Scheduled (automated) messaging glitch

[Stacey169]

Is anyone else having trouble with the new automated messaging feature? I have four listings and set up automated messaging for each of them weeks ago. Each listing has an automated check out instruction message that is set to send at 7pm the night before the guest's checkout. However, I started getting frustrated because a handful of recent guests were not following any of the checkout instructions I provide. When I went to look back at the messages sent to these guests, I find that the checkout message never sent! So I started doing a little digging and looked into the automated messages set to send to future guests over the next month. SOME of them have the checkout instructions message scheduled; others do not. There is no rhyme or reason to the omissions that I can find. I have had multiple calls with Airbnb but no one has been able to help me. In fact...the last representative I spoke with this morning said she is a host herself and this is happening as well to her! But she had no answers. She suggested that I delete all my automated messages and reenter them. I did that (took a LONG TIME) but the problem persists. Now Airbnb tells me just to post about it on the "Feedback" page. I did that...but I don't expect to hear anything back personally.

I was so excited when Airbnb finally added this feature for hosts. What a blessing! (And way overdue!) But if the messages are not reliable, then the service is more trouble than it's worth. Anyone have any suggestions? 

Stacey

[Andrew2975]

There seems to be a bug with shortcode of [house rules] in my case. 

This [house rules] is called in the scheduled message, causing the message is not being sent.

I have talked to Airbnb support and they are aware about this bug and is escalated to the technical team.

I have been host for many years and this error happens only after Airbnb introduce new feature with more granular settings, sometime in early January 2024.

While waiting I try the workaround  as follows:

1. Edit the template of the scheduled message that is in error

2. Remove the problematic [house rules] short code

3. Type the house rules manually in that schedule message

4. Save

Once I do that the error message on the guest reservation Inbox is gone. Yeayy... !

I hope this helps, while waiting for Airbnb technical team rectifying the issue.

[Zach-And-Emily1]

I think I figured this out for the 1 day/same day scheduled message error.

I ran into this issue a handful of times and just tested a couple different approaches. Previously, I sent out the "check out" instructions the day before checkout at 10 pm. This has worked well and gives everyone plenty of heads up on expectations for the following day. For some odd reason, the automated/scheduled system won't allow this to go out for 1 day bookings and will "auto skip" without notifying you.

So what I did was I changed that message to go out the same day as check out and scheduled it for 12 am. Basically midnight the day before checkout. Now all automated messages appear to be working as expected and my future bookings don't have the "auto skip" indicator.

Hoping Airbnb can fix this as I feel like it is a much better experience for guests/hosts if an automated  checkout message can go out the evening before (7-10 pm timeframe) without any problems.

Best of luck!

[Faruk38]

Good idea

"changed that message to go out the same day as check out and scheduled it for 12 am" Lets see if it will work 😉

[Erin7999]

Hey Stacey,

im currently having the same problem and received a shocking review because of it. Did you get the reviews taken down? 

[Stacey169]

Oh no! I actually never received any bad reviews due to the problem. Hopefully Airbnb can get that taken down for you!