Mamaco
When I saw how the Smartchat Ultra team was responding to guests, I was won over. From the very beginning, they helped us reduce OTA dependency. We had never seen so many direct bookings.
Foggia, Italy
23
Background
Mamaco was founded in 2023 with a property in the center of Foggia. From the very beginning, the team was drawn to the potential of the short-term rental market and wanted to create something different. The guest house was fully renovated with a strong focus on interior design, environmental sustainability, and a fully digital guest experience.
The high quality of the final result and the positive market response encouraged the team to expand the original concept. What started as a single property evolved into the development of a brand.
Today, Mamaco manages six properties across Foggia, Rome, and Trani, for a total of 23 units, with active expansion plans in several cities.
The target audience is young and international, attracted by the brand’s communication style, contemporary aesthetics, and attention to detail across all Mamaco properties.
The challenge
From the start, guest relationships have been one of Mamaco’s strengths. Thanks to self check-in and digital keys, all properties offer full independence and privacy. At the same time, phone and WhatsApp support is available at all times, with the goal of delivering a flawless stay experience.
As the number of properties increased, the team remained committed to high availability and quality, but managing guest communication soon became unsustainable:
“I was the kind of person who would reply even at three in the morning. I wanted to give my best, but at some point I no longer had a single free day, not even a free hour. I was basically a slave to my phone. Sometimes it felt like I was staying with the guests because, since I was too available, they would contact me for anything. Once, I even had to explain how to turn on the shower.
What weighed on me the most was having to be constantly available, never being able to turn my phone off. There were moments when dozens of chats would pile up at the same time, plus phone calls. It felt like a small leak in the ceiling: you constantly hear the sound of the drip, never stopping. After three years, you burn out.”
Beyond the exhaustion of managing customer service 24/7, another issue emerged:
“I come from a marketing background and have always taken care of the Mamaco brand from that perspective as well. At some point, I realized that to keep up with guest communication, I had put promotional activities on hold. I absolutely wanted to get back to that.”
The solution
At first, Mamaco tried delegating customer service to a dedicated staff member, but the experiment was short-lived. The brand identity and tone of voice had been carefully crafted, and the team wanted to preserve that consistency in guest communication.
“We hired someone, but they couldn’t deliver what I was looking for: maintaining our style and identity in every response. Both our brand and our target are fresh and young, so you can’t reply in a stiff, overly formal way. Despite my instructions, the result wasn’t what I wanted. After a month, we were back to square one.”
That is when Mamaco chose Smartchat Ultra, the only service that provided a professional team handling all phone calls and messages from Booking.com, WhatsApp, Airbnb, and email directly.
Given the previous negative experience, Mamaco decided to move step by step. However, after just a few days of working with Smartchat, they granted the team full autonomy:
“At the beginning we were a bit nervous, so I asked to continue personally managing Airbnb messages. On that channel we are Superhosts, we have an excellent communication rating, and I didn’t want to risk it.
But then I saw how the Smartchat Ultra team was responding to other guests, and they won me over. From the very first period, they managed to convert many OTA guests into direct bookings. No pressure, just in a subtle and polite way. At that point, I handed Airbnb over to them as well.”
The results
Thanks to Mamaco’s internal organization and the availability of structured, detailed information, the Smartchat team completed onboarding in just one day.
“The team understood my communication style perfectly in a very short time. They’re now fully autonomous, even though we’re always available to each other if needed.
There’s direct, human contact between us, so everything feels very simple. I don’t even think of them as an ‘external service.’ It feels like they’ve always been part of Mamaco.”
Over 32,000 messages handled in three months
During the first three months of activity, Smartchat Ultra managed an average of 385 requests per day across chats and phone calls.
Most of the volume came from messaging, with 32,862 multilingual messages handled across various channels.
The team also managed 635 phone calls, totaling more than 22 hours on the phone, with an average wait time of just 9 seconds before answering.
Higher guest satisfaction
The Smartchat team ensured full adherence to Mamaco’s communication guidelines while also improving continuity in guest interactions.
“The service quality remained high, but compared to when I was managing everything, there’s much more consistency in communication with guests. I was available, but I also had to handle other tasks and sometimes got distracted. They have an extra gear when it comes to consistently taking care of guests.
I can clearly see that guests feel more valued. I see it in the ratings — for example, on Booking.com the ‘Staff’ score increased from 9 to 9.2. But I especially notice it in the messages guests leave at the end of their stay. Recently, someone thanked us for the support and for making them feel at home.
Beyond the personal freedom it gives me, I’m truly happy to have Smartchat for this reason alone: it strengthens my brand.”
Reducing OTA dependency
The Smartchat team’s management of guest communication also surprised Mamaco with its ability to convert bookings that would normally come through OTAs into direct reservations.
“Our properties operate without on-site staff or reception, so I imagine guests book through OTAs because they feel more secure.
But when they see that the person responding on the other side is professional and reliable, they feel confident enough to take the next step and book directly through the website. For example, we have a repeat guest who stays 15 days every month in the same property.
At first, he was completely loyal to Booking.com. But thanks to the speed and availability of the Smartchat team, he switched to booking directly.
This is one of the aspects that has satisfied me the most: our share of direct bookings has never been as high as it is today.”
More time to grow the brand
Finally, delegating customer service allowed the Mamaco team to refocus on opening new properties, improving the guest experience, and managing daily operations more effectively.
“Before, launching a new property was much more complicated. I would end up working on it at night because that was the only time the message flow slowed down. Now I can work with proper focus.
I also have much more time to enhance the guest experience. For example, if a guest is celebrating a birthday, I can now always prepare a small surprise in the room.
In general, I can anticipate maintenance needs and supervise cleaning companies more carefully. Ultimately, Smartchat is a service I would recommend to anyone doing my job.”
Homekeepers
It’s really the mix of everything—but the support makes the difference. Whenever we need something, we get a quick and reliable response.
Rome Estate
Smartpms saves us two days of work each month, while Smartchat Ultra has solved our customer service issues: it handles over 200 interactions a day, on its own.