Response rate

[Clare5]

I have had an email full of praise saying hooray my response rate is up to 90% but on the dashboard it still says 70%. Blinking heck I think my response rate is about 110%! 

[Clare0]

Hi @Clare5, I did a double take when I saw your name! I've only met two other Clares (as opposed to Claire, Clair, etc) in my entire life which has been kind of long 😞  

I assume the email you referenced was from Airbnb, yes? If so I would trust that as opposed to your Dashboard stats.  Airbnb is notoriously slow in updating Dashboard stats, especially Listing Views which I've found can be as late as 10 days.  

I wouldn't rely on the Dashboard. 

Happy Hosting, Clare!

[Rick3]

I just found an inquiry from 12 days ago in my Inbox but it was never sent to me by text or by email, both of which I get.  As a consequence, my Response Rate has been hit and I missed a possible customer.  What does one do when such a thing happens?  Thanks much.

Best,

Rick

[Robin4]

@Rick3  Hi Rick, Yes this is now a very common occurence, it is affecting hosts world wide and we have had to find out the bits and pieces of it on the forum centre. Some, who just happen to be on their computer at the time a request comes through are possibly the more fortunate ones in that they did actually see the original pre-aproval, or booking request quickly and thought they had done the right thing by responding to it in a timely fashion which has also not been passed on to the person requesting! But, at least they won't be pinged for response time! Many of us though, you included Rick, are not as 'lucky' as that and requests are going unanswered for, in some times more than the 24 hour period, and these people are going to be penalised.....all because they were not (using Airbnb's nominated method of contact) able to do their job!!!

There are some really worrying things happeneing to the platform at the moment and I Rick, am the eternal optimist, and I am still hopeful that what is going on at present is a serious hacking attack on Airbnb, and that they will get on top of it and get things back to normal. But as the days go by, and the silence from the top remains, I am becoming less and less optimistic.....Cheers....Rob

[Bruce15]

We have a 94% response rate yet received a notification that our listing maybe deactivated due to poor response. Anyone have an idea how we can clear this up?

[Alex4]

I am wondering the same thing. I have a notice that I may be deactivated. AND my response rate is listed as 86%, within a few days. I always respond to everything immediately - so my response rate should certainly be in the high 90%s, and within a few hours.

Does anyone know how I find out exactly what is hurting my rate, and how to protest that? I am STILL not a SuperHost, despite receiving good reviews and responding quickly.

[Clare0]

@Alex4 Hi Alex, just took a quick view of your listing.  Unfortunately you cancelled on a guest and that is the kiss of death for Super Host status.  You should read about host cancellations here: 

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/990/how-do-host-cancellation-penalties-work

[Alex4]

But I had to, because my tub cracked and it had to be replaced. The "extenuating circumstances" section says that if it is because of unavoidable repairs that I was not penalized. I offered the guest a rebate if she came while the repairs were going on, and she chose to have me cancel instead. 

Do you know how I made this clear to the AirBnB people?

[Clare0]

@Alex4  For the future, you need to contact Airbnb before you cancel so they can guide you through the cancellation process, otherwise they won't know there was an extenuating circumstance.  I would advise you to contact Airbnb and explain the situation. Be prepared to provide them with copies of the repair bill as they will want proof.  I had to cancel once when I had a gas leak and they required all kinds of documentation, not only that the gas leak existed, but proof of the repair as well.  Here's how to contact Airbnb: 

https://community.airbnb.com/t5/Tips-Tricks/Contact-Airbnb-A-Community-Help-Guide/m-p/16165/highligh...

Hope this helps!

[Alex4]

Thank you, Clare!!!

Alex

[Clare0]

@Alex4 You're welcome!  Please give us an update when you hear back from Airbnb so we know for future reference what their response to this type of situation is.  Thanks!

[Mary91]

I responded within 10 hours, then I received a notification that I needed to respond to people soon. 😞 How can I fix it? How can I get in touch with AB&B? It doesn't show contact information. 

[Robin4]

@Mary91 Hi Mary, the method of responding now can be somewhat confusing! For some reason or other Airbnb seem to be hell bent on re-inventing the wheel! You may have thought you were responding by sending a message, but not actually accepting or declining the enquiry! It can happen.

The best way to contact Airbnb is via their Facebook page or through Twitter. You will generally get a response within ten minutes on their Facebook page. Should you wish to go through that automated hell that is the preface to phone conversation try ringing them on ....United States and Canada. +1-415-800-5959 / +1-855-424-7262 (toll-free)

Best of luck Mary, I hope you can sort it out....cheers....Rob

[Mary91]

Thanks, Rob.

So does an initial email counts as a response or does it have to be an acceptance or decline counts? 

BTW, how does one become a level 10?

[Robin4]

@Mary91  .....Hi Mary, Sorry about the delay in responding...sleep time intervened in this part of the world!

What I am going to do is re-post an answer from one of the most experienced contributor to this forum @Clare0. I hope Clare won't mind but she has said it better than I could have....Here is her answer.....

"Typically when a host finds themselves in this situation it is because they failed to either accept or decline a reservation request.

When you receive an inquiry, all you need to do is reply to any questions posed, or send a Pre-Approval or Special Offer.  That's it.

A reservation request requires you to accept or decline within the 24 hour window in order to count as a response required for the response rating.  Many guests ask questions in  reservation requests leading hosts to believe that just answering the question satisfies the requirement.  Not so.  You can ask questions and answer them but ultimately you need to make a decision one way or the other so the guest knows where they stand.  If you decline for whatever reason, fine, the guest can look elsewhere.  If you accept, great, they can now complete all their travel plans".

Now Mary, where the possible problem comes in for new users, it used to be that when an enquiry came through you were faced with an email (or SMS) that simply had a green 'accept' tab or a red 'decline' tab.....simple as that...we all knew where we stood. Now there are multiple options available, and after making your statement to the proposed guest you do need to, as Clare says, either, accept , decline, pre-approve or special offer the request!

You can gain a lot of useful information by simply typing your questions into the search box at the top of each page.

To your second question....a 'Level 10' is not linked to any level of expertise, it means that a certain number of posts have been made by that contributor on the forum. Everyone starts out at a level 1 but if you continue to post comments on the forum your 'level' will rise. This is why you will see all levels up to '10'. I am not aware of anything higher than 10, although I did see a French contributor say she reached a 19 in another group but I think that was a metaphorical statement on her part...she just spent a lot of time posting!!!! We are not always right Mary, but we all answer from our experience....

Hope this helps....cheers....Rob