Response Rate

[Veronica844]

Hello fellow hosts,

After Six years of hosting I feel there is a large flaw in the “response rate” for hosts.  Often time Guests contact me with simple questions about the rental. They are making decisions and don’t necessarily want to  book right away. Point is, I am having a conversation. And often times this helps me make a decision as a host if I feel comfortable hosting this particular guest. 
The way the platform Is designed in a way that I feel pushed and pressured into accepting or denying them. It is a major point of anxiety for me while using the platform and I wish more people would point his out so it can be fixed. 
Sometimes people need a little space to ask questions and not be pressured. Airbnb should fix this and allow for conversation without being penalized.  Especially when often times, I as a host am the one waiting for a response from the potential guest. 
THX

[Anonymous]

@Veronica844   The questions you get from people who aren't ready to book are termed "Inquiries." You don't have to decline or pre-approve them in any time frame - you only have to write something in reply to the initial message within 24 hours. 

This is different from a Request. When guests send those, they should be ready to book because they get charged as soon as you click Accept. In order to keep up your Response Rate, you have to either accept or decline these within 24 hours. But if you don't feel this is sufficient time to make a decision, or guests don't answer your follow-up questions fast enough, you may decline but invite the guest to re-submit the request. The "Basic Requirement" to have an 88% Acceptance Rate was never enforced to begin with, but now it indefinitely suspended due to the pandemic. 

[Emilia42]

@Veronica844 This is a great article which will help you understand the difference between response rate and acceptance rate:

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Airbnb-Updates/Understanding-Response-Rate-and-Acceptance-Rate/t...

Once you respond to the guest your work is done and you have maintained your response rate. What is important to remember is when it is a booking request (as opposed to an inquiry) you must also hit accept or decline; this will in turn affect your acceptance rate. But you have 24 hours to do so. 

[Emilia42]

@Veronica844 P.s Your response rate is 100% so you're doing something right 🙂

[Ann72]

@Veronica844  I understand your anxiety - you have responded to an inquiry, and yet you still get those reminders to accept, decline, pre-approve, or set a wedding date.  It's annoying!

One aspect of being an Airbnb host is growing a thick skin and ignoring things like that.  The list of things to ignore is quite long - like pricing suggestions, and suggestions to make your cancellation policy more flexible, and suggestions to allow one-night stays AND long-term stays - and quite tiresome.  But it's the only way to stay sane.

You can also repeatedly "send feedback" just to have the satisfaction of driving them as crazy as they're driving us...