Playbook, hotel
Precise access questions deserve precise room facts
A guest with an access need is not asking whether the hotel is accessible. They are asking whether the bathroom has a lip, whether the bed is high enough to transfer onto, whether the lift reaches the third floor and how wide the door actually is. They ask precisely because they have been given a vague yes before and arrived somewhere they could not use.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for accessibility requests holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The questions are unusually specific and the published material is unusually vague, which is the exact combination that makes an assistant reach for an approximate match and produce a reassuring answer that is wrong.
- Accessibility duties apply to accommodation providers in most markets, and a booking taken on the strength of an overstated description is worse for the hotel than the booking it did not take.
- Unlike a rate question there is no single correct sentence: the answer is a set of measurements and features per room type, and the useful reply is the one that also says what is not there.
- The right ending is not a refusal but an offer, because a guest who can speak to somebody who will go and measure a doorway has been served properly.
How it arrives
- do you have any accessible rooms
- is there a wet room or just a bath
- how wide is the bathroom door
- is there a lift to every floor
- is there a step into the shower
- can i bring an assistance dog
What has to be indexed for this to work
| A room type matrix with the access detail in it | Per room type: floor, whether the lift reaches it, bath or walk in shower or wet room, whether there is a step or a lip, grab rails, bed height where you know it, door widths where you have measured them, and whether an emergency cord is fitted. The rooms without these features need describing too. |
|---|---|
| The route from the street to the room | Steps at the entrance, whether there is a ramp and its gradient if you know it, the distance from the accessible bay to the door, whether the lift is large enough for a powered chair, and where the accessible toilet is in the public areas. A room nobody can reach is not an accessible room. |
| What is genuinely not accessible, written plainly | The restaurant down three steps, the rooms only reachable by stairs, the spa with no hoist, the historic entrance that cannot be ramped. Publishing the limitations is what makes the rest of the description believable, and it prevents the arrival that becomes a formal complaint. |
| Equipment and assistance you can arrange | Shower chairs, bed raisers, visual alarms, a hearing loop at reception, assistance dog arrangements, and how much notice you need for each. Guests assume none of it exists unless it is written down. |
The reply
Two ground floor rooms have wet rooms with a level entry shower, grab rails and an emergency cord, and both are reachable from the accessible bay without steps. The bathroom doors on those two are wider than the standard rooms, though I do not have the measurement published, so I would not want to guess at it. If you tell us the width you need and anything else that matters, the front desk will measure it and confirm before you book, and assistance dogs are welcome throughout.
It states the features it can evidence and stops cleanly at the one it cannot, saying so rather than estimating. That single admission is what makes the rest of the reply trustworthy. The offer to measure turns the gap into a service, and the assistance dog answer is volunteered because it is nearly always the next question.
Where it stops
The trigger. Any question that needs a measurement, a judgement about a specific piece of equipment, or a decision about whether a particular room will work for a particular person.
I can tell you what is published about each room type, but I should not tell you a room will work for you without somebody checking it. Leave your name, email and what you need, and the front desk will go and confirm the details before you book. If it is easier to talk it through, the number at the top of the page reaches reception.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- That the hotel is accessible, as a general statement, without naming which rooms and which routes.
- That a room will suit a described need or a specific piece of equipment.
- A door width, a bed height or a gradient that is not in the indexed material.
- That a feature can probably be arranged, when nobody has confirmed it.
Questions
- How do we stop it giving a soft yes?
- Two things together. Write the room descriptions with the limitations included, so the honest answer is the one in the index, and set the caution level so a question it cannot match well refuses rather than reaching for the nearest room. A soft yes is almost always an approximate match dressed up as an answer.
- Is it a problem that every answer ends with a handover?
- Not for this question. The guest is asking to be taken seriously, and a reply that gives real detail and then offers a person who will measure is more useful than one that closes with a confident yes. It also converts, because the alternative is that they book somewhere that answered properly.
- Should we index the negative facts?
- Yes, and they earn their place. The restaurant reached by three steps, the floor with no lift, the bath only rooms. A guest who finds that out on the site has been well served, and a guest who finds it out on arrival cannot leave and will say so publicly.
Keep reading
- Everything for a hotelRate inclusions, check in times, parking and room accessibility answer well. Live availability and a named reservation do not.
- Handling accessibility requests in generalTwo different things arrive as one message. A published accessibility statement answers the first. The second is a request, and it needs a person.
- Room blocks, function space and the enquiry that goes coldTen rooms and a function room is a contract, not a booking. Capture the dates, the numbers and the space, then get it to sales fast.
- The booking nobody in the chat window can look upA named reservation is invisible here. Say so, take the details, and let the front desk look up what only they can see.
- The hold on the card at check in is not a chargeThe hold taken at the desk is not a payment, and what happens to an empty room overnight depends on which rate plan it was sold on.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.