Escalations & Customer Support

An escalation is created when a guest conversation requires human involvement. This can happen in two ways:

• Automatic escalation — the AI assistant determines the guest's request is outside its scope (e.g. a maintenance emergency, a complaint, a refund request) and creates a support case for your team. If the guest is on a phone call, the AI stays on the line until a team member joins.
• Manual escalation — a team member reads the conversation and decides to handle it personally, replying directly to the guest. As soon as a human sends a message, the bot stands down for that conversation.

When a guest call is escalated, you can join it directly from the Enhanced Rentals dashboard — no phone number or external app required. Just a computer and a browser.

Open the escalation case and click Join Call. Your browser connects you instantly to the live call with the guest, and the full conversation context is shown alongside — what the guest said, what the AI answered, and why it escalated.

This works from any modern browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge) on desktop or laptop. No headset required — your computer microphone and speakers are enough, though a headset improves call quality.

All active escalations are visible under Ops → Customer Help → Escalations. Each entry shows:

• The guest's name and property.
• A summary of the conversation and the reason for escalation.
• The current status (open, in progress, resolved).
• The team member assigned to the case (if any).

When you open an escalation case, you can see the full guest conversation history from Hostaway alongside the case details. From there:

1. Read the conversation context to understand the guest's situation.
2. Reply to the guest directly through Hostaway (the system will not send automated replies once a human has responded).
3. Mark the case as Resolved once the guest issue is addressed.

By default, escalations are visible in the Ops → Customer Help → Escalations inbox. To also receive real-time notifications in Slack when a new escalation is created, connect a Slack webhook under Settings → Integrations → Webhooks.

See Slack Notifications for Escalations for a step-by-step setup guide.

If you have a hotline configured, guests may call in and request to speak to a human. When the AI voice assistant cannot resolve the issue, it can transfer the call to a designated phone number — typically your on-call property manager.

Call transfer settings are configured in Settings → Hotlines on the individual hotline detail page.

For workspaces with multiple agents, you can assign escalation cases to specific team members. Open a case and use the Assign to dropdown to select a team member. Assigned cases are visible to all agents but show the assigned owner clearly.

All resolved cases are retained in the escalation history. You can filter by property, date range, or assigned agent to review past issues. This is useful for identifying recurring problems (e.g. a specific property that frequently generates check-in issues).