Catherine’s Host Update: Upgrades to Community Support

[Catherine-Powell]

 

Hi everyone,

I’m thrilled to be sharing this Host Update with you, which has exciting news about how we’re up-leveling our Community Support team and policies. 

Some of the top concerns you’ve shared over the past year include having difficulty reaching an Airbnb Support Ambassador, and then not receiving a tailored response to your individual situation or the follow through you needed.

Because of your feedback, our Head of Global Operations, Tara Bunch, and VP of Community Support, Brent Potts, are rolling out major improvements to Community Support and significantly increasing the size of our support team around the world. This will ensure that we can respond to your situation quickly and thoroughly. 

We’re focusing on more personalized and empathetic responses to the experiences you report to us. This is so important. Every circumstance is different, and the team is going to work with you to better understand what you’re facing and then resolve it. We’re also simplifying Host and guest policies to better manage your expectations, and offering personalized “Smart Solutions” in the Help Center. 

And starting in North America on September 30, 2021, we’re rolling out Dedicated Superhost Support. This program will continue rolling out globally throughout 2021 and will offer you exclusive access to tenured Support Ambassadors who can handle situations efficiently. 

As always, thank you for sharing the topics that matter to you.

I’ll be in touch again soon with more news! 

All my best,

Catherine

[Mariya24]

I had numerous attempts to get Airbnb to undo wrongdoing. I lost the count already of my attempts ... Last attempt was a few days ago. First disputed review is from December of 2019, so for over 1.5 years of bagging them to remove a bully’s comments from Airbnb social media platform.... All they do is sending me a link with their “review policy”. But the fact that the above mentioned reviews are retaliation by law-disrespecting guests is totally ignored by Airbnb. All the facts were presented to the cases managers and they do have a record of Safety department involvement and actions taken against those guests ... but since one department doesn’t know what the other department is doing or saying, they (Airbnb) let bulling be a very powerful tool in keeping hosts terrified and abused by lawbreaking guests. 

[Josimar5]

Essas atualizações são ótimas !!! 

[Marg11]

@Catherine-Powell Catherine,

Generally, we have had great support but it took time to establish what was the actual situation.

Trust the new system will help all hosts and their guests.

[Catherine-Powell]

Thank you for your feedback, @Marg11. Yes, this is what we are aiming for with the improvements we are making.

Please continue to share your insights with us here in the Community as we use them to shape how we make changes!

[Chris13041]

Wow!   It is truly amazing to me to see so many stories of distress raised by hosts with ZERO replies from the Airbnb moderators.   It certainly furthers the position that many of us hosts have that Airbnb simply does not care about its hosts.   It is completely biased in favor of the guests, yet without hosts, you have no business.   Really amazing.

If anyone out there is interested in forming an association of hosts with the intention of applying real pressure to Airbnb to reform the way they treat their hosts, count me in.   I would gladly pay a fee to help with the administrative costs that would undoubtably occur.

Shame on you Catherine.

[Sarah977]

@Chris13041  You are unclear on what the moderators' role is here. They aren't Airbnb representatives. They work for a company that is contracted to Airbnb to provide moderating services for this forum. They keep the forum running smoothly, remove offensive (i.e. discriminatory, profane, etc) posts, start topics they feel would lead to interesting discussions, etc. Sometimes they nicely offer to jog someone's issue, that Airbnb support is ignoring. It isn't their job to answer posts or personally address issues. They are like facilitators for support groups- they keep the meeting running smoothly, make sure personal attacks aren't made, keep conversations on track.

Catherine Powell is a different story. She is head of hosting, and what she actually does behind the scenes is a mystery, as things have only gotten progressively worse for hosts. And all she seems to think is necessary for us to have confidence that she is working on our behalf is post feel-good videos and occasionally pop in to give some placating response to a month old post. 

[Chris13041]

Thank you for that clarification Sarah, but I do understand the role of the moderators.   My message wasn't directed at them.

There is nothing that says that Catherine or other members of the Airbnb leadership team cannot respond to posts.   In fact it is shocking to me that they don't (I work for a fortune 100 company and a post by a partner on an independent blog spun up a giant effort to resolve very valid concerns raised by a single individual - but were true for thousands of others) .  The stories shared here are truly outrageous and I have to believe every host has at least one that is similar, I know I do.

I truly wonder if hosts should bond together by forming an association.   Even if only 50% of hosts were participants, the threat of withholding our property unless we saw real reforms would send a message that we can't seem to get across on our own or via posting sites like this.

[Sarah977]

@Chris13041  "even if only 50% of hosts..."

Not sure what the current number is, but in 2019, there were 2.9 million hosts. If you want to try to organize a million and a half hosts, go for it, I certainly wouldn't stand in your way 🙂 

[Chris13041]

@Sarah977 - my apologies.   I mistakenly thought this was a good place to join the chorus of people who have significant concerns with Airbnb and offer ideas of how to make things better.    I won't make that mistake again.

[Sarah977]

@Chris13041  Wow. You took my post in a way it wasn't intended. Of course it's a place to voice concerns and offer suggestions. I'm just a pragmatic person and have been participating in this forum for a long time. I have seen thousands of hosts voice excellent suggestions, but Airbnb takes no notice. We can be supportive of each other here, which is great, but it's like we are shouting into an abyss.

Don't you think that organizing a million and a half hosts to form some kind of union would be a daunting task? If you can come up with a way to do that, more power to you. I'm in. That's all I was saying, not disagreeing with your sentiments.

[Amy76]

@Sarah977 I don't think she misunderstood your message... I took it the same way. If you truly were encouraging her that could have been said in a supportive tone instead of suggesting it's a "daunting task" & "you wouldn't stand in her way"?

[Chris13041]

@Sarah997, @Amy76 - My point in making the suggestion was simply that it is time to do something different.   To your point Sarah, Airbnb simply doesn't seem to care about the hassles faced by its hosts, other than to trot out some new person to serve up lukewarm platitudes, or dish up some items in their "100 improvements" that will actually make little difference.

Would attempting to organize 3M hosts be a daunting task?   Absolutely!   Is it something I can take on?   Doubtful,  but I am thinking about it.   Is it something that would get Airbnb's attention?   Most certainly!!

I am not a union-type person, but I know the history.   They formed in the late 1800's as a way for workers to force companies to improve working conditions and safety.   Individually, they were powerless, but as a group, they forced change.   

Airbnb hosts need to do the same.   Perhaps we don't have to form an association, but some level of organization is needed to drive home the messaging.   My hope in posting here is that someone might say, "you know, organizing is a tough task, but we could accomplish the same thing some other way (social media?).  Who wants to help?"   Or something like that.

I already have the name:   Short-Term Rental Association of Hosts - STRAH.   Like the STRAH that broke Airbnb's back.   And by the way, I don't want to see Airbnb broken - I just want them to treat hosts with respect and recognize that without our hundreds of billions of dollars of investments in property (yes, I said billions), they wouldn't be worth a dime.

[Zephyr0]

There needs to be more oversight over the support team and more education. Also not all of these agents have reliable internet.

[Tim-and-Kari0]

Or phones that work - what a joke

[Jorge31]

Just please make it easier and straightforward to reach someone from CS on the phone. I do not want my problem addressed in a hosts forum but by airbnb staff that can do something about it - fast. Thank you!