TIME ZONES & MESSAGING

[Zoe105]

Suggestion to AIRBNB:

It is necessary that AIRBNB take a moment to educate Guests,  in order to be aware of Time Zones.  It looks very disrespectful to send a message and wake up the Host late at night.  Guests should be instructed to send  messages only if their answers are not in the Manual or if there is a real emergency. 

(I was just woke up by my guest at 5:00 AM just to ask me where was the closest supermarket. And before her arrival, I was receiving her questions at 3:00 AM).

In my House Manual and in my Travel Guide is ALL the information a Guest needs.  Guests should review and READ the House Manuals to look for all responses to their questions before sending frivolous messages to Hosts.  

I suggest Airbnb to create a feature in the App that could block inquiries, requests, or messages that will "enter" or be received by Hosts, during sleeping hours.  Time Zones between Guests and Hosts should be taken in consideration seriously.   I think this is easy to program and in this way, preserve the positive spirit and sleeping health of our Hosts.  Many Hosts work for living too.  

Please, help us fix this.  

[Sarah977]

@Zoe105  I would make it clear in your house manual what hours, in the local time of your rental, you are available to answer guest messages. I would assume, since you are in a different time zone, that you have a property manager/co-host who can be contacted for emergencies after hours.

I turn my ringers off when I go to bed. If you don't wish to be disturbed by these trivial messages, it's a easy fix. I refuse to be a slave to my phone.

[Sandra856]

Hi @Zoe105 🙂

You can put your phone on silent mode during late evening/night so when you receive mails, airbnb notifications etc. it won't disturb you. And then just answer the guest when you wake up and got the time. I don't think guests expect you to answer during night time. That is what I do and so far no problems :-).

Best, Sandra 

[Anonymous]

@Zoe105  This is a "problem" you can very easily fix yourself. Just adjust the settings on your phone so that notifications are on silent during the hours of your choice. On most smartphones it is possible to do this selectively, so that for example calls and alarms ring at full volume but your apps and emails don't. Airbnb does not require you to respond to messages immediately; you're only obliged to respond to inquiries and requests within 24 hours after they're sent.

Funnily enough, for most hosts the bigger concern is when guests are not communicative - especially with important details such as their arrival time. If you're finding that you get too many questions that are already answered in your listing, perhaps it's a good time to trim the listing text down so that the most important info is easy to find. Thorough descriptions are a good thing, but there's an enormous amount of stuff to read there, and many of the details are repeated in places where they don't belong. For example "Guest Access" is only meant for you to describe which parts of the actual property guests are permitted to use and which are shared with others, not for listing all the tropical bird species in the nearby reserve. Same goes for the House Rules - if you want people to take them seriously, it's best to stick to the important ones and leave out stuff like where to see the opera.

Guests have generally already chosen your area as their destination when they find your listing, so it's not necessary to oversell all the things the general vicinity has to offer - one concise paragraph will do. For things that become useful info after guests have arrived, perhaps consider removing it from the listing and printing it out in a binder that guests can peruse at their leisure