Customer service updates, payments, and more in the latest Host Update with Catherine Powell

[Airbnb]

The past few months have been a tough time for all of us, especially hosts and guests. We’ve been listening closely to your feedback in all its forms and working tirelessly to create solutions because we know that encountering delays—especially when it comes to customer service or payments—is incredibly frustrating. 

In the latest Host Update, Catherine Powell sits down with Tara Bunch, our new Global Head of Operations, to offer transparency about how we’re strengthening our customer service team and to explain more about our payment process for hosts. Once you’ve watched the video, we’d really love to hear from you. Please let us know what you’d like covered in future Host Updates with Catherine. As always, thank you for sharing the topics that matter to you.

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[Silvia1823]

@Catherine-Powell  Hello Catherine,

I really hope Airbnb will reset soon. Airbnb was once hands down the most modern, hip user friendly experience. One always felt supported wether as a traveler or host. To that point my confidence in the company was so great that I purchased a property with a guest house for hosting. 

My partner and I are in the bar business in Los Angeles. As super hosts who’s careers and businesses have been paused due to Los Angeles closing our Bars and Restaurants @Airbnb  has a been a crucial source of income.

LA has also essentially closed our Home Sharing office... we applied for renewal of our short term home sharing license and now wait in limbo ... the Home  Sharing web sight assured us that renewal is not necessary at this time due to the shut down ... however Airbnb won’t lift the restriction placed on our calendar ... speaking with Airbnb customer service is impossible... email response can be 24-48 hours...  and sadly we connect with someone outsourced in a different time zone who does not have the authority to make the changes on our restrictions....please please hire quickly clear these glitches in the requirements until the pandemic is over... the level of anxiety for those of us at the mercy of government systems is heightened immensely by the lack of  support by Airbnb the business we partnered with based  on confidence in the service , support , structure that was once a proven. Please again help your customer/ business partners your Hosts... 

Respectfully 

Silvia Gallo 

[Katie]

Hi @Silvia1823, welcome to the CC, and I'm sorry to hear about the issue you've had here. I've just sent you a DM, so please take a look when you get the chance 😊

[Del2]

Hello Catherine. I just watched your video so I am reaching out as you suggested. Congrats.

Here is what you need to know so you can fix it. The Customer Service has fallen off the cliff. Took 4 months to resolve a very simple issue from late May to Sept.  I told them specifically what they needed to do because I am on a Superhost forum with San Francisco hosts and many had the same thing happen when we were required to re-register by the city. Upon city approval had to put in a new Registration number and expiration date, but were blocked on the ABB site from doing so, thus listing is expired and thus about to be dropped. Customer Service tells me they will help, then they usually say they are leaving work and have a few days off, then close the case. I probably had this happen with 5 cs reps for same issue.  Many, many hours spent (e-mails and calls) with multiple people for something that maybe should take 5 or 10 minutes tops to resolve, since it has been done before and is a minor fix. Seems like Customer Service is motivated to close cases without resolving them. Very frustrating. They often say "I see your case has been resolved" when it has not, then close it. The lack of efficiency is losing good will and costing Airbnb so much more in time and money than resolving it would in the first place. I estimate 10x time was spent verses someone just following through 😞

I assume Airbnb would like to save money, this is how.

EVERY Superhost on my forum says the same thing about Customer Service so we hope you are listening?

Now I have entered Airbnb customer service limbo once again and I am asking for YOUR help.

Sept 26 Mykell made a same day reservation and canceled it within hours and never stayed. Why would you let him do a review when he did not stay? That is not the policy.  He texted dozens of times, I wouldn't give him the code until check-in time because he wanted to check in early morning right away (we had a guest there) but never confirmed with me in advance. He probably wrote a bad review after I've been a super-host for five years consecutive. He will certainly give no stars because it was a very odd interaction.

PLEASE Remove his review now and confirm. 3 days left before the 14 day time period is up.

Customer Service has escalated the case, closed the case, and not followed up...as usual.

Help. I do not want to risk my status over one guest who never stayed here-and it goes against your own policy.

I look forward to you resolving this and not having to open the case yet again.

Sincerely,

Del

[Katie]

Hi @Del2, thanks for getting involved and posting here on the CC, and I'm really sorry to hear about the issues you've had with Support. In terms of the case around the review that you mention, I've just had an update on this so will send you a DM now 😊

[Sarah-Jane16]

@Catherine-Powell I welcome this news, but in the meantime I have been waiting for A WEEK and several messages after being put through to Airbnb Support to deal with a £1300 refund for a guest which I'm not able to put through. It is poor when Airbnb's bad customer service is having a ...what's the opposite of halo effect? - detrimental impact on our own reputations as service providers. Once again it feels like I'm having to do your job for you whilst you're holding onto my guest's money and making interest on it. It's scandalous tbh.

[Katie]

Hi @Sarah-Jane16, welcome to the Community Center, and I'm sorry to hear about the issue you've had with this refund. I've just had a message from the team about your case, so I will send you a DM with some more info.

[Sarah977]

@Catherine-Powell  It's all very nice that you are assuring us that all these things will be dealt with, but you need to understand that we've all heard these placating words before. We get our hopes up that important changes will be made, yet nothing changes for the betterment of hosts.

Two and a half years ago, when Laura took over as head of hosting, she asked me if I would be interested in a phone call with her to discuss host issues. I said I certainly would, and we had a very friendly one hour conversation. I brought up the following things:

That Airbnb is constantly changing things on our hosting pages, with no input or notification, so one day we just find it all changed around and have to spend hours trying to find out where they have now hidden things (it's never intuitive to anyone but the programmer). Laura agreed that this was disrespectful to hosts and needed to change. Yet it's still going on unabated. The recent revamp to the dashboard is a prime example- hosts could no longer find the info that was most important to them, and there was a bunch of info that most hosts don't find valuable at all. It took me ages to find the old calendar view, which is the only one that makes sense to me.

Not only should changes be made on the advice of hosts,  rather than Airbnb employees, when things are changed, there needs to be clear instructions provided on where to find the features we use all the time.

And there is no need whatsoever to change things simply for the sake of change. I'm sure there's plenty of ongoing glitches for the techies to work on instead of wasting time changing things that work perfectly well the way they are.

Reviews: We discussed the fact that outlier reviews should not be allowed to stand. When a host has pages of 5*, glowing reviews from their guests, a 1* review full of bogus complaints that the past 70 guests haven't mentioned, should not be characterized by Airbnb as "a reflection of the guest's experience" because it isn't- it's a reflection of the guest's nasty nature or the fact that they got their knickers in a knot over being taken to task for breaking house rules, showing up with unbooked guests and being asked to pay for them, etc.

When a host contacts Airbnb about a retaliatory review that is obviously at odds with all their other reviews, Airbnb needs to show respect for the host, compare that review and rating to what the host normally gets and acknowledge that yes, some guests do lie, and remove the review and rating. It's insane that Superhosts who've held that status for years can lose it because of one horrible guest with a axe to grind. 

Laura and I touched on many other subjects during that phone call and she agreed that my points were valid and that those things needed to change. But NOTHING, and I mean literally nothing we discussed has ever been changed for the better.

I was one of Laura's biggest defenders, telling other hosts who were dubious that we needed to give her a chance, but my trust was ill-placed. I really hope you can do better and be a true advocate for hosts.

And please, if you truly want to be transparent, don't do things like say the payout issues aren't widespread. There are literally hundreds of hosts posting here (and this is just the English language forum, I'm sure the other language forums show much the same) that they haven't been paid for  completed reservations, some dating back to January. Airbnb appears to be sitting on something like a million dollars of funds owed to hosts. We aren't stupid or gullible, so please don't talk to us as if we are. There's far more going on there than a few payout glitches. You may not be at liberty to tell us what, perhaps you don't even know, but please don't offer us placating lame excuses. We've really had more than enough of that.

[Catherine-Powell]

Thanks for sharing your perspective @Sarah977. I agree with many of the points you make.

I can only continue to reiterate that we are taking these comments on board, and working towards changing things, starting with what we see as most pertinant to hosts. As I have said to others, change takes time, but I will continue to provide these updates, to share what we are working on, highlighting the key decisions which have been made which will affect hosts. I know we need to build that trust back up in our relationship with hosts.

In terms of the missing payouts, I can understand that it seems like a lot of people have been affected, especially when seeing the reports from host communities, both here and in other channels. But as a proportion of our hosts, it is only a small percentage. That said, missing payments is a very serious problem, no matter the volume. @Tara-Bunch and I continue to work with our teams to urgently resolve current issues and to try to prevent future ones.

Thanks again for your time and thoughts here, and I look forward to showing you some progress on some of these issues in the next few months.

Best, Catherine

[Sarah977]

@Catherine-Powell  Thank you for your response.

Here is a strong suggestion as to how to revamp CS so it is efficient and much more appropriately responsive to issues. I think all hosts, as well as guests, would be onboard with this.

Have a central switchboard which immediately directs the call or message to the appropriate team. If it's a phone call- "Press 1 for reviews, press 2 for refunds, press 3 for cancellations" etc. If it's a message there could be appropriate check boxes that match those call options.

CS reps would be divided into teams which were thoroughly trained in only that one aspect of the platform. Fully cognizant of all the policies regarding that issue and how to deal with same. So when a user pressed 1, they would get a rep who knew everything there was to know about reviews, instead of the current system where a rep often doesn't know anything about how to deal with a particular issue, does things which contravene policy, or isn't even aware of all the policies surrounding it. Or they make a decision which is later overruled by another rep or a supervisor.

It's a lot to ask that every rep is fully informed and experienced about everything. So why do it that way? The newer reps, under the system I suggest, would be working on a specific team where they were learning from those who have been at it longer, and could be given the straightforward, uncomplicated cases, while they learned little by little how to deal with more involved issues.

I know you do have teams like tech, and trust and safety, but it needs to be broken down into finer categories. If each rep only had to learn about one type of issue, they would each be more efficient, users wouldn't end up frustrated and angry because the rep was clueless and knew less about Airbnb policy than the host, and it would require less training of staff for Airbnb, instead of expecting reps to deal with so many types of issues.

Also, the common practice of CS of simply sending a link to the Help pages without actually reading and comprehending what the user has submitted needs to stop. It's like they just skim the communication, pick out some key word, like "Reviews", then send a link that is useless, because it has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

I was having an issue that I messaged about and the reply made it quite clear that the rep hadn't read my message at all (this is more than common). She sent a link to the Help pages which not only didn't relate to what I had written, but was information for guests, when she could clearly see, if she had bothered to look, that I am a Superhost, not a guest, and my issue was a hosting issue. And most hosts would look at the Help section anyway, before bothering to spend time contacting CS, so sending links like that is rather insulting.

This sort of nonsense means Airbnb is paying staff for totally wasted time. Efficiency isn't dashing off a useless reply, meaning the rep has then another user message to deal with saying 'that doesn't help me at all', efficiency is taking the time to read the message in the first place and respond appropriately.

I really hope you will seriously take these suggestions on board, and since you say Airbnb is currently hiring and training more staff, it wouldn't be at all difficult to implement such changes in the way CS works. 

It's just common sense that if all you have to learn to do is change your spark plugs, you're going to quickly become fast and competent at it, rather than having to learn how to fix anything that could possibly go wrong with your vehicle.

[Juzefa0]

ovori, airbnb kompanija, kotoraja berjot dengi u klientov i ne perevodit hozjaevam, ne otvechjajut na pisma, a dlja telefonnoj svjazi ne ukazivajut nomerov, obshenija 0, nikomu ne sovetuju s nimi rabotat inache poterjaete dengi i nervotrjopka.

[Aaron667]

@Catherine-Powell As an experienced superhost what I find unacceptably poor with the customer service at present is the lack of front line staff with the authority to make decisions that lead to speedy resolutions in instances that require a payout (Host Referrals / Airbnb Host Guarantee).

This is incredibly frustrating, especially when as a superhost you have emailed across/ logged a case via the site including all the evidence with a clear summary of what needs to happen in line with policy and then attempt to follow up with a call.

Instead you are signposted to poorly scripted chat bots and basic query handlers with no authority leading to redirection after redirection, broken promises of call backs and cases in the ether unless you are prepared to be tenacious and pester on every digital channel until your case is resolved and this is unacceptable. The dedicated superhost phone link on the website and via the app is also missing.

These areas should be prioritised as specialist queues / scripts with clear SLAs of a maximum of 4 hours as we are an integral part to the success of Airbnb. We are instead made to feel like an after thought.

[Rebecca912]

@Aaron667 That's exactly right. When you *do* get a hold of customer service these days, it's a 
"note taker" who will pass along your issues. Isn't that what me typing in the issue in the first place is for? The process these days for me has looked like: 

- submit a report online

- get a call 5-10 days later from someone who says they're a notetaker and want to learn more about the issue. So I repeat what I submitted.

- wait 10-30 days to get a message on the platform that they looked into the issue and can't help

- get a bot message asking if I still need help. 

It's ridiculous. 

[Catherine-Powell]

Hi @Aaron667  @Rebecca912  @Matthew1198 

Thanks for your feedback on your CS experiences here. We have heard about frustrations with our support service recently from many hosts and I understand that this has caused some issues.

Myself and @Tara-Bunch are working to improve this - In our latest Host Updates, Tara shared that we have recently hired 2,000 new support staff, who are currently being trained to deal with the most common queries we receive. This should ease the problems you mention, although this will take a little time. Our Support levels are still not where we want them to be, but we have shared the plans and timeline for getting it back on track, and I hope this gives you some insight into the improvements we are driving within this service.

Thanks, Catherine

[Matthew1198]

As a host, I have had horrible Customer Service through Airbnb. So much that I would be happy to host with another company instead. I’ve had some issues with reservations and customer service got back to me 3 days after the reservation ended. Phone support “was not able to answer” my questions.

Additionally, I’ve had a guest checkout over two hours late. This is hugely impacting the ability to thoroughly clean the space. The guest agreed to the late fee via messaging and its listed in my house rules... yet - Airbnb will not enforce collecting the late checkout fee. Why have house rules that Airbnb does not assist with. This does not provide me with much confidence that Airbnb supports their hosts when issues arise.

I am disappointed in the support provided by Airbnb to their hosts, especially those that are Super Hosts. We have spent much time providing clearly good experiences that ultimately help Airbnb... and our support is lacking. 

[Katie]

Hi @Matthew1198, I'm really sorry to hear about the issues you've had recently. I've just sent you a DM so please take a look when you get a minute 😊