Hmlet Switched to Respond.io from Bird and Increased WhatsApp Conversion Rate 2.5x

Hmlet is a short-term rental business offering fully furnished rooms and apartments designed around customers’ budgets, length of stay and stage of life. It serves expats, international students and business travelers looking for flexible accommodation in Hong Kong and Singapore. Digital channels play an important role in generating inquiries, but as the business expanded its marketing, it needed a better way to separate serious prospects from irrelevant messages before they reached its sales team.

The problem: Poor lead qualification wasted sales’ time and limited marketing growth

As Hmlet scaled, qualifying high volumes of leads manually was a major challenge. It had invested significantly in a third-party vendor to build an AI solution that could qualify leads before passing them to sales, but the project failed to deliver results.

Without an effective way to filter inquiries, social campaigns generated a mix of genuine prospects, spam and messages unrelated to sales. The sales team frequently complained about the amount of time spent handling low-quality inquiries, making Hmlet hesitant to expand its advertising beyond channels such as Google Ads.

Hmlet previously managed WhatsApp conversations through Bird, but the platform did not have the mobile capabilities its sales team needed. Agents regularly leave the office to conduct property viewings, yet could only respond to customers from their laptops. This created delays when prospects were ready to move forward with a booking.

Bird’s customer support added another source of friction. When issues arose, the team had no direct access to human support, and had to submit support tickets and wait for slow email replies.

The respond.io solution: Qualify leads with AI before sales takes over

Hmlet chose respond.io as a customer conversation platform primarily to automate the lead qualification process it had previously struggled to implement. The platform also gave its sales team mobile access to conversations, brought multiple messaging channels into a centralized inbox and provided the flexibility to connect conversation data with its sales processes via Lifecycle tracking and CRM integration.

Respond.io provided a dedicated onboarding specialist for the first 30 days to get Hmlet set up for success. With this guidance, the business deployed AI Agents to handle the first stage of incoming conversations and determine whether an inquiry should be passed to sales.

AI Agents qualify leads and route inquiries to the right team

After qualifying the leads, the AI Agent routes genuine prospects to the sales team for residential inquiries or to a hotel agent for hotel-related inquiries. The AI Agent also filters spam and flags irrelevant messages so human agents stay focused on customers with genuine booking intent instead of wasting time sorting through messages.

The team was impressed with the quality and cost savings compared to Bird. Instead of rigid automation that asks qualifying questions in a fixed order, respond.io AI Agents naturally collect prospects’ information over chat based on a single set of instructions. While Bird’s automation relied on WhatsApp template messages which cost the business ~$350 per month in Meta fees, respond.io’s AI Agents reply instantly within the WhatsApp messaging window, significantly cutting down on these fees.

Mobile access keeps sales responsive during property viewings

Because Hmlet's sales agents frequently meet customers at properties for viewings, responding exclusively from a laptop at the office was impractical. The respond.io mobile app enables agents to reply to new inquiries and continue active sales conversations from anywhere. This reduced the previous reply lag and allows agents to keep deals moving while customer intent is still high.

Centralized channels, lifecycle tracking and CRM integration improve lead management

Respond.io’s centralized inbox enabled Hmlet to adopt more acquisition channels beyond WhatsApp, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook Messenger and WeChat. This gives its team a single place to manage inquiries as the business diversifies its marketing mix and has the confidence to launch ad campaigns on social media.

The company also uses respond.io’s Lifecycle feature to track prospects as they move through the sales process, including stages for qualified leads, confirmed move-in dates and contacts that stop replying. This gives agents clearer visibility into where each lead stands and what action should happen next.

Hmlet’s developers also connected respond.io with Pipedrive via Make so conversation and lead data can flow into its CRM, providing instant context for the sales team so they don’t need to switch platforms and keep leads waiting.

“What I really appreciate about respond.io is that the onboarding team actively encouraged us to try new capabilities. If we hadn't been pushed to explore AI Agents and other features, we would never have discovered how valuable they are.”

Angelina Liao, Marketing Manager at Hmlet

The results: 2.5x higher conversion rate as AI filters all spam and sales agents reply faster

Since moving from Bird’s ticket-based support and limited automation to respond.io’s guided onboarding and AI Agents, Hmlet has significantly improved how quickly it turns inquiries into customers.

With AI Agent lead qualification, 90% of irrelevant inquiries and spam are now filtered out automatically, allowing the sales team to spend more time with customers who have genuine booking intent. Access to the mobile app also enables sales to respond faster so leads don’t drop off. This has increased the conversion rate 2.5x.

A centralized inbox and better lead filtering across 5 channels also gave the marketing team confidence to expand beyond Google Ads and launch new campaigns on Facebook and TikTok, helping the company diversify its acquisition channels and increase leads.

Combined with mobile access for agents, centralized channel management and proactive onboarding and support, respond.io has given Hmlet a scalable way to turn digital inquiries into qualified sales opportunities.

Want to qualify leads automatically and help your sales team focus on high-intent prospects? Contact us for a free consultation today!