Airbnb still determined to proof to guests they are not safe

[Inna22]

I got the following one question survey. I guess they did not have enough guests claiming they were not safe through reviews ( @Lawrene0   thank   you for posting about that) so they keep on looking?

A guest who has not travelled in a while (me) gets this email and now I am told Airbnb might be so unsafe, it needs to make sure I was ok on the last trip. Same day I get an email from Vrbo to remind me there are still few nice days left to book a beach vacation. Who has a better marketing strategy?

 

 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Inna22 why not look on this positively? If Airbnb get a high number of people saying they feel safe then they can use these data in their marketing going forward.

[Inna22]

@Mike-And-Jane0  I had that thought and took a deep dive into it. Unless it’s 9.99% safe, that means that some percentage is still unsafe so not a good data to publish. Alternatively, this data needs to be compared to other stays such as hotels and to be able to say hotels are 90% safe, motels are 70% safe and Airbnb’s are 99% safe for example. If you don’t have a point of comparison, even a small variation from 100% makes it unsafe. Furthermore, wording  it “did you feel unsafe” vs “did you feel safe” is going to skew results towards the negative.

[Emilia42]

@Mike-And-Jane0 Unfortunately, the problem is that unsafe means a lot of different things to different people. I recently had a young couple stay who "wanted to bring to my attention" that there were shows selected on Netflix that they didn't watch. At first, I thought there was something inappropriate on there and they were trying to cover themselves. But no, they were "scared" that someone had entered the apartment and watched the TV on their bed while they were gone. Even though nothing had been disturbed and the door was locked. They were using MY Netflix account and there are obviously other people using it. Thank goodness they talked to me about it instead of just instantly reporting to Airbnb that someone broke in. Who's the mind automatically does there?! 

[Huma0]

@Emilia42 

Yes. What does 'unsafe' actually mean?

I had a couple stay with me who were not used to cats and the lady was clearly petrified of them. Still, her husband had booked an Airbnb with three cats.

They had just come from another Airbnb in Scotland, where there was also a cat. They told me the reason they were so scared was that the cat had followed them into the bedroom, jumped on the bed and started meowing. They thought that meant that the cat was going to attack them and they had been terrified.

I had to explain to them that the cat was not trying to attack them but just wanted some attention. They got it in the end and started to relax around the cats, but had they been given this option to report feeling 'unsafe' in the previous listing, I am sure they would have selected it, just because of a cat trying to be friendly!

[Sarah977]

@Inna22  So while Airbnb engages in this host- bashing nonsense, there are many guests posting here who are being scammed by unscrupulous hosts, encountering dirty or not-as-advertised listings, and their calls and messages are being ignored, leaving them either stranded with no place to stay, or having to put up with unacceptable circumstances.

This company needs to do a complete overhaul of their attitude, approach and responsiveness to legitimate user issues and stop mucking  about with encouraging guests to find something wrong.

Where's the host survey asking if their guests were disrespectful, ignored house rules and showed up with more people than they booked and paid for and should be banned from the platform?

[Helen350]

@Mike-And-Jane0 @Inna22 @Emilia42 - And I would add the tale I recently told on another thread, re this subject, where a young female guest, said a middle aged  male guest lingered on my landing and stared at her chest, in a way which made her feel so unsafe she left... NOTHING to do with me nor my listing, unless all home share hosts are to stop hosting more than one booking, lest one guest should perv at another! 

I'm hoping this market research does not ask the guest to NAME the place they felt unsafe in, but is merely establishing a 'safe' feeling generally in Airbnbs... (Unless the electrics are fizzing & banging which is different.)

[Debra300]

@Helen350,

In your previous post about the incident at your place you also stated that the male guest, a man of color, didn't feel comfortable with the female guest there.  Had he been solicited for the survey, he may have said yes he felt unsafe, because he was fearful that your other guest would proclaim that he committed some impropriety that could lead to an encounter with the police, which often enough doesn't go well for non-white folks.

So, the sense of safety is very subjective.  The wording of the survey is poorly written, and the data collected from it will be so generic that it's useless.  These types of surveys remind me of the ones you see on the news that say, "Eighty percent of people say they like to eat food.", and there is no specifics about the data collection.

[Helen350]

@Debra300 Oh absolutely! - I just didn't want to repeat too many details here; but I made it clear I had no  way of knowing at the time whether there was any truth in the girl's perception. And yes, he clearly felt 'unsafe' too.... Whatever the rights & wrongs, "did you feel unsafe?" is a crass question!

[Sarah977]

@Debra300  Once read a survey that concluded that most people didn't floss their teeth because they went through people's bathroom wastebaskets and didn't find much dental floss. The fact that many people toss it in the toilet hadn't seemed to occur to the folks doing the survey.

[Debra300]

@Sarah977,

I sure would have not liked being the data collector.  Going through the garbage for used floss? Yuck!

[Huma0]

@Helen350 

Yes, this is another problem with this whole 'unsafe' question as the host doesn't always have control over situations where one guest feels uncomfortable about another.

I had one guest who contacted me while I was away to let me know she had come home to find the front door open and had been terrified when entering the house. It had been left open by a particularly careless guest. So, of course guest one felt 'unsafe', but that has nothing to do with the listing being an unsafe place.

[Sarah977]

@Mike-And-Jane0 " why not look on this positively?"

Because it isn't stated in a positive way. It is a negative, leading question. Why not ask "Have you felt safe in your recent Airbnb listings?"

[Cathie19]

@Inna22 , @Sarah977 , @Helen350 , @Debra300 , @Emilia42  @Catherine-Powell

Totally disagree with this line of surveying guests either via unsolicited emails or review questions. Airbnb unwittingly are  shooting themselves in the foot by constantly creating a sense of negativity around their brand name. The unsafest part is they are also shooting us, the hosts in the foot. Such a poor business model.

This is not a positive line of questioning about safety. The methodology is misguided and not a sound one. Negativity brings more negativity. If you want facts, then you place the question within a context and in a positive light, which will then draw information out, from those who actually have some facts to share. 

Negativity and with it, a sense of being unsafe, can also be an emotional state of mind, that is being ignited by the ambiguous line of questioning. After all, most of us living through a global health pandemic, have some level of anxiety, scaredness, sense of gloom or sadness around the current status quo. (=unsafe) So amplifying it without due process is just dumb and possibly, commercial suicide.

So instead, @Airbnb  should be giving guests and hosts a positive voice that has empathy but is empowered.

It’s not what you are saying, but the way you are saying it. The need for safety is an absolute, for hosts and guests alike. But cultural difference, a new location or environment and language barriers can also add to a sense of feeling anxious; not to be confused with being unsafe. Not to be confused with retaliatory guests or hosts....

So I agree with @Sarah977 , ask guests and hosts in a pleasant and positive manner, otherwise, delete and cease this gloomy line of enquiry. 

[Helen350]

Brilliantly put @Cathie19 !👍 👍👍