Host Advisory Board - Top 3 Suggestions

[Mike-And-Jane0]

As The host advisory board members appear to have been instructed to engage with the official Airbnb Community Centre perhaps we could suggest the top 3 concerns for them to take forward to Airbnb. Not an ideal method but it may encourage them/Airbnb to actually do something more efficient to canvass hosts.

My top 3 are:

Reviews - Allow hosts to remove the star rating of 1 review per year. Comments would stay.

Cancellation policy - Apply the hosts cancellation policy EXCEPT where it is inconsistent with the law in the host's country.

Payment - Take responsibility (ie pay) if a guest is introduced to a host but their payment method falls over at a later date.

[Sarah977]

@Inna22  Yes, I remember when all hosts were freaked out and reporting that their stats had changed overnight. It was a system wide glitch, yet every host, when contacting CS about it, was told it must be a glitch on their own account and that they'd have to get the tech dept. to try to find out what was wrong. 

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Sarah977 

I think this is the post you're talking about in #2 - https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/A-proposed-fix-for-frustrating-CS-interaction/m-p/959934

[Sarah977]

@Jessica-and-Henry0 Thank you!

[John5097]

A bit different suggestion. ABB could offer superhost who accommodate 20 first time guest to the platform per year get a cash reward, say $200. They already have a cash bonus for adding additional host, but for listings that are attracting a lot of first time guest, who sign up for ABB specificaly to make a reservation at a particular listing, the host should receive a bonus. If not there isn't much of an incentive to accomidate first time guest with no reviews and additional risk and effort to meet their expectations.   

[Bez8]

@John5097 

I really like this. 

Some sort of reward to offset the risk of taking in new guests. I think it takes around 5 trips for a guest to have a good understanding of their responsibility in the grand Airbnb cycle. Of course I'm generalizing but I really like the idea of rewarding hosts who are taking on a bit more risk with new guests. 

[Lawrene0]

@John5097, I'll be rich! Most of my guests are first-timers. Selfishly, I like this suggestion a lot. 🙂

[Helen3]

To me there is little risk in accepting first time guests  @John5097. Most of my guests are.

I don't find them any riskier than any other type of guest....but of course if Airbnb wants me to reward me for doing so 🙂

[Helen350]

@Helen3  I guess to you (and me) there is little risk because we are home share hosts?- It must be more of a worry to 'entire place' hosts? The sort who book & trash a place are presumably looking for entire places, not home shares?

 @Bez8 @John5097 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@John5097 I like your suggestion. Everyone has to start somewhere after all. As a recent new host we relied on guests taking a risk with us and also had to accept many guests with no feedback. So far (touch wood) the guests have been varied but generally fine.

[M199]

@John5097 @Bez8 @Lawrene0 

I am a newer host since last October,  a lot of my bookings have been newbie Guests.  I look at those as an opportunity to "train" them about how hosts work.  So for, luckily, most are very sensitive to following the house rules.  I just hope that by subtly enlightening newbies that some future host doesn't have to deal with a bad guest.  I may never know, but at least I've tried.

[John5097]

@Mike-And-Jane0 @Lawrene0 @Bez8 @M199 
Yes, it would be a good business model for ABB to offer reward to listings bringing in new guest. I also had a ton of first time guest I was more than happy to accomidate durring my first year. If a listing is booked out months in advance the host would exercise the option of reducing risk by requiring reviews. Most new guest are great but some ask if they can check in at 8am, you explain the other guest needs to check out at 11am, and takes 3 hours to clean, then don't hear back from them at all, and worried they might leave a negative review because they couldn't check in at 8am. Communication can be lacking because they are more inclined to try and respond to a text that doesn't go though then just not respond.   

[Lawrene0]

I'm not sure, @John5097 . I did say that selfishly I liked the idea. It would benefit hosts like me who attract newcomers to the site because we have unique listings, but we are already benefitting from that -- big time now that we are pandemic-popular. A financial incentive might encourage hosts, who otherwise should have firmer barriers up, to approve iffy newbies. Anyway, I wouldn't say no to it. Iffy newbies have to start somewhere... Just concerned a bit. A reward system for that would need careful thought.

I wouldn't want it to take the place of something in the top 3 that would be of more benefit to all.

I like @Inna22 's searchable database of known tech issues. A more precise search in Help would be great, too. 

I have not experienced a delayed payment, but reading of it makes me want that fixed. 

Same with @Emilia42 's "Airbnb Jail" suggestion. Needs fixing.

Fixing things before launching anything new, I guess, is my vote. 

[Sarah977]

@Lawrene0  Fixing what isn't working well before launching anything new- 100% absolutely! It so irritates me to find the tech team had revamped our hosting pages, or added check boxes in the amenities section re what brand of fridge we have, when there are so many glitches and poorly designed features ignored that frustrate both hosts and guests.

[Sarah977]

My first experience of how Airbnb changes things without notice or explanation came before I ever signed up to host.

A friend in Canada who had been hosting for a few years had been encouraging me to list my guest room that she had stayed in a couple times when she came to visit, but that was usually sitting there empty.

I had been procrastinating because I'm not that tech savvy and was intimidated by the idea of renting through an online platform.

I was staying with her in Canada and she sat me down and said "Look, I'll show you how to navigate the Airbnb platform. It's pretty simple, see, here's my dashboard, where you can find......hey, WTF, s**t, they just changed everything. I hate it when they do that."

[John5097]

@Lawrene0 I also liked those suggestions as well. Didn't realize it was a completion, maybe I missed the memo? It is kind of awkward at times being the only one with 5 star reviews but I suppose I'll just have to deal with it. 🙂