Updates to Community Support

[Aisling]

Hi everyone, 

I’m sorry I haven’t posted for a while. I know that recently we have been hard to get a hold of, so I wanted to give you all some context and update you on our future plans to maintain the level of service you expect from us.  

How we’re working through the pandemic

Like many of you, the last few months have been incredibly difficult for our team. At the end of April, we were down to 2 minute wait times for the majority of calls globally and were hopeful that we were over the worst of the storm. Unfortunately, we also had to take the difficult decision to reduce our Community Support workforce to reflect the decrease in bookings and contacts. 

In the meantime, the virus continued to spread, impacting our teams all over the world. Our Specialists have been required to continue working from home which, as you can imagine, creates technical challenges with phone service. Unfortunately, these shifts in how we can work have meant that only half of our team is able to take phone calls. 

This is why our wait times are much longer than our normal 30 seconds to 2 minutes. I know you expect more from us, and I’m sorry for the inconvenience this may be causing you. Do note that calls to our safety lines and neighbor support lines are still being answered within 30 seconds, so if you have any safety issues as a host or guest we are there for you immediately. 

Changes being made

• Enhancing our messaging channels. We are expanding access to realtime chat so you can reach us instantly and our messaging channel remains open as normal. 
• Preparing for when offices reopen. Reopening offices is a complex, location by location decision. The safety of our team members will always be most important. We’ll also consider factors such as the incidence of Covid-related cases in the area and government guidance.

I know many of you are worried about your reservations, whether you’re a host, guest, or both. We continue to monitor the global situation and are encouraged to see travel starting to come back in some countries. That said, the situation remains dynamic and challenging in many places with local governments updating their policies and restrictions daily. 

If you are in any doubt about a reservation, do check your Host dashboard or your Trips page, which provide a variety of options including how to cancel if you need to. We ask that guests work directly with their hosts if they may not be able to keep a reservation and encourage them to re-book with the host for a future date if possible. Some reservations are eligible to be canceled under our extenuating circumstances policy, so do check the Trips page for your options and our Extenuating Circumstances pages for more information

Again, I hope you are all keeping safe and well. 

Aisling

[Aisling]

Hello @Helen3  if you're using our app or desktop site you can access support by visiting our Help Centre. There you'll be given the opportunity to select what your issue is about. By doing that we can route you to the best channel and person who can help. Depending on the type of issue we will present the option of 'chat to us'. Here you can write your message and we will reply as soon as possible. We are also currently expanding the hours of operation and accessibility of chat. Hope this helps.

[Michelle53]

Just wanted to report that my request back on June 26th via Messaging for help extending a guest's stay was responded to this morning, July 17th.   21 days.   The guest checked out back on June 30th. 

[Huma0]

@Michelle53 

Same here. Last time I messaged Airbnb about an issue (payout not processing) it took three weeks before I got a response. By that time, I had already called, spoken to another rep and got the issue sorted.

[Michelle53]

As an update to this, I received a survey on the performance of the person who responded. What on earth could one say about it, since the response came 3 weeks too late, so I was in no position to assess the effectiveness of the rep ?

[Sarah977]

@Aisling  Good of you to provide an update, but 3 hour phone wait times and messages that don't get a response for weeks is simply unacceptable regardless of the challenges you face right now. 

The wait times you mention are not the reality of what users are reporting here.

Apparently Airbnb has sufficient staff to contact hosts and do virtual walk-throughs for verifying listings, yet not enough staff to answer guest and host issues.  You vastly reduced the size of your staff to save money, yet somehow had half a million dollars kicking around to donate to BLM for good press. Meanwhile you have terrible press all over the place because you can't put together decent CS and the site is full of ongoing glitches.

[Aisling]

Hi @Sarah977, thanks for your feedback on this. We're really sorry that those trying to get in touch are struggling to get through and having to wait. The main issue we have had here is the fact that many of our staff are unable to work in the same way from home with regards to responding to calls. As a result of this, from our data we have spotted that some community members are waiting much longer than others, but this is something we're working hard to resolve.

[Mark116]

@Sarah977  This has been the absolute worst of the unneeded updates, very glitchy and everything is super cluttered, it takes 3 or 4 clicks/screens to get what used to take 1 or 2 clicks, assuming it even exists and still works.  I really don't see how they can possibly be beta testing any of their changes.

[Aisling]

Hi @Mark116 , I am so sorry to hear this. I will pass along this feedback to the product team. If there is anything specific you would like to call out, please do pass along.

[Sarah977]

@Aisling  You also have to put an end to this business of hosts and guests being told they'll get a call-back or message response in XX hours or days- those promises are NEVER honored. So either get the CS reps to follow through on what they say, or tell them to stop lying. Incompetence and falsehoods are never acceptable.

[Aisling]

Hi @Sarah977, I am very sorry if our support ambassadors did not call back. This is something we absolutely reinforce as expected behaviour. We are launching some new tooling that will also help our managers to ensure that call backs happen in a timely way. As you can imagine, with our global operations pivoting to an at-home environment some of the normal management has been challenging. But we are on it.

[Stephanie365]

Sorry @Aisling , but this is yet another example of an agent for @Airbnb  offering false platitudes to hosts without AirBNB actually doing their job.  We call it "Failure to Perform" in legal terms.  And I have no doubt that you will even respond to what your hosts are saying. "Ignore them, they will give up eventually". Really, really bad business decisions on your part.

You are promptly addressing GUEST'S requests for refunds no matter what or why, but once again you're giving hosts the middle finger.

You are contracted to act on behalf of hosts AND guests, but you have a demonstrable pattern of only acting on behalf of the guest. Social media such as Facebook have THOUSANDS of posts where AirBNB has simply s#it on the host and bent over backwards for the guest.

You say you are working on the following: "Enhancing our messaging channels. We are expanding access to realtime chat so you can reach us instantly and our messaging channel remains open as normal."  I'm calling bulls#!t.  It's been over 48 hours since I have reached out through MULTIPLE messaging channels and I STILL have yet to hear one peep from AirBNB.  Meanwhile, in violation of my cancellation policy, you have just given my guest a full refund for a non-COVID cancellation AFTER the guest arrived.

AirBNB has a responsibility to hosts to act as a fiduciary for payments. This is a contract between AirBNB and their hosts. You do not legally have the right to capriciously refund guests in ways that contradict established cancellation policies. Especially without discussing the issue with the host. 

You are in Breach of Contract with your hosts.

[Aisling]

Hello @Stephanie365, I'm really sorry to hear you've had some issues with getting in touch with us. We have had a large proportion of our staff move to home-working during the pandemic, and this has affected our ability to respond as quickly as we would like to. We don't ignore any enquiry though, so the team will be in touch with you as soon as they can, it might just take a little longer than it would normally. In terms of the cancellation policy and refunds, we are working hard at maintaining a balance between the terms of service which allow for extenuating circumstances and our hosts' cancellation policies. We will definitely review what happened in your case and reach out to you.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

Hi @Aisling 

Are you going to grace @Stephanie365 @Sarah977 @Mark116  @Helen3 and @Michelle53 plus those I have missed with a response? I do wish the moderators had some willingness to correct posts where they are wrong but it doesn't seem they have. I can only assume that the posts are correct and Airbnb support is truly a shambles.

[Huma0]

I haven't called Airbnb too often recently but, when I have, the wait times were really short. I am not sure if this is the Superhost hotline or just the regular UK/Ireland one as I always use the same number but now the 'Welcome Superhost!" greeting is gone. Seeing as I never speak to anyone Irish anymore (which is a shame), I assume it's the Superhost one.

Messaging doesn't seem to get a response or, at least not for weeks, but once you make the initial call, the messages do come, a bit slower than in the past, but in days rather than weeks.

As I mentioned above, I've only used the online chat once. I got someone online almost instantly, but the problem wasn't solved and there's been no follow up.

[Aisling]

Hello @Huma0 , thanks for your feedback on your own experience here. Our main challenge recently is a reduction in the number of our team that can handle phone calls due to their work from home environment, so I'm glad to hear that you were able to reach us on the phone without too much of a wait. In terms of the chat and messaging channels, we are ramping up staffing on these weekly, so hopefully your wait time here should improve.