Air BnB - Lowering of Standards?

Eamon3
Level 2
Dublin, Ireland

Air BnB - Lowering of Standards?

This is a piece I wrote to Air BnB two days ago and I still have not had a support person contact me directly.  Does anyone else believe there has been a general lowering of standards in Air BnB in recent years, at least in the support the claim to offer to Hosts and Superhosts?

 

I am afraid I am having a 2nd difficulty with Air BNB, the second in about a week. I have gone years having received excellent service from Air BnB but recently I (a Superhost) am getting the impression that you are letting your standards drop. Let me explain by outlining two issues that have never happened to me before in my nine years as a host.

1. Last week (and you do not need to address this anymore as I have accepted that I am not going to get an answer to my issue) I reported to Air BnB that a booking I have for XXXX XXXXXX in Bedsit 4 for 15th to 27th of May, is showing up on XXXX’s message page as a booking for Bedsit 3 with “Request Withdrawn” notice up top. She initially booked Bedsit 3 and changed to Bedsit X.  After reporting the problem to Air BnB support and engaging with them, many of the details of her Bedsit 4 booking are not visible to me.

2. Now today Ap 11th) I have received a request from XXXXXX for Bedsit X for the 14th to the 19th of July. However, if you look at my reservations for Bedsits X/X/X you will see that I am fully booked for those dates. How is this happening?  I understood it was impossible for a guest to request a reservation if the dates were already booked.

3. A small thing, in the last 10 mins I have received a request from K for Bedsit X. Before I accepted the reservation, K's photo was already showing in K’s Air BnB message page. I understood that all images are withheld until a reservation has been accepted.

4. I will also add that your support people are taking far too long to respond to issues raised by hosts, way longer than you used to. My experience is that I get no response for about 24 hours. (I am now waiting c. 48 hrs for a response to this message)  Then the support people who are answering, are giving very vague answers and in reality seem frightened to address the issues directly and give answers that make sense.  Their manner comes across as being over effusive to the extent that you know it is not genuine.  But perhaps this is a cultural issue.

That’s it for now. I hope you can see why I am concluding that your Air BnB standards are dropping. Is there a need for Air BnB to do a review of these very unusual issues arising on the Air BnB booking platform? Superhost

2 Replies 2
Fred13
Level 10
Placencia, Belize

"..Let me explain by outlining two issues that have never happened to me before in my nine years as a host. " Perhaps the recent confusion is indeed a fluke, considering they only happened in the last week. I have heard they are fiercely working on improvements to their software and some very cool changes are coming.

 

Your story makes a perfect candidate for what I would love to see them add to their web site - Host & Guests Stories; examples of the personal opportunities that Airbnb has created for the personal life of people throughout the world because of the concentrated impact of their marketing success.

Pat271
Level 10
Greenville, SC

I do think that the model for running the CS business has changed over the last few years. I found the following description of the way CS is run now quite illuminating:

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help-with-your-business/Who-are-our-CS-agents-and-what-do-they-h...