Really, fast good customer service today

[Alexandra316]

I have a guest right now who was scheduled to stay almost three weeks. Last night, he said that he wanted to cut his reservation short due to a personal issue. No problem, thought I: I'll just go and modify the reservation. Unfortunately, when I went to modify, it didn't remove the long stay discount and was therefore giving the same lower price per night that was applied to the longer stay. It wouldn't let me modify the price, so rather than just rolling over and accepting it, I decided to contact Airbnb. I didn't have high hopes based on the recent reports in here, but I though I'd give it a try and see how it went.

12:09 am - I messaged @airbnbhelp on Twitter explaining the situation and what I'd like to do. 

12:25 am - Someone from the social media team sent me a message saying that they were forwarding my message to the appropriate team to assist me and someone would message me shortly. 

2:25 am - A case manager messaged me, letting me know they were reviewing and they would get back to me shortly. 

2:32 am - The case manager acknowledged what I wanted to do and asked me to confirm that it was okay to proceed with the reservation change. She also sent a message to the guest asking them to confirm. 

5:51 am - I confirmed that everything looked good and it was okay to proceed. 

6:18 am - The case manager made the adjustment and everything was completed. 

So in just over 6 hours, everything was resolved exactly as I had requested. 

I'm not sure if this was a fluke or if things are righting themselves, but I was very impressed with the speed and effectiveness of the service I received. Hopefully it's the latter and there are better times ahead. 

[Emilia42]

Good to hear @Alexandra316 but wouldn't it have been so simple and easy if the system worked for you and you adjusted the price without fail and didn't have to even consider calling customer service. This should be Airbnb's main goal, prevent the calls from even coming in.

[Alexandra316]

@Emilia42 I totally agree with that. If Airbnb allowed hosts to have the autonomy to do stuff for themselves and make their own decisions, it would prevent a lot of faffing about and wasted time on both sides. 

[Helen3]

Couldn’t you have done it through a special offer @Alexandra316 ?

[Huma0]

@Emilia42, yes, while it's good to hear that @Alexandra316 got a response and a satisfactory conclusion, this is a really basic thing that Airbnb need to correct so that a host/guest doesn't need to contact CS to make these kinds of adjustments.

Airbnb have long been aware of the technical glitches surrounding making changes to long-term bookings. I know because I have spoken to them about it several times over the past few years. On the one hand, if a guest wants to extend their stay, the long-term discount disappears and they get overcharged. Conversely, when the guest wants to shorten their stay, they still get the discount and the host gets underpaid.

I don't want to be cynical, but why exactly has Airbnb continued to ignore this problem (I was told 2.5 years ago by a CS rep that it was an ongoing glitch)?

[Emilia42]

@Huma0 I read on this forum every single day about the simplest of tasks and questions that guests/hosts spend hours on either because CS downright does not have the correct answers or the system is riddled with glitches that they have no choice but to contact CS. I've come to the conclusion that all the issues Airbnb is currently faced with they have brought on themselves. 

[Pat271]

This is admittedly better than it has been in the recent past, but something like this should only take a quick phone call.  Host and guest are in full agreement, CS should just have to confirm with guest and then adjust the reservation.  Assuming guest is available to confirm, 10 minutes max.

[Alexandra316]

@Pat271 And to be fair, it may have been faster to call, but I sent one preliminary message, went to sleep, and when I woke up it was taken care of. I don't like making phone calls. 

[Pat271]

@Alexandra316 I wasn’t suggesting it would have been faster if you had used the phone. In fact, Airbnb phone support might not have been any faster, because of all the different transfer levels and callbacks required, not to mention getting hold of a human in the first place.

I’m glad this worked out to your satisfaction.  It is refreshing to hear. Some other hosts have mentioned that they felt Airbnb customer service has improved lately.  Maybe they have put some additional focus and budget on the CS side of things..

[Katrina79]

@Alexandra316 @Yes I had the fastest response I’ve ever had yesterday, and it blew my mind! I involved Airbnb in a resolution center request and it was approved in five minutes! I still can’t believe it, and I won’t fully believe it until the payment shows up. Does anybody know if the guest gets an alert or email when you choose to involve Airbnb in a resolution request? The only thing I could think of is that it was somehow paid by the guest instantly after I escalated it to Airbnb. However, the email was sent by Airbnb and signed by a case manager.