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]

@Alice996  If you feel you were discriminated against by a host, you simply report the host's profile. There is a flag symbol on the host's profile which you can click on to report. When you click on it, you will get further boxes to state what the issue was. So do that.

You can also contact Airbnb directly to report it, which it seems you have already done. I don't know why the CS rep would have asked your age, but there must have been some reason for it. maybe he was just checking to make sure that it matched what you have registered with them on your profile.

You can also mention feeling discriminated against in your review. But be careful- you can't really accuse someone of something without proof- all you can do is say how you felt. Perhaps it was blatant that the host was discriminating against you because of your religion, she said something deragatory about your beliefs or used discriminatory language? Maybe you just felt that was the reason she was treating you badly, but it could have been for another reason?

In any case, there's really not much more you can do but report the host's behavior. Airbnb does take discrimination seriously and would contact the host about it, but they won't share that information with you. I'm not sure what more you are wanting. 

[Alice996]

I've tried everything you can imagine.  I just feel sick.

For a while they wouldn't let me reply here either.

I'm just sick.  i have 53 EXCELLENT reviews but I found this one bad egg who disliked me because of my religion. 

[Liv]

@Alice996 
I'm really sorry this happened to you! I'd like to assure you that discrimination of any kind is not tolerated, as explained on Airbnb's nondiscrimination policy.

I recommend you contact the Customer Experience team for assistance.

I hope this helps. Please keep us updated, we're here to provide further support if needed.

Thanks,

Liv

[Alice996]

Liv I BEGGED them for support when she made me go early at checkout (after I had not done 1 thing wrong and I left the place spotless too.  She upset me so bad I left some food and a nice vase of pretty roses my new friends in the area gave me! 

I cannot tell you how sick that made me!

I literally feel sick and punished.  I contacted the Experience team 3 million times!

The attorney I talked to said have you received a response from your reports yet?  I told no, nothing!

[Alice996]

What's their problem?  I looked in another section and saw other people saying they used Airbnb for years, but just recently had their first horrible experience. 

This isn't me and it isn't us that are good customers.  What is wrong with Airbnb, because something is?!

[Alice996]

Here is what I think (just speculation):

If I needed support I could get it and they were honestly super!  They were so respectful and polite.

But I was speaking to International people too.  Not sure where but almost always it was international. 

Then, I needed support and I got **.   Now I see Airbnb is coming out of California.   I don't know if this is a recent change?

**

So I don't know if that's it?  But if not, something is sure wrong and I'm not the only one complaining. 

It's a nice company IF its run correctly. 

** offensive content removed

[Helen350]

@Alice996 It sound like you're looking for moral support...Are you aware that this forum is mainly for HOSTS to discuss & support each other? Tho' the occasional guest does drop in, like yourself! (This particular thread is for Covid-19 issues btw!)

So folk here can give sympathy & advice, but we don't work for Airbnb, except the moderators who are a sort of go-between, on some issues.

I feel for you if you had a distressing experience. I guess many of us don't like to think others are hostile to us, & it must make you feel vulnerable when that happens in the home of a host that you perceive as hostile & unfriendly.

I'm a host, I've hosted 350+ singles/couples, & I know that on the rare occasion that a guest is not as nice to me as I would wish, or writes critical things in the review, I feel upset - for a while. - But I tell myself, that human nature being what it is, we can't expect to get on with everyone, & we can't expect others to love us all the time! 

Airbnb are not really responsible for your bad experience.... They won't know what a host is like apart from reviews; there are no hotel inspectors inspecting Airbnbs; quality control only comes from the reviews. And your host had previous good reviews.

So in answer to your question "What's wrong with Airbnb?", the answer is 'Nothing!' - in respect of your one bad experience. That's life! Every now & then  we'll meet someone who has an issue with us, might be something about us (not necessarily good nor bad, just us!), or might be something about THEM! - Call it a personality clash!

Having said that, hosts are NOT allowed to discriminate based on race, religion, nor any other demographic. So if your host broke this rule, you could report them.

If I were in your situation, I would ask myself "Do I want to be  VINDICTIVE? Do I want REVENGE?" (-I hope not.)

"Do I want this host to be banned from hosting forevermore, by what I'm about to report?" And for me, it would depend on the severity of the transgression. I'm a Christian. I wouldn't flaunt the fact aggressively in an Airbnb host & guest situation, not wanting to antagonize the other party.... I have bibles in my listings, that's the only reference I make to being a Christian. If a guest started denouncing my faith, I would wince & let it go, say as little as possible. (Maybe I wouldn't mind polite & respectful disagreement.) - I wouldn't report them, unless they were threatening harm. Now if I were a guest, I would not expect my host to verbally attack (rude!)... but again, I'd let it go, unless they were threatening harm. Personally, I think I'd only report them if I thought they were a danger to others, for me the bottom line!

Regarding the call center operators, Airbnb have call centers across the world. In the UK we often end up getting through to the one in the Phillipines. Yes, there is one in SF - in fact SF is the headquarters, that's where Airbnb all started - go google! 

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Helen350 

So in answer to your question "What's wrong with Airbnb?", the answer is 'Nothing!' 

😥😢😢😭😭

Helen, (trying not to be negative), you were complaining that they were blocking your diary the other week and that you needed to get guests from elsewhere.

@Alice996 Is recounting her experience which was not good and speculating onwhycustomer support was so bad , thats her parogative and a useful insight. I for one hope for improvements and hope that @Airbnb take on board all feedback presented here in order to make a far better platform. 😀

[Helen350]

Oi! - Flipping 'eck @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 , - CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT!

- We all know there are issues with Airbnb, but I was trying to help the distressed  @Alice996 , by pointing out that ONE bad host, in her opinion, does not mean the problem is Airbnb's!

- I thought of qualifying my "nothing wrong with Airbnb" with a subordinate clause, but did not want to confuse the issue in question ,for a newbie to this forum , by any more tangents!

CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT,CONTEXT, CONTEXT! 😛 😛 😛

[Helen350]

PS - I DID write "Nothing - in respect of your one bad experience." -That covers it; leaves the way open to the fact they might have their faults, but are not to blame for one bad apple  host, (if she was), whom others speak well of!

I think you're doing some mischievous stirring, @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 ! 😛 😛 😛

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

You’re a mate @Helen350 , I’m allowed.

Makes it easier to joke with an emoji 😂

[Alice996]

No actually I wasn't sure how to get through at all to Airbnb or anybody, and I was grasping for anything to help.

Sorry

[Alice996]

All I knew was it was a community forum and it's the only way I had to be heard.

Again sorry.

[Alice996]

I'm not looking for moral support but I'm looking for a refund and for Airbnb to do their job by supporting a guest, frankly.

They refuse to hear me.  So I was trying anything I could.  Their lack of response is insulting. 

[Helen350]

@Alice996 

I tried to offer moral support, because you sounded distressed, & now I see you actually want a refund.... 

My personal view is that if a place is SO bad you need a refund, then it must have  been bad enough for you to have left without spending the night there, or leaving early, in which case a partial refund might be appropriate for the unspent nights. But IF you stayed the full number of nights, I think it's mean spirited to want your money back... You slept in the bed, showered, used electricity, host had to service the room,  wash the linens.... = no refund imo.

(I read your reviews & I see there was another occasion when you demanded a refund for possibly minor issues.And made an accusation against the host for what was your error, if the host is telling the truth. - If you do too much of this, it may be harder to find hosts willing to host you in future. Remember hosts have no obligation to host you!)

Airbnb is NOT a hotel, especially when booking a private room in a private house. Guests should not behave in an 'entitled' fashion, but with give & take.

Regarding customer services, many, many users are saying they are MUCH slower than usual just now, it's not just you....... This is probably because so many hosts & guests are calling re Covid-19 cancellations. Also they've just laid off 1900 staff - 25% of their workforce, as a result of the travel downturn due to Covid-19.

SO DON'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY IF YOU ARE NOT GETTING A RESPONSE! And don't be the dreaded 'entitled' guest!