Hospitality, group sales and guest inquiries · Email

Cold email opened group business for a hotel in Bansko, and a reservations agent answers guests in seconds

Hotel Pirin SKI & SPA is a 4 star, 68 room hotel in the centre of Bansko. From 22 July 2026 Sellinger ran two agents from the hotel's sales mailbox: one wrote cold email to companies and organisations, the other answered guests who wrote in. Five companies can be traced from a dated letter to a reservation. The owner closed every deal.

Related party

Hotel Pirin is owned by a co-founder of Sellinger. Sellinger runs these agents on its own hotel, and many of the replies in these threads are the owner's. Read this as an operator's own results, not as the results of an independent customer.

Client: Hotel Pirin SKI & SPA, Bansko
Channel: Email, plus Messenger and WhatsApp for guests who write first
Window: B2B email from 22 July 2026, guest threads from 1 June 2026
Data as of: 11 October 2026
Written by: Asen Levov
Reviewed by: Viktorio Shopov

B2B contacts reached by email, 22 July to 11 October 2026 (bounces excluded)

replied, 3.0%: a human reply in the thread; refusals count, auto replies do not

concrete group inquiries, with dates or a headcount

3 + 2

companies traced from a dated letter to a reservation: 3 confirmed, 2 pending. Pending is not counted as won

In short

The agent sent every letter and follow up: short Bulgarian letters with one offer and one question, “reply with dates and headcount”. Until mid August it wrote each letter. From late August it sent templates the owner approved, word for word.
Of the 23 concrete group inquiries, 13 answered the first letter. The last note in the sequence produced 4 inquiries, and one of them, forwarded inside a company, became a confirmed booking.
The reservations agent answered guests in a median of 41 seconds. After a rule to quote as soon as it had dates and party, the share of its replies that carried a price went from 50% to 92%. People, not the agent, closed most bookings. The agent created no reservation.

11 min read

The key numbers, with their bases

Every number below states what it counts. Contacts, companies, threads and guests are never mixed in one sentence.

Hotel Pirin, data to 11 October 2026

Number	What it is
5,499	B2B contacts reached by email, 22 July to 11 October 2026 (bounces excluded)
163	replied, 3.0% (a human reply in the thread; refusals count, auto replies do not)
23	concrete group inquiries, with dates or a headcount
5	companies linked from a dated letter to a reservation: 4 traced on the thread, 1 probable
3 confirmed, 2 pending	the 2 pending groups are not counted as won
106	room nights confirmed across the 3 confirmed companies (5 reservations, 73 guests); 56 room nights and 54 guests without the one probable link
41 s	median time to the agent's first reply to a guest, over 54 guest inquiries
0	reservations created by the agent itself

A 68 room hotel with two jobs for an agent

A mountain hotel has two sales problems at different speeds. Group business, such as team offsites, trainings, annual meetings, Christmas parties, January kick offs and winter camps, has to be found one company at a time. Guest inquiries from families and couples arrive at any hour and go cold quickly. Every stay includes half board and spa. Sellinger ran one agent for each job.

Group sales by cold email. The agent wrote to HR and office managers, Bulgarian companies, schools, event agencies and associations. In October it also wrote to companies in North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Albania. Offers followed the season: an autumn offsite from July, then Christmas parties and January kick offs from late September.
A reservations agent. It answers new guests by email, and from 24 September on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, in the guest's language. It quotes from the hotel's live availability system or, when that check fails, from the official rate card. WhatsApp ran through a connected WhatsApp account, not the WhatsApp Business API, and was used only to answer guests who wrote first.
The owner closes. Replies go to the owner and an AI assisted reply desk, which is his own workflow outside Sellinger. He negotiates and closes every group deal. Groups, agencies and Booking.com messages go to staff by design.

LinkedIn was also tried, with 872 office managers. It is covered under what did not work.

The playbook: one offer, one question, and a last note that can be forwarded

The letter was Bulgarian, three to six sentences: who we are (Hotel Pirin in Bansko, about two hours from Sofia), one offer (half board and spa, and a free conference room for groups), a personal line or a template, and one question: reply with your dates and headcount.

Day 0
First letter
Who we are, one offer, one question.
Follow up 1
A new angle
In July it asked permission to send the presentation. From late August it gave a reason to act now: the cost of a 20 person offsite worked out, or “December dates are filling”.
Follow up 2
The last note
“I don't want to be a bother, so this is my last note on this topic.” It restated one offer and asked for two facts: period and headcount.
Any reply
The owner or his reply desk
Offers dates and rooms, by email or phone.

Two rules were learned the hard way. First, one figure per offer in every letter. Second, the last note should stand on its own, so that it can be forwarded to the person who books.

5,499 contacts, 163 replies, 23 group inquiries, 5 companies with a reservation

Every reply was read. Most were polite: “not now”, “already organised”, “we’ll keep your contact”. Group inquiries and reply types come from a separate hand read of the first replies, on a slightly narrower base of 5,190 contacts.

What the 138 human replies said

First reply type	Count
Not now, or already organised	54
Concrete group inquiry	23
Forwarded to a colleague	17
Asked for information	17
Stop or complaint	11
Pitched their own service	10

Six other replies are not shown.

Who we wrote to, and what came back

Audience	Contacts	Replied	Reply rate	Companies with a reservation
HR and office managers, verified list, July	656	102	15.5%	1 confirmed
Bulgarian companies, decision maker lists, August to October	1,395	25	1.8%	1 confirmed (probable link), 1 pending
Bulgarian companies, a second list in August, plus 13 ski clubs	452	14	3.1%	1 confirmed
Contacts who had written to the hotel before	54	5	9.3%	1 pending
Event agencies	35	6	17.1%	0
Schools	2,248	6	0.3%	0
Companies in North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Albania, October	649	5	0.8%	0
Travel operators	10	0	0%	0
All B2B contacts	5,499	163	3.0%	3 confirmed, 2 pending

HR and office managers sent the most replies, but most had no trip to plan right away. Event agencies replied at 17.1% and produced no reservation. Reply rate and reservations did not move together.

Which letter earned the first reply

Touch	Human replies	Concrete group inquiries
First letter	52	13
Follow up 1	64	5
Follow up 2, the last note	16	4
Follow up 3 or later	6	1
All	138	23

The first letter found the need. Follow up 1 drew the most replies, but mostly polite ones. The last note drew fewer replies and 4 inquiries. Seventeen replies forwarded the letter to a colleague. After a group inquiry, the owner or his reply desk quoted within 1 hour to 2 days.

The five companies

Company	First letter	What happened	Status	Room nights	Guests
Food and drink company, Bulgaria	26 Aug, owner approved template, autumn offsite	Replied 4 days later with three possible dates for 25 to 30 people. The reply desk confirmed and quoted the same evening. Two team offsites and a short stay followed.	Confirmed: 3 reservations, deposits received on two	36	24, 12 and 5
Accounting firm, Sofia	27 Jul, written by the agent, then 2 follow ups	The last note was forwarded internally. The office manager wrote 9 days later and booked 3 days after that.	Confirmed: deposit paid	20	13
Software company	24 Jul and 25 Aug, to two employees: written by the agent, then a template	Neither replied. A third employee booked with the owner by chat, and the booking note names the offsite campaign.	Confirmed: paid in full. Link rated probable	50	19
Youth wing of a national association	12 Aug, written by the agent	Replied 14 minutes later about a winter camp. The board approved the stay on 30 September.	Pending: agreement sent, not signed, nothing paid	159	about 105
Engineering consultancy	2 Oct, owner approved template, January kick off	Replied 2 hours later about a December weekend. Rooms are held for a company party.	Pending: option, deposit due 16 October	52	about 60

Confirmed: 106 room nights and 73 guests in 5 reservations. Pending: 211 room nights and about 165 guests for 2 groups, not counted as won. From first letter to reservation took 4 to 61 days. The owner negotiated and closed 5 of 5.

What the agent did: ran the outbound, meaning the sending, the sequences and the follow ups, in Bulgarian, with one offer and one question. Its letters opened four of the five conversations. In the fifth they reached two colleagues of the person who booked. What the owner and his reply desk did: negotiated every deal, offered dates and rooms, sent proformas and held rooms. The agent opened doors. The owner closed.

A weak check on attribution. The same matching found a reservation at 6 of 2,806 contacted company domains over these months, and at 0 of 3,572 domains that were never contacted. This is a weak check, not a causal estimate.

Inside one chain: an accounting firm books a 13 person offsite

Translated from Bulgarian and condensed. The agent wrote the first letter and follow up 1. The last note was the owner's template.

Day 0
First letter
The agent opens on the company: companies like yours often look for a place for team building, trainings or annual meetings.
Day 22
Follow up 1
Written by the agent, it asks permission: “If the topic is relevant, I can send our presentation with details. Or tell me it isn't, and I won't write again.”
Day 49
The last note
The owner's template, sent by the agent, closes the topic: “I don't want to be a bother, so this is my last note on this topic. [...] A reply with period and headcount is all I need.”
Day 53
Forwarded
The contact forwards the last note to a colleague.
Day 58
A reply
The office manager writes: “Yes, we would like to visit your hotel.” She gives the nights and the headcount: 12 people, only one couple sharing.
Within the hour
Quote and hold
The reply desk confirms the dates, sends the full calculation and holds the rooms.
13 minutes later
A fair question
The office manager asks why the quote differs from the letter. The template had carried a different figure than the first letter. Four minutes later the desk corrected the quote in her favour.
Day 61 and Day 66
Confirmed
The managers agree and ask for a proforma to pay half. A colleague joins and the party is confirmed at 13 guests and 10 rooms for 2 nights.

Why it worked: the last note was a self contained offer that could travel to the person who books, and the owner had a proforma out within three days.

The reservations agent: a median of 41 seconds, and a price in 92% of replies

From 22 July the agent answered new guests by email, and from 24 September on Messenger and WhatsApp.

Speed and reach of the reservations agent

Measure	Result
Threads in the guest inbox, read by hand	473
Leisure guests who asked about a new stay	63
Median first reply, 54 guest inquiries	41 s (Messenger 12 s, email 49 s)
Slowest first reply	83 s
Agent answers to a guest within 2 minutes	122 of 123
Median first reply: agent answered first (53 threads) against staff answered first (10 threads)	0.7 min against 159 min. Not a like for like race: staff answered first only where the agent had not
Inquiries in a language other than Bulgarian	22 of 54 (English 15, Macedonian 5, Serbian 1, Russian 1)

Guests who wrote at 00:16 and 23:01 had an answer in 49 and 56 seconds.

Quote, don't stall. On 24 September the agent was told to quote as soon as it had the dates and the party. Before the rule, families with two or more children were handed to “a colleague who will send an offer”, and those offers took from 3 hours to 7 days.

Before and after the quote rule of 24 September

Measure	Before 24 Sep	After 24 Sep
A price in the agent's reply	50% (9 of 18)	92% (33 of 36)
Relevance, scored 1 to 5	3.73	4.33
Next step clarity, scored 1 to 5	2.82	3.95

Scores cover 22 and 43 scored replies. Where dates or ages were missing, the first reply asked for them. A quote follows fixed rules: the total for the stay, what is included, how children are priced, the deposit, the cancellation terms and a way to book. The agent checked live availability in 30 of the 54 guest threads. In 5 of those the check failed and the agent priced from the rate card. We recomputed all 5 totals and they matched the card, though one missed a 3 night discount.

Groups, agencies and Booking.com messages go to staff: staff answered first on 54 of 57 group and agency threads.

Who booked. Of the 63 leisure guests, 8 booked.

Leisure guests by who replied first

First reply by	Guests	Booked	Reservations
The agent, no staff before the booking	32	2	2
The agent, then staff or the owner	20	4	5
Staff only	10	2	3
Nobody	1	0	0

Seven reservations followed an agent's first reply. At the final step, 2 were made on the hotel website at the exact rate the agent had quoted, 1 was made on Booking.com 22 minutes later, and 4 were closed by staff, the owner or the reply desk. This is not a causal comparison: staff join threads that already look promising, and most agent only threads are Facebook chats that staff never see.

What to claim, and what not to. The agent answers guests in under a minute, day and night, and quotes as soon as it has the dates and the party. It did not close bookings on its own.

What did not work

Groups still need a human fast. Staff answered group requests in a median of almost 4 hours across 18 threads. After a guest was handed over to staff, the wait ran from 3 hours to 14 days. A handoff needs an alert and a clock.
Two figures in one sequence. In one sequence the first letter and the last note quoted different figures. The recipient noticed, and the reply desk corrected the quote in her favour.
Schools in summer. 2,248 school contacts gave 6 replies. Letters went out in summer, often to general inboxes.
LinkedIn. 872 office managers gave 487 replies and 25 contact handovers. No booking was traced.
Some groups cannot be hosted. A group of 250 to 1,100 people is more than a 68 room hotel can take. Other honest refusals were “we only do events in Sofia” and “too far”.
Pending is not won. Two groups together represent 211 room nights, and neither is counted until it is confirmed.

In their words

Replies were in Bulgarian and are translated. Prospects and guests are described by role and sector only.

“[...] I'm keeping your contacts because you sparked our interest.”
HR specialist at a national retail chain, replying to a follow up from the agent

“Thank you for the offer, which is definitely attractive.”
Managing director, engineering consultancy, replying to the January template letter

“Yes, we would like to visit your hotel.”
Office manager, accounting firm in Sofia, after the last note was forwarded

“Thank you for the information, it came at exactly the right time.”
Training organiser at a Bulgarian NGO, replying to a letter from the agent

“Thank you very much for your prompt reply and for providing such detailed information and pricing.”
Father planning a January ski week, Western Balkans

What made it work

1
Short letters, one offer, one question. “Reply with dates and headcount” is easy to answer and easy to forward.
2
The first letter finds the need. 13 of 23 concrete group inquiries answered it. Follow ups mostly earned politeness.
3
Make the last note forwardable. One offer and a two fact ask reached the office manager who booked 13 guests.
4
Let the owner close groups. All five deals were negotiated by the owner and his reply desk. The first quote came 1 hour to 2 days after the inquiry.
5
Answer guests while they are still in the inbox. A median first reply of 41 seconds, and a quote with the full terms in 33 of 36 inquiries once the agent was told to quote, not stall.
6
Use one figure per offer in every letter. Two figures in one sequence cost a correction.
7
Put a clock on every handoff to a person. The agent is faster than the handoff.

How we measured this

Source. Sellinger production data and the hotel's own property management system, read only, snapshot 11 October 2026. B2B email from 22 July 2026. Guest threads from 1 June 2026.
Contacts reached are B2B contacts who received at least one letter from the agent, bounces excluded (5,499). An early booking mailing to guests (819 addresses) is not counted.
Replied means a human reply in the thread. Refusals count. Auto replies do not.
Group inquiries, reply types and touches come from a separate hand read on a slightly narrower base of 5,190 contacts.
Letters. Written by the agent for each recipient until mid August. From 24 August, owner approved templates sent word for word.
Reply desk. The owner's own workflow outside Sellinger: replies, quotes and room holds drafted with AI tools and supervised by him. Until late September the agent also answered some B2B replies. It negotiated none of the five deals.
A company is credited only when a dated letter the agent sent, its own or a template, precedes a reservation for the same company within 120 days, matched on email, domain, phone or a quoted reference and read by hand. Name only matches were not credited. Four chains are traced on the thread. The software company is rated probable: two employees got the letters and the booking note names the campaign, but the first contact was a chat with the owner.
Not credited: a multinational firm whose emailed employees never replied before a colleague booked, and agency or tour operator groups, which are the hotel's own relationships.
Pending means a reservation exists but is neither confirmed nor paid, re checked in the property management system on 11 October 2026. Pending deals are not counted as won.
Speed. 41 s is the median over 54 guest inquiries the agent handled. The system join gives 0.7 minutes over the 53 leisure threads it answered first. The agent created no reservation: the system log shows every booking entered by staff, the website, an online travel agency or the reply desk.
Quality scores rate 65 agent replies against the rules in force at the time.
Not claimed: revenue, prices, templates as the agent's own writing, or deals closed by the agent. No prices, rates or revenue are shown. This study makes no claim about how opt outs were handled.
Conversations were mostly in Bulgarian and are translated. Transcripts are condensed and cuts are marked [...]. Guests and prospects are anonymised and companies are described, not named. This page has no illustration.