How can I get more bookings?

[Susan17]

The current incarnation of Superhost has only been around for 19 quarters, so nobody has reached 20 yet. 

19/19 here too. Not that it's worth a tupenny d*mn. Still can't get bookings on Airbnb for love nor money, no matter how hard I try. (And at this point, there's nothing I haven't tried). One of my listings has had 3 bookings since last August. That's the reality of hosting on Airbnb - the longer your service to the company, the more they'll try to push you out. 

[Susan17]

 @Michelle And Michael

Sorry to hear you had this nightmare scenario too! Makes you want to pull your hair out, doesn't it?! So much geief and hassle, over something so small... 😞

Glad it's going better on Airbnb for you though!

[Susan17]

@Ben551 @Robin4 @Michelle

Firstly, apologies for the delayed response - went to bed yesterday afternoon with a blinding migraine, didn't get up until today. 

Thank you so much for the clear and detailed explanation Ben. I'm still stuggling a bit to understand it fully, but I have a much better grasp on it than I did previously! 

This is so, so, so depressing because I actually think you're 100% correct, and I've had literally years of grief and lost bookings (and god only knows how many tens of thousands in lost income!) over something that should so easily have been spotted and fixed so long ago. Obviously the top tech guys in SF missed it too when my account was escalated to them for urgent appraisal. They need to hire you Ben!! 

I've read your comment several times now and each time I read it, more little bits of the puzzle slide into place and I'm remembering little things that happened along the way that often coincided with my bookings drying up completely. It's all making sense now. 

From day 1, Airbnb has had my correct address, but even when I first listed, the pin was on the wrong place on the map. First time I noticed, it was almost 2 miles away from where I'm actually situated! And what a palaver it was trying to get them to fix it. They even tried to make out that I must be trying to pull some sort of stunt, and that it was somehow my fault! But eventually, they sorted it. 

Then over the years, the pin has hopped from here to there, all over the area (even though my address remained exactly the same in their system. Oftentimes, I wouldn't notice it at first because my drivers pick up 95% of my guests from the airport, so there was never any issue. Every now and then though, guests would be making there own way here, and I'd get a call from them from a mile or two away, saying they were at the place Airbnb showed them on the map, but of course, it wasn't my place. So I'd be back on the phone to CX going through the whole rigmarole again. 

It was only maybe a couple of years ago that the CX guy mentioned the geocode thing, and told me that if it happened again, to ask CX to "refresh the geocode", which I have done - umpteen times - but even when I did that, it was clear that most of the agents had absolutely no clue what I was talking about, and always tried to insist that it must be something else. Usually, I just got so frustrated, that I gave up, and thought that maybe the other guy had been mistaken after all. 

And now that I think of it, there were certain times when I got no bookings at all for weeks, and even months. One of the worst times was when Airbnb introduced the "Neighbourhoods" feature several years back. That was an absolute nightmare for me, but again, taking into account what you've written above, it's all slotting into place now. 

Aaaaaaaaaaargh!!!! 

[Susan17]

And the suburbs thing - yes, at different times, particularly in the last year, I've noticed that it's been listed 3 different ways on my listing, and changes indiscriminately. Sometimes it's Dublin 7, sometimes it's Ashtown, sometimes it's "Phoenix Park and Surrounds". While all are technically correct, neither Ashtown nor Phoenix Park and Surrounds are part of my official address - only Dublin 7 is. 

Ashtown is the general area, but there is no such suburb or neighbourhood in Dublin known as "Phoenix Park and Surrounds", and never has been. That's obviously something that Airbnb came up with themselves. 

Phoenix Park does exist, of course, and is the largest enclosed park in Europe, and I'm sitting on my sofa looking right into it as I type this. It is, however, 11km  in circumference and almost 1800 acres, and covers at least 5 different postcodes, so how on earth they ever came up with Phoenix Park and Surrounds as one single area or neighbourhood defies all logic. 

No wonder I didn't get a single inquiry or booking when Ed Sheeran played 3 nights, and the Pope had Mass in the Park last summer, even though both events were nust minutes walk away from me and you could've knocked Ed out with a stone if you threw it from my balcony (which to be fair, I did feel like doing after listening to him all week! 😉)

God, this is infuriating! 

[Alon1]

@Susan @Ben.

  re. 'They need to hire you Ben!!'

Susan, you hit the nail on the head.

And we can add, not only Airbnb, but Homeaway judging by Michelle's comment above.

And probably other websites as well.

There's no substitute for knowledge... and it's proper application.

[Alon1]

re. 'They need to hire you Ben!!'

Susan, you hit the nail on the head.

And we can add, not only Airbnb, but Homeaway judging by Michelle's comment above.

And probably other websites as well.

There's no substitute for knowledge... and it's proper application.

[Alon1]

@Susan @Ben.

re. 'They need to hire you Ben!!'

Susan, you hit the nail on the head.

And we can add, not only Airbnb, but Homeaway judging by Michelle's comment above.

And probably other websites as well.

There's no substitute for knowledge... and it's proper application.

(3rd time lucky re posting this comment)

[Susan17]

@Alon1 

Saw this... and thought of you! I know your options are limited in the private room rental market, but would this be of any use to you as a means of filling up a few spare nights? 

https://www.theatredigsbooker.com/

[Susan17]

Btw @Alon1 , did you hear that Clocktower Pete's place in St Pancras was shut down? What a crying shame. That was one of the best places on the entire platform, and Peter an excellent host. 

[Ben551]

It’s madness isn’t it @Susan17 . Your frustration is completely understandable and justified... chances are, like others you have probably lost a considerable amount of revenue for all the times your listings have become invisible. Guests getting lost too... that alone gives the game away when it comes to Geocode glitches.

Rest assured, you can sort this. It might take a workaround on what you accept as your suburb, to work within the intelligence that the Airbnb platform has... but it is fixable one way or the other.

The first thing we need to do is identify how wide spread your Geocode issue is. The source for many of these errors is, unfortunately, Google data. Google is the major supplier of Geocode data around the world, so many companies are inadvertently dependent on the quality of that data. Sometimes they are getting it through an application... linked to company A... who get it from company B... who get it from Google. So often end user companies like Airbnb don’t even know, for sure, whether Google data is affecting their customers.

Hence, we need to start with Google. Your homework m’lady is to check your address on Google maps and report back if you find any error with your pin location. If you do, then I recommend following the instructions in this post regarding how to report an address or marker error:

https://support.google.com/maps/answer/3094088?hl=en&visit_id=636920755931952877-3292329074&rd=1

Google are very, very fast to correct errors.  Their changes tend to filter to every dark corner of the internet within less than a week. So once we’ve sorted this, and we can see your pin in the right place on Google, we can move on to the next steps.

[Michelle-And-Michael0]

I'm taking notes @Ben551 ..... I hope you don't mind!! 

I can completely understand your frustration, Susan (still can't tag you)..... not only with the Ed Sheeran/balcony scenario Lol...... but having no idea why your place isn't getting booked! 

Your situation sounds exactly like ours. 

How lucky that tech savvy Ben is on top of it. 

I can't understand how big companies like this don't have the right people in place to recognise and fix this for us! 

Best of luck.... and don't forget your homework, Susan 😉

Looking forward to what comes next! 

[Susan17]

@Ben551 @Michelle-And-Michael0 

I checked google maps, the pin is in the correct place. I'm assuming that other apps like mytaxi, tesco delivery, justeat etc, also use google maps for their data? If so, they always find my place, no problems at all. 

"...chances are, like others you have probably lost a considerable amount of revenue for all the times your listings have become invisible"

I can't even begin to estimate how much income this has cost me Ben. This time alone, for one of my two listings, I've had just 3 bookings in 7 and a half months - while still having huge overheads - and quite frankly, it's cost me every penny I had saved up over the last several years (and maxed out my credit card) just to keep my head above water, and try to hang on to our family home. I'm a single parent, with sole responsibility, so it's just me, with no help from nobody. To say it's been stressful would be the understatement of the century. Sleepless nights are the norm, and it's taken a hard toll on my health. I'm not saying this to gain sympathy - that's the last thing I want - but rather to clearly illustrate, once and for all,  the harsh reality of how seriously and negatively these "glitches" can affect people's lives. 

And of course, everyone is always quick to say, "Well, you should have just gone to other platforms", but it's not always as simple as that. In many regions, some platforms have little or no traction, and sites like booking .com print the full address, which is way too risky for anyone in markets with ongoing or upcoming regulatory battles, and far worse, can also pose major safety and security issues for those who, for one reason or another, could potentially be put in serious danger by having their full address published online for the whole world to see. 

At the end of the day though, one should reasonably expect not to be royally f*cked over (repeatedly) by the one platform to which they've given almost a decade of exemplary service. And to now come to the realisation that, all this time, it was all almost certainly because of an easily identifiable and fixable "glitch" - that I brought up with Airbnb time and time and time again - is just soul destroying. I feel as near to broken tonight as I think I've ever felt. 

And you wonder why I'm not a "happy host", singing from the company hymnsheet, @Robin??

[Robin4]

@Susan17 

Today you are showing up at ...

No, 15 for your Chic2.

No 42 for your Chic 4.

Now I get this result if I drag the map to centre on Ashtown where 73 listings are available. The bias definitely is to the listings in the middle of town!

If I just leave the map  centred on the middle of Dublin with 300 + listings, you show up as...

No. 122 for your Chic 2.

No. 203 for your Chic 4 .

But, if I centre the map on Ashtown and zoom 1 step you show up amongst 27 possible listings as...

No.2 for your Chic 2.

No. 5 for your Chic 4

The only filtering I am using is...6 guests, which is probably the only information a searcher would initially use!.

Just as a matter of interest I will follow this every few days for the next month or so and see what happens. If you lose visibility again I will let you know!

From what I am seeing you have a lot of competition in the middle of town with more than 300 listings capable of accommodating 6 guests or more in a radius of 2 Kms. That sure is saturation!

I will watch your sites!

Cheers......Rob

[Susan17]

Thanks again @Robin4, but I can assure you, nobody is going to drag their map to Ashtown - a lot of Dubliners have never even heard of it, even though it's only 10-12 mins drive from the city centre. 

There are currently over 9000 listings in the tiny city of Dublin - the majority of them now from investors, speculators, developers and vultures - so way, way, way beyond saturated. The 300 you're seeing are only the tip of the iceberg. 

And with only 4 weeks to go until shutdown, it's too late now anyway.  But I do appreciate you taking the time to have another look. 

[Susan17]

@Ben551 

Few other things that have come to mind, that may be relevant...

1. Many times, my address has somehow been muddled up by the system. So instead of 1 XXXXXXX, ABCDEFG AVENUE, DUBLIN 7, it's changed itself to 1 ABCDEFG AVENUE, XXXXXXX, DUBLIN 7. 

2. The problem appears to have gotten much worse since Airbnb made whatever changes they made to the map feature last year. @Branka&Sylvia wrote a detailed post about it at the time. I can't remember the exact details, but it was basically about how the searches were only returning city centre listings, and ignoring those a little further out. When I did a recent basic Dublin search, 46 out of the top 50 listings were indeed bang slap in the city centre/hotel belt, and the other 4 were just on the periphery. 

3. While I have gotten a few bookings for my second property since last summer (although sometimes only 1 or 2 a month), the majority of them have been either very last minute, or for groups that have been cancelled on at the 11th hour by other hosts (all of whom insisted that neither of my listings had been shown to them when they made their original bookings. I got a definite sense that my listings were appearing only when almost everything else was booked up. 

4. Re the listing thats had 3 bookings since last August... the last guest in August made bogus claims (which I disproved) to claim a full refund of $2400, which Airbnb happily handed back to him, despite my strident protestations. So naturally, I kicked up holy hell, and pestered them by phone and/or email, every day for 31 days. Most of the time, they either ignored me or tried to fob me off with the usual "someone will get back to you sometime" bs. About 4 weeks in, I posted online that Brian Chesky was coming to Dublin for a "Fireside Chat" and Q&A session, and that I intended to stand up in the audience and ask him if he happened to have the €2400 his company stole from me in his wallet, and if so, I'd like it back please. Lo and behold, a couple of days later, and just 24hrs before Mr C touched down in Dublin, I got a call out of the blue from CX to tell me that Airbnb were returning my full payment to me straight away. No explanation or apology given. (Even then, they tried to shortchange me almost €400, and when I chased that up, they claimed it must have been a "currency exchange error")

Anyway, from then on, my inquiries and bookings for that listing stopped dead. Not a sausage - even over Xmas or New Year - until about 6 weeks ago, when I got a call from CX practically begging me to take a group of 12 that had just been cancelled on, on an extremely busy Rugby weekend, by another host. I agreed to take them, on condition that the CX agent helped me sort out whatever had been blocking my listing from getting bookings since the scammer guest last August. 

At first he insisted that he could find nothing wrong on his side, so then I asked him to check the geocode thing. While he was rummaging away, I heard him mutter to himself "That's weird". When I pressed him on what was weird, he's the one that mentioned that there was "a dot there that shouldn't be there", and when I asked if that could have been the reason I hadn't got any bookings or inquiries, he replied "Very likely". So I asked if that could have been another glitch, he became a bit more cagey, but I got the impression that it would have to have been entered manually. So I've always suspected that perhaps the agent who refunded the $2400 had gotten in some sort of trouble because of the hullaballoo I kicked up about it, and maybe blocked me on purpose out of revenge, or something. I had absolutely no proof of this of course, but there was no other reasonable explanation, and it was hugely coincidental that my bookings dried up immediately after that incident. 

On the same day I agreed to take the cancelled guests, and the geocode was apparently refreshed, I got a second booking for that listing, and a third within a few days, but after that, back to radio silence. 

Sorry for overloading you with info Ben, but just trying to give you the full picture, in the hope it might make more sense to you than it does to me! 

[Alon1]

@Susan17 @Ben551 

Two squeries / uggestions::

1) Claim for compensation.

    Is there a case to be made that Airbnb are responsible for sorting out geocode?

    If so, perhaps Ben can draft a technical analysis as basis for compensation.

    Compensation based on your average yearly earnings for period(s) affected by the glitch.

2) Instead of struggling with CX over the phone, you might consider to pop round to Dublin HQ and try get someone assigned to your case.

    I've posted elsewhere that last year when I had serious problem, after several fruitless weeks over the phone, I dropped into London HQ. One lady came down to speak with me for 45 mins acknowledged the problem, put me in contact with her colleague in Dublin, who in turn contacted a Case Manager she knew would address it.