting point is proactive messaging: a thank-you at booking; a nudge to check in online and collect a digital key; a welcome at check-in with the room number and directions. Adam flies 20-plus hours from Australia to reach European hotels, and arrives, in his words, as “a zombie”. His needs are simple: “I need to have something I can follow on my phone because every hotel’s different.” 

Beyond that, it presents a great opportunity for personalization. Think a trigger five hours after check-in that offers a frequent business traveler a gift from the shop to take home. Or a bottle of after-sun delivered to a guest who spent all day on a sunbed. 

Loyalty without the points 

“If there are returning guests at your hotel, they shouldn’t need to be part of a loyalty program to be recognized,” Adam said. “If I’ve stayed more than five nights and you’ve got a room in the category above available, give me an upgrade.” 

Often, guests are moved to a better room without a word. It’s great hospitality, but Matt says it should be highlighted. “It’s just reminding them that we’ve recognized them for their loyalty and therefore giving them the room, instead of just moving them to the room without saying anything. I think that makes the impact.” 

When there’s no room to upgrade to, a workflow can branch to champagne instead, or leave a note so staff can explain they’re full tonight. 

Triggers can draw on loyalty tier, returning nights or total spend, including restaurant bills through Mews POS, which sit on the same guest identity. And personalization is a fork in the workflow. “If I’m a business traveler, don’t put a bottle of wine in the room. I’m not drinking a whole bottle of wine to myself when I’m on a business trip.” 

Who’s actually in charge of the AI? 

So what stops the AI recommending something wrong? 

It starts with the property context layer. Hotels upload their compendium (which probably already exists in a Word doc somewhere) and Mews extracts a set of guidelines. Each one needs approval before it’s saved, as does anything staff add later, like a guest’s tip about a good Mexican restaurant nearby. The human always has to say: yes, save or remove. 

If the AI doesn’t know an answer, it flags the conversation for a person rather than guessing. Even with this important guardrail, Adam is realistic about the nerves around autopilot. “It’s scary. It will be the norm very soon.” His advice is to switch AI on for a single conversation, play the guest and judge it for yourself. 

Getting started 

Any hotel using the Mews guest portal already has Guest Messaging. Adding channels is quick: a local number for SMS, a connect button for Booking.com and a few days of Meta review for WhatsApp. 

Automations requires a little more thought. The shortcut is to describe what you want to the AI in plain language, let it draft the workflow, then make any adjustments from there. While testing, filter it to your own email address so no real guest gets a half-finished upgrade message. 

That means from now on, all those communication challenges around ironing boards (and more) should be easily ironed out. 

Watch or listen to the full conversation between Adam and Matt on Matt Talks Hospitality podcast. 

Watch the episode