Why is it suddenly impossible to communicate with Guests Who request to book.

[Jillian115]

Before when you got a request you could respond to the communication, from the request. Now you have to navigate to your inbox to communicate. Is Airbnb trying to stop the communication process or did they mistakenly remove the message option from the request? Either way its making it more difficult. 

[Sarah977]

@Jillian115  I know. They seem to glory in making things as time-consuming as possible and changing things that worked perfectly the way they were. 

It seems like their programmers are hired on the basis of how difficult they can make it to navigate the site.

[Gillian166]

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@Sarah977 wrote:

It seems like their programmers are hired on the basis of how difficult they can make it to navigate the site.

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😂

Was just chatting with a friend today about how limited the backend of the abb app is. We both sell photos online so use a lot of image managers that are full of features, and I can't believe how limited this app is.  I won't go off topic and rant about things we *should* have , but yes, for something that has not that many features, and for such a massive and wealthy company, their app is too clunky. 

[Jillian115]

@Sara977 I have always pictured a bunch of executives in a meeting room coming up with brilliant application changes on the fly that turned out to be not so brilliant and the people making the changes silently cursing leadership.  Anyway,  they should be asking is this going to make it better? because 9 times out of 10 the answer is no. But, if the answer is yes change it but test, test, test, test before your roll it out.  

[Elaine701]

In the app, clicking on "inbox" doesn't always work (you get a blank screen). You have to click on "calendar" or "insights" first, then click on "inbox". Sometimes you have to repeat this process several times before it works. 

Also, sometimes it can take hours before receiving any notification of any new messages, inquiries, requests or bookings. This can be problematic. 

It doesn't inspire much confidence, but you get used to it. I just open the app and go through the process several times per day to see if there's anything new. I find it curious that messaging systems like WhatsApp can be so reliable, but not Airbnb. Especially since responsiveness is so important in this business. 

[Jillian115]

Exactly it was much easier. A couple of weeks ago when you could respond through the request. Now there is this roundabout way to communicate. It’s ridiculous. 

[Gillian166]

I just hit refresh, sometimes I still get the red notification even though there's nothing new to read. This might be a bug, we should probably all report it. 

[Jillian115]

@Gillian166 It’s taken me a year+ to figure that one out. But  I just recently did. you have to clear your inbox and notifications on the traveling side as well as the hosting side to get rid of the red notification. with reviews they send to both inboxes. If you speak to CS they send it to the traveling side under both notification and inbox. It’s ridiculous. 

[Gillian166]

genius! (with such a lovely name i expect no less). that is exactly the problem. thanks for pointing it out.