To: Airbnb....From: Superhost + Prior Employee....Subject: 27 Critiques

[Daniel-Rusteen0]

Dear, Airbnb - Please take the host community more seriously. I'm identifying 27 usability issues, suggestions for improvement, and questions about how the platform operates. These are built up from the past three years and my dealing with hosts all around the world as part of my business.

Usability Issues:

- You force me to scroll through all inactive listings on mobile to find my active ones at bottom of your app

- Extreme slowness of both mobile and desktop

- When I click 'Manage Listing' on desktop, you bring me to the dashborad, not to my listings

- When I click 'Edit Caption' in photos, why do you make me click another button to add a caption then click save, then click back? Same with deleting photos. This update was about a year ago and increased the number of clicks on this simple process 4x. This is a general theme of your platform, it's become less usable.

- On mobile, I am not able to view the related listing within an active inquiry (you only show me the listing title)

- Only the most recent notification is show for the Airbnb app on mobile. This causes me to miss messages because if I was sleeping and have numerous notifications, I'm only shown one. This is espeically an issue both users who are both hosts and guests.

Suggestions For Improvement:

- Allow me to measure click by cover photo so I can identify the best cove photo

- Ability to remove weekly discounts for high-demand weeks/events

- Show the length of stay per review (a guest of 2 nights is looking for different things than a 30-day guest)

- Allow video, 3D views, and floor plans in the photo section

- Allow hosts to identify special amenities. For example, in Bali, 'Rice Patty Views' should be an amenity

- Allow guests to specify what they want and I can offer my place to those guests who are a good fit

- If a guest does not have a completed profile, they cannot even reach out to me

Questions About The Platform:

- I HATE that you treat me like an irresponsible, racist, delinquent by doing things like not showing me the guest profile photo before booking. Or making me tell you why I denied a booking and letting me know it may be reviewed. Are you kidding me!?! Believe it or not, the photo a guest chooses for their profile matters. It's a piece of the puzzle to help me avoid bad guests and attract good guests.

- If my listing has a last-minute cancellation, do I get a boost in search? I have flexible cancelation policy and this would be nice to know.

- Why did you require my 3 year old account get verified and restrict my access why you were doing that?

- What happened to create Belo?

- Why did you discontinue co-host payments? You know how useful this feature was to the host community.

I create a video if you're more of a listener: https://youtu.be/-ICiufQXfZ0

#airbnb

#airbnbproblems

#superhostissues

#airbnbhost

@Airbnb 

[Cormac0]

@Daniel-Rusteen0 

Your wasting your time Daniel the lights are on but nobody is at home in Airbnb, the software is a dogs dinner, hosts have been saying it for years.

The accounting and invoicing is total crap and I would go so far as to say its smoke and mirrors.

Daniel, Airbnb have turn the review process into complete nonsence, how can you give a five star review for a three star listing!

[Daniel-Rusteen0]

@Cormac0 I think Airbnb just needs a kick in the A$$. After all, we/hosts have always been making money even as Airbnb had become increasingly guest focused.

[Anonymous]

@Daniel-Rusteen0  I think you have some good suggestions there, I agree with several of them. But I'm also curious why you, as a former employee, chose the Community forum to submit your suggestions. Did you find during your time in the company that the higher-ups were actually reading this stuff? Or is there really no suitable contact for you to transmit "expert feedback" directly to the teams you'd like to engage with it?

[Daniel-Rusteen0]

@Anonymous No, the high ups are most definitely not reading this, but someone is. I need the host community involved. We have no voice. I've also posted a video online which I'm directly asking any host who agree's with it to share it as a sort of petition. It's just the tip of the iceberg on changes that are overdue.

[Ute42]

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@Daniel-Rusteen0 

If Your post is meant to be a job application or an attempt to sell Your best selling book "Optimize YOUR Airbnb" I think that's ok and I'm fine with it.

As far as proposing changes to airbnb I believe You already know that this will take You nowhere.

[Cormac0]

@Ute42 

LOL, that a good one Ute.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=now+where+man+song&view=detail&mid=BC879188FF31EF8D0832BC879188...

[Ute42]

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@Cormac0 

Nowhere Man, great recording. The music comes out of the left side speaker and the vocals from the right. Those where the days ..... ):):)

[Daniel-Rusteen0]

@Ute42 haha, no this is a genuine attempt at making contact with the highest levels of Airbnb. But it can only happen via an outcry of the host community and this is my attempt. I've made a video and will post a blog soon. I'm also going one from the guest side of things as I live permanently in Airbnb's.

[Ute42]

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@Daniel-Rusteen0 

Pls keep us updated how many of Your proposals airbnb has implemented.

[Sarah977]

@Daniel-Rusteen0  I would add to your list, that Airbnb needs to stop its convoluted, inaccurate language and put someone in charge of explanations who actually understands how to state something clearly. Wording always seems to be as ambiguous and misleading as possible.

Here's a glaring example: under Availability settings>Prep time,  it says "Block one day (2 days, 3 days) before and after each reservation. Now, to anyone but Airbnb, this would mean that if you chose 1 day, you would then end up with 2 unbookable days between reservations, one after booking #1, and one before booking #2. But in fact, this is not how it works at all, because the 1 day block after a reservation doubles up as the 1 day block before the following reservation. So why doesn't it say "Block one day between reservations", which is exactly what it does? I have seen so many posts over time where hosts don't really want back-to-back reservations, but don't want to use the prep time setting because they quite rightly assume, because of the misleading language, that it will block more days than it actually does.

And another issue- Airbnb needs to stop changing the format of our hosting pages without notice or explanation. One day we go to our hosting pages to find they have rearranged things, or changed what they call something (like when they changed "Stats" to "Progress"-who would logically think that "progress" was a synonym for "stats"? It isn't.). Yet hosts receive no notification of changes, no explanation of where things have been moved to, and are left hunting around, trying to figure out where things have been buried, eliminated, or changed. This is so disrespectful- as if our time is of no value.

And telling guests that 4*s means "Good" and then turning around and sending hosts warning messages if their rating falls below 4.7 is outrageous. Why are they leading guests to think they are giving hosts a good rating, and then punishing and threatening hosts for providing what the guest considered to be a good stay? 

[Daniel-Rusteen0]

@Sarah977 Great points. I thought you were also going to touch on that fact that when you need information or clarification from them, usually for serious issues, their answers are over-the-top corporate and useless.

But, I'd like to add on to yours from a guest perspective that amenities like 'Kitchen' are misleadingand vague, A/C can mean one room or all rooms, laptop-friendly workspace can mean almost anything including sitting on the ground if there's a table that high, private entrance can really mean anything, etc. etc. etc. None of this stuff is specifically defined outside of Airbnb Plus.