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

[Malcolm153]

Apologies for not believing that you exists !!

Read on and weep !

What follows is a series of messages to the Specialist Airbnb Support  that I commenced sending on Tuesday 23rd June and have repeated every day since......with no reply at all from the official Airbnb Specialist Support, which is a total "SCAM" just to make the boys at the top look good to the outside world as they want to float the company and become "MILLIONAIRES" !!! So my advice to all hosts is don't expect to get any sensible assistance  from any aspect of AIRBNB. !

Here goes and judge for yourself.

Messages 1 and 2.

Airbnb prematurely and incorrectly cancelled my booking refrence "HMM328TJN8" notifying me it was due to the UK Covid 19 situation. The booking was not until the 9th July and the UK Government lifted a number of the restictions yesterday thas means Airbnb properties like mine can honour advance bookings for guests to stay from the 4th July and take new bookings for guests to commence staying from this date.
Airbnb were hasty, premature and incorrectly cancelled my booking due to start on the 9th July, you should have either waited until the guests arrival date had passed and was not able to occur due to the Government restrictions or waited until the legal Government position was further clarified nearer the date as it is under constant review by them.This is a major mistake made by Airbnb and its staff acting prematurely and incorrectly.

I wish to make a formal complaint about the premature and incorrect cancellation of my booking refrence "HMM328TJN8" by Airbnb. valued at £3.909.98 being the payment to me from you.
I require a full payment of this sum on the date that I would have expected to receive it , if the booking had gone ahead. This is a major mistake made by Airbnb and its staff acting prematurely and incorrectly.
If you do not accept that you made a mistake and do pay me what is rightfully due to me, then I will need to consider my legal course of action as well as announcing what you have done and how I have been treated on social media. I certainly hope that you take the responsible course of action and learn from this for the future. There is an old saying you would do well to remember..." Act in haste then you repent in laisure " !
Malcolm Chamberlain ( Superhost)

[Malcolm153]

What follows is a series of messages to the Specialist Airbnb Support  that I commenced sending on Tuesday 23rd June and have repeated every day since......with no reply at all from the official Airbnb Specialist Support, which is a total "SCAM" just to make the boys at the top look good to the outside world as they want to float the company and become "MILLIONAIRES" !!! So my advice to all hosts is don't expect to get any sensible assistance  from any aspect of AIRBNB. !

Here goes and judge for yourself.

Messages 1 and 2.

Airbnb prematurely and incorrectly cancelled my booking refrence "HMM328TJN8" notifying me it was due to the UK Covid 19 situation. The booking was not until the 9th July and the UK Government lifted a number of the restictions yesterday thas means Airbnb properties like mine can honour advance bookings for guests to stay from the 4th July and take new bookings for guests to commence staying from this date.
Airbnb were hasty, premature and incorrectly cancelled my booking due to start on the 9th July, you should have either waited until the guests arrival date had passed and was not able to occur due to the Government restrictions or waited until the legal Government position was further clarified nearer the date as it is under constant review by them.This is a major mistake made by Airbnb and its staff acting prematurely and incorrectly.

I wish to make a formal complaint about the premature and incorrect cancellation of my booking refrence "HMM328TJN8" by Airbnb. valued at £3.909.98 being the payment to me from you.
I require a full payment of this sum on the date that I would have expected to receive it , if the booking had gone ahead. This is a major mistake made by Airbnb and its staff acting prematurely and incorrectly.
If you do not accept that you made a mistake and do pay me what is rightfully due to me, then I will need to consider my legal course of action as well as announcing what you have done and how I have been treated on social media. I certainly hope that you take the responsible course of action and learn from this for the future. There is an old saying you would do well to remember..." Act in haste then you repent in laisure " !
Malcolm Chamberlain ( Superhost)

[Heather1080]

@Aisling After trying for 3 days to get any Airbnb agent on the phone, spending approx 2.5 hours on hold every time I call to get a hold of Airbnb rep, I’ve had no luck. I have never experienced worse customer service or longer hold times in my whole life and I still haven’t had anyone call me back. How on earth do I get a rep on the phone?!! I no longer have 2 hours during the work day to spend on hold waiting to speak to someone! How on earth can I get help??

[Heather1080]

@Aisling And please don’t recommenced emailing because that doesn’t work, I only get useless auto replies. I need to speak to an agent on the phone to get a resolution because Airbnb is illegally withholding my payout for weeks now. 

[Sarah977]

@Heather1080  Aisling isn't going to answer you- she's too high and mighty for that. She only started this thread- as a PR stunt. She doesn't answer posts here.

Try contacting Airbnb on their Twitter account- it is said to be the best way to get a response.

[Molly302]

Please call me back!!  My host cancelled on me 15 hours before check in and has yet to issue refund or cancel my stay! If I cancel on my end you will take all of my money as Airbnb thinks I checked into my stay .... but i did not as she told me she had to cancel (message proof) since I’ve had to find an alternative at a very expensive hotel room!!! Please someone work my case or call me!!! I was on hold for 1 hour and you cut me off

[Sarah977]

@Molly302  You have posted this on the community forum, which is a just a discussion forum for hosts and guests. You are just going to have to keep trying to contact Airbnb customer service. Try them on their Twitter account- that is said to get the best and fastest response. 

Just so you know, hosts don't issue refunds- those are automatic when the host cancels. And the host doesn't even get paid until 24 hours after a guest checks in- until then, Airbnb has your money, not the host. If a host says they are cancelling, and you don't see the cancellation on your account right away, that's when you should contact Airbnb. If they don't officially cancel, you still have a valid booking and they can't turn you away.

So sorry this host did such a thing to you. I hope all the communication was on the Airbnb messaging so there's a record of it. Good luck getting it sorted. Don't get too stressed- I'm pretty sure you'll get refunded, it just might take awhile.

[Dagny4]

Requesting a refund to be processed shouldn't be this hard. I contacted my host to request the maximum refund amount that I could get and the host declined this. At the time of making a refund request, Airbnb advise that if the host declines, the next step available is to get Airbnb involved. However, when it comes to this stage, the information on the website is absolutely convoluted, totally unhelpful and the 'call to action' to get Airbnb involved is NO WHERE in sight! A very purposeful move by Airbnb to avoid all responsibility - this is literally the lowest of low customer service.

Airbnb might provide beautiful accommodation, but the poor service shadows the quality of Airbnb's other features. This is my first time booking through Airbnb and there is nothing that is convincing me to want to book again in the future after this experience.

Unless Brian Chesky wants to spare some of his millions to appease the situation with his unhappy customers, I will be sure to spread the word about this experience.

[Helen427]

@Dagny4  Did you get your issues resolved?

[Sue1616]

@Aisling Hello. I have a friend who has a reservation for August 2020. She lives in the US, State of Florida where covid cases are skyrocketing. The policy is strict. However, why wouldn’t Airbnb step up and let people cancel their reservations with a refund to help stop the spread of the virus with ease knowing that people will still travel because they do not want to loose their money? They are potentially going to spread it or contract it. This doesn’t help anyone. 

[Nick1932]

am a nurse that has been living away from home due to Covid-19. My son is immunocompromised and it is not safe for me to stay at home. I have been living in an Airbnb for the past 3 months, but am unable to continue this arrangement at the end of July. The woman who owns the Airbnb has been extremely generous and charged very little for rent. I am hoping someone may have a place that am I able to stay at during this difficult time.

[Darlene166]

Hi 

Certainly do appreciate what a nightmare this has all been for everyone affected around the world.

I have the second payment of  a pre-booked holiday due soon in July and cannot travel as flights have been cancelled. Although it says you can cancel by going to my trips it is not showing on my account although I do have proof of the booking with reference number etc. I cannot phone, message or email Airbnb so no idea how this will be cancelled. Any ideas anyone? Staff are being polite and friendly but cannot help as phones just cut off, messages do not work and there is no email address. We are hoping to travel next year but it would be a shame not to be able to use Airbnb any more.

[Sarah977]

@Darlene166   Try contacting Airbnb on their Twitter account. What do mean "messages don't work"?  You can't figure out how to send one, or they just don't reply?

[Gio3793]

@Aisling In need of urgent advice/help.., Host lied about his building’s policy not allowing non residents in. Prior to requesting to book, i messaged the host if guests are allowed in because of the pandemic and if there would be paperwork/medical certs needed upon entry and was assured that its not needed. I proceeded to book it and he accepted it. Fast forward to me heading to the listing , i called the host’s caretaker that im almost at the address and meeting her for the key. She was rude first of all. And shocked when she said that its all up to me on how i will walk past security. Everything just turned to level 10 crazy from here. The listing’s owner is not based in manila. So he has local cohosts/point person. I was given directions to ignore security check. That If i get stopped by security,  tell them that i’m not an airbnb guest. Host and the rest of his looney gang gave me a bunch of plans how to get in the building. I was not having it already and front desk approached me sensing the stress im in. So, i told her what happened and she said that all unit owners and property managers were properly informed about the no non residents poilicy. Confirmed and exceeded liar for me. At this point, they all declined my calls and zero response. Right after the caretaker’s statement, i asked for host to cancel And he wont and insist on me doing it which i know would make me not eligible for a full refund. But, what to do about it when airbnb isnt responding too... so i’m out in the street during a community quarantine without nowhere else to go... i kept trying to contact airbnb and host and it was past 10pm already (hit the streets looking for places 3pm) and a kond and nice rep is looking for a listing that would let me in. Zero. She told me to look outside airbnb listings that would let me stay and i would get reimbursed. Found one and reimbursement started its process. The place i found will only accept people who had a negative on a rapid test. There was a clinic nearby who does it so i went there and paid 3500php for it. Reimbursement and refund is processing but in resolution center, i asked payment from the host for it but i was only allowed to ask upto 1,370php..(i wouldve asked for 3500 but, bummer.) So i asked a different representative about how this work, and i was told by a new representative who took my case that resolution center is only for active and successful bookings. This is waiting for host’s response status already when representative stated that Airbnb would not intervene with it anymore.

Currently waiting for a decision on resolution center. Hope it turns out well

[Galiane0]

@Aisling  it is now past this and I am not getting a response to my enquiry after 3 days ?! can I please get some help asap ? thank you

[Allison416]

All i need help. I landed and became ill and covid positive so put on govt quarantine. My Airbnb person said strict no cancellation policy even tho I was sick and couldn’t leave quarantine. I see airbnb says if send proof of sick with covid they will refund. Where do I send my proof ? I’m out almost $800