Lesson 2: The four things every good instruction has
Vague instructions get vague proposals that you then have to fix. Almost every good instruction to Exubee has four parts. Remember them as Goal · Scope · Limit · Why.
The pattern
- Goal — the outcome you want. Suggest a price. Draft a campaign. Get rooms ready.
- Scope — which rooms, dates, people or guests. Deluxe rooms, this Friday and Saturday.
- Limit — the line not to cross, in numbers. Not above NPR 9,000. Email only. Before 2 pm.
- Why — the reason. A wedding in town. A slow midweek. A guest arriving early.
Goal, Scope and Limit make the proposal correct. Why is the part people skip, and it is the most useful: when you give reasons and then approve or edit, Stayantra learns your preferences and can turn a repeated one into a policy (Lesson 6).
Before and after
Pricing tab
Vague: "Raise prices."
Exubee has to guess which rooms, which nights, how far and why.
Clear: "There's a wedding in Riverside on Saturday and we're 80% booked. Suggest Deluxe and Suite prices for Friday and Saturday. Don't go above NPR 9,000 for Deluxe."
Goal (suggest prices), Scope (Deluxe and Suite, Friday and Saturday), Limit (Deluxe at most NPR 9,000), Why (a wedding, 80% booked).
Assistant tab (housekeeping)
Vague: "Clean the rooms."
Clear: "Emma Wilson arrives at 2 pm in room 204. Send housekeeping to clean 204 first, it's a checkout from this morning."
Marketing tab
Vague: "Make a post."
Clear: "Draft a Facebook and Instagram campaign for Dashain: 10% off stays of three nights or more booked before the festival, for families. Warm tone, one booking link."
Assistant tab (reports)
Vague: "How are we doing?"
Clear: "Show revenue and occupancy for September compared with August, and which channel brought the most bookings."
Ask for things Exubee can actually do
A good instruction asks for something Exubee has a tool for. "Keep three rooms free for walk-ins" sounds reasonable, but Exubee has no way to hold rooms back from sale. Ask instead for what it can do — a price, a task, a campaign, a report — and set standing rules as policies (Lesson 6).
Give it the file or the photo
You do not have to type everything. Click the paperclip to attach:
- a photo of a supplier receipt, and ask: "Record this receipt as an expense." (Assistant tab)
- a spreadsheet of competitor prices, and ask: "Read this and tell me where our Standard rate sits." (Pricing tab)
- a PDF of a wedding enquiry, and ask: "Draft a quote for this enquiry." (Events tab)
Or press the microphone and speak. Your words are typed out, so check them before you send.
You don't need all four every time
"Who is on duty right now?" is a perfect instruction. Use the pattern as a checklist when a proposal comes back wrong: most of the time a missing Limit or Why is the cause.