You set up Lodgify's automatic responses: a confirmation when a guest books, a message before arrival, a thank-you after departure. Then a guest writes the evening before check-in asking whether they can arrive at noon, and another asks if there is room for a second car. Your pre-arrival message mentioned neither. The automation is working. It was built for what every guest needs, and these questions are about one booking.
Why it keeps happening
An automatic response answers a question you can predict, at a moment you can predict. As the portfolio grows, the questions that cost you time depend on the booking: the unit, the dates, the channel, what the house rules say for that property. A scheduled message cannot choose between those answers. That limit is the nature of a template, and it is worth designing around.
What Lodgify gives you
Lodgify's own help center blocks automated reading, so the points below come from archived copies of its help articles, the most recent snapshots I could open (June and October 2025). I read them on 2 October 2026. Wording and plan availability may have changed, so confirm in your account.
- Automatic responses per channel and recipient. The per-channel article says responses are set per booking source (manual and website, Airbnb, Vrbo, Expedia, Booking.com) and per recipient: guest, rental contact or account contact. You turn each one on or off, and you can edit the default content.
- Placeholders. Text can include placeholders such as the guest name or house name, which Lodgify fills from the booking. You can send yourself a test email, and restore the default text.
- Languages. You can activate languages and set a default; if a guest's language is not active, they receive the default language. Edits to the default text have to be translated by hand.
- Scheduled messages for OTA bookings. For Airbnb and Booking.com, the table in that article lists guest emails such as one two days before arrival and one two days after departure. Vrbo is listed at three days before arrival.
- Custom automatic responses. The custom responses article lets you choose a number of days before or after arrival, departure or booking confirmation, a time of day, the recipients, the booking channels and the rentals. It gives the example of a message five days before arrival for Airbnb guests, describes delivery by email and platform inboxes, with SMS limited to some accounts. Plan availability may have changed, so check your own account.
- Channel quirks. The per-channel article notes, for example, that Airbnb does not send attachments or hyperlinks, only direct links, and that messages exchanged before a reservation is created are not imported into Lodgify.
Set up messages for each stage of the stay
- Check your plan first. Confirm in your account whether custom automatic responses are available, so you know which messages you can actually schedule.
- Cover the moments, not the questions. Booking confirmation, a few days before arrival, after departure. Use the custom schedule for the one the defaults do not cover, such as arrival instructions.
- Answer in advance. Arrival message: how to get in, parking, Wi-Fi, quiet hours, who to contact. Departure message: checkout time and what to do with keys.
- Use placeholders and per-unit content. The message should read as written for this guest and this house.
- Plan for each channel. If links or attachments are not sent on a channel, write the message so it still works as plain text.
- Send yourself the test. Run through the sequence as a guest and cut what repeats.
Lodgify also gives you the inbox for the rest: its unified inbox brings channel messages and direct-booking emails into one place and supports saved replies. A saved reply still needs someone to select it and check that it answers the guest's question.
What is left over
An illustrative scenario, not a customer: a guest writes the evening before arrival. Can we check in early, does the cottage have room for two cars, and is a small dog allowed? Each answer sits in a different place, such as parking notes, the house rules and the calendar. No schedule can pick among them. So someone reads the reservation, finds the right notes and types a reply.
The cost is that the answer lives in a person, and the person is you.
How InnSync answers the rest
InnSync works alongside Lodgify. Your automatic responses keep sending what they send. Carmen, InnSync's AI agent, takes the questions that arrive after them. She writes each reply from the booking, the unit and your house rules, on a channel confirmed during onboarding, and passes anything unusual to your team with the context attached. You choose, per channel, whether she replies on her own or drafts for you to review.
If a rule is not written down for a unit, your team should supply or confirm it before a reply is sent. A decision that belongs to you, like moving a check-in earlier, goes to you with the reservation attached.
If you use Lodgify
Keep Lodgify. InnSync runs the operation around it — the connection is set up with you during onboarding.
During onboarding we agree the starting scope: which guest replies come first, and which cleaning, check-in or team routine to set up alongside them.
Next step
Take the last ten messages guests sent after your pre-arrival message. Sort them into what a template could have said and what needed the booking. If the second pile is larger, see how InnSync works with Lodgify.