Community Support during COVID-19

[Aisling]

Hello everyone,

My name is Aisling and I manage our global Community Support Team. Over the past three months, we have been hit by an unprecedented wave of challenges due to the spread of COVID-19.

My job is to ensure that you and the rest of our community have the support you need, especially at this difficult time and make sure we have the resources in place to do so. However, at a time where support is needed even more than ever, our team has been faced with some of the hardest challenges we’ve ever experienced.

In light of this, I wanted to share some of these experiences with you and most importantly what we’ve been doing about it and what we are currently working on.

Sudden and unprecedented volume of calls

As you may know, we have offices and support centers in locations across the world, but we rely on all of them to help with the volume of support we receive. The challenges we’ve seen here are:

• Our China team was the first to be impacted, dealing with volumes 600% above what we had planned for. The quarantine shut down our China office and one of our Customer Support sites.
• Once the WHO announced COVID-19 as a global pandemic, our global ticket volumes rose 400% above what we planned.

What’ve we done:

• The China team contributed over 100K of working hours during the Lunar New Year to manage the call volumes. We also built a self-solve and chat bot tool to manage the volume in just two weeks
• Our teams rallied and formed a task force, covering operations, engineering, legal and partner management teams, that met multiple times a day to tackle the issue

Office shutdowns

As the virus spread, all of our internal offices were required to shut down quite abruptly and all of our teams had to change to a work from home mode.

• Our partner sites where we manage the majority of tickets were also required to be shut down by the government and local authorities. This meant we temporarily lost almost 80% of our global community support network within days.

What’ve we done:

• We had to get laptops enabled and distributed to 7,000 specialists across 25 sites around the world.
• Within a matter of one week, we had moved around 70% of partner specialists to working from home

Where are we now

We’ve done a lot in a short period of time, but as you can imagine we are still working through our backlog.

• We are currently working through technical and regional constraints to enable all of our teams to connect to the phone lines.
• We are under pressure on our phone lines, in particular English and Portuguese.
• As a result, we have shortened hours of operations temporarily, but are working to get them back to normal hours as soon as possible.

We also launched a new initiative that temporarily redeploys Airbnb staff to the Community Support team to help us more quickly meet your needs. Things are moving rapidly and so we hope you see a difference in response time very shortly.

Finally...

I am incredibly proud of how our teams have rallied together in such a short amount of time to serve our community and we are all working around the clock to continue to support you.

I can’t imagine how difficult it has been for all of you with these unprecedented changes. We are here to listen and support you as much as we can. Please continue to share your feedback here in the Community Center and also through the listening sessions, I've been receiving regular updates from the community team. I will keep you posted with further updates.

Thank you for your support and patience while we get our team back on track and adjust to this new world.

Aisling

[Sarah977]

@Denice24  Appreciate your post. I've been seeing what's happening in Panama- high infection and death rates. Doesn't look so bad here in Mexico if you look at what is being published, but testing is low and it is being said the infections are 8x higher than reported. What I don't see people talking about when comparing death rates for past pandemics and influenza is that the death rates being cited are for all cases. What is much more telling are the death rates for resolved cases- those who had the virus and either recovered or died. Those paint a completely different picture. For instance, the current death rate being shown for the US is around 6%, but the death rate for resolved cases is 26%. The death rate worldwide for resolved cases is 17%. As resolved cases are what death rates are based on for past pandemics and influenza, these are the rates that we should be taking note of. 

It's unbelievble to me that so many people are still in denial, saying absurd things like "It's just flu", and defying isolation and lockdown orders. 

Stay safe and healthy.

[Denice24]

@Sarah977 hi sarah and good to meet you!!!! it is a mess everywhere for everyone. and if they don't acknowledge it they lack fundamental ability to  understand how viruses work. i've read in the New York Times today how Mexico was under representing reported cases. Great article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/world/americas/mexico-coronavirus-count.html?searchResultPosition...  Panama has done an amazing job of literally keeping an entire nation under lock down, where men and women can leave the house on alternating days and only for 2 hours at a time depending on the last number of their national ID. I never hear anyone talking about suing the government because they are starving. the alternative is death. my housekeeper told me she won't eat any more fish after this is over.  Regardless, we all may end up starving if we can't get this under control. If anyone reading this thinks that their life is not at risk and this is not as serious of a situation as we've ever seen,  they literally are dumb or ignorant. Either way they are dangerous. anyhow, sarah, I hope you have a great weekend and stay home and stay safe!

[John2406]

Thank you so much @Aisling for your overview of the unfolding situation as it affected all aspects and Departments of Airbnb, especially as "we" SuperHosts' and Hosts alike have similar stories of how much impacted we all were and are.

I do have to say that of all the Airbnb team I contacted right at the beginning of the crisis (particularly as I reacted far quicker than the majority, including Airbnb, in requesting that Cancellations of Bookings under Airbnb's "Extenuating Circumstances" Policy should come into play immediately, and without any penalties to either Guests or Hosts' alike - for after all, this pandemic is not the fault of Guests, Hosts, nor Airbnb, so morally, no-one but no-one (in my humble opinion) should benefit from anyone's misery. I was glad therefore to read that Brian Chesky was a fellow believer of morals for the situation.

Something I suggested at the time, and which, if implemented by Airbnb would make a big difference for all concerned, even though it might add a small (extra) amount to the amount Guests' will have to pay, is that rather than holiday insurance being "optional" it should be "mandatory" for all Guests' to have in place BEFORE any booking is made.

As suggested at the time (mid-March) altho' I wasn't suggesting that Airbnb became Insurers in their own right, should they link up with a reputable Insurance Company, the transaction/transactions should run far smoother for all concerned, and once in place, would take away from both Hosts and Airbnb the great "upsets" that have affected (morally and financially) everyone who sought reimbursement!

When - after the Covid-19 pandemic - all has become the brand new world, and holidays/stays are not only allowed to happen once again, but Airbnb slowly but surely rebuilds its place in the world, I would like to believe that not only will the business remodel itself on its beliefs and morals, but that all those people who also took and accepted the morality of repaying Guests in full, will be rewarded by having full Calendars of bookings.

Judging by my own Guests, none of whom lost anything apart from their ability to stay at our place, yet each and every one was ever so grateful for the attention I paid to the predicaments facing them, as well as to ensuring they were repaid in full, each and every one was not only grateful, but also said that as soon as the pandemic was over, they would book to stay at our property.

I very much doubt that Guests of those OTAs who refused to repay, only repay in part, or who chose to only issue vouchers will see their Guests again however, but then again, there may well be many Hosts of Airbnb who will also lose out because of their attitudes!

Thank you once again @Aisling , and please will you pass on my thanks to all (from the very bottom to the very top) at Airbnb, as well as my best wishes for the brand new world yet to come.

X

[Roberto1540]

I have not received my 25% payment due to cancellations. When will Airbnb give me any kind of update regarding the status of my payment? @Aisling 

[Sarah3373]

@Aisling 

[Sarah3373]

@Aisling Im not sure if this is the correct spot to post this but was just wondering about the superhost relief fund. I meet all of the eligibility criteria both as a host and a popular experience host of over three years, and 100% of my income comes from Airbnb yet I have not heard anything. I would be grateful if you could provide contact details of the department I could speak with in respect of this. 

many thanks in advance

[Katie902]

I’m In the same boat- 100% income coming for hosting primary residence . I’ve been a Airbnb host for nine years. I was told I’d ha e to get an offer. No offer ever came. Then I was told it was because my profile needed to be updated, I had to have a ID on file ( after nine years ??). 
    Has anyone gotten and host relief from Airbnb ? 
    

[Todd-And-Erin0]

I haven’t heard if anyone whose received more than a fast food meal amount from them. They lied and posted all their fluff BS about taking care of community. I’ve asked for an accounting of the payouts but don’t think that will happen. When did become okay to LIE to people that are 

[Jo620]

Hi Airbnb hosts.

For about 5 year now I have been travelling using Airbnb. Now that I have finely moved into my 3 bed house and is thinking of hiring out the rooms out for the 1st time .I'm thinking about setting up maybe early autumn or possibly next spring. Your thoughts please as this will be my 1at time. cheers .

[Sharon1097]

Hi, just would like to know how long it takes to receive payment from a reservation. I have a guest  staying almost for 5days but my payment shows pending. 

[Douglas300]

hi, I'm Doug from São Paulo Brazil and I dont know what to do any more, and I'm desperate.

Considering that it is necessary to have more than one active ads to be able to get some kind of help, this qualification is completely unfair, since it is the person who has less who needs more. My income depends completely on the accommodations I make through Airbnb and that reached zero. I make my own room available, and I sleep on the sofa in the living room to be able to obtain this income in an exemplary way (I'm a superhost for more than 2 years) and now the company I have so trusted will prioritize those who can always provide much more than I can. This criterion is unfair and it shows that the company is only interested in the advantages that it may obtain in the future. Contrary to what they  are saying. Sorry for the outburst but it is the only way I can expose my situation. Today I see that all the respect and trust I had for Airbnb was in vain.

[Bryan154]

WHEN will we see the new cleaning protocol and the cleaning "approval" process from Airbnb?  My business is on hold till I see it. Chesky said later in May, it IS later in May!

[Nikki321]

Does this mean that access to amenities such as the lake, beach, or playgrounds are closed off ?

[Adrianne26]

Help @Airbnb ! Due to Covid 19, my entire trip had to be cancelled, from airline, rental car, catering and now Airbnb. This was to be a joyous senior high school graduation, and Airbnb is making this an unnecessary nightmare. From start to finish. First my original host cancels on ME due to greedy price gouging. Then we scramble to get another booking. LASTLY COVID-19 hits where we had to cancel our careful planning, no fault of anyone’s!  I have emailed you every documentation I have , showing every cancellation and you are STILL denying my refund. I’m not offered even a credit!?! This falls well with the “extenuating circumstances”, and there is no reason at all that I shouldn’t get a refund, or at least a credit. I will take this up as high at it shall go! Do you have any information as to whom I can contact??

[Alice996]

I need Airbnb support due to a very hurtful host who discriminated against me due to my religion. 

She is only 1 of 30 airbnb hosts that gave me a bad review.   I usually have a wonderful experience.   I'm in a new Airbnb now (I travel for work) and no complaints. 

But I feel Airbnb should know how horribly my previous host treated me.

I have been trying for 2 days now to contact Airbnb.  No response and they have been running me in circles.

Airbnb used to be a really good company.  Last time I spoke with them, they asked my age.  This made me SUPER uncomfortable. 

So is Airbnb discriminating with age discrimination.   I had a really bad and unsafe experience.   Airbnb doesn't care?

What can I do?  I'm a nice lady and Airbnb used to respect me.  Not now, it seems.

I'm so FRUSTRATED.   What can I do?