Upgrade to AirBNB Plus - where's my narrative disappeared to?!

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Naomi152
Level 3
Plaxtol, United Kingdom

Upgrade to AirBNB Plus - where's my narrative disappeared to?!

Hi all - I've recently been upgraded to "Plus" status but AirBNB took control over the narrative in my listing which has basically been shrunk down to 3 lines.  Previously I'd included a detailed narrative in my listing which contained a lot of essential information.  Since the listing went live, I've had 3 enquiries which, if my previously listing was still available, would have answered the questions and save time for both the potential guest and for me.  I've emailed AirBNB to ask if it's possible to reinstate the more detailed information, but I've not had a response (have been waiting for 6 days).   We're generally busy, but bookings have gone very quiet - not sure if that's just because of the time of year - we're still in our first year, so haven't experienced Autumn "volume" as yet.  I'm really considering leaving "Plus" - even after spending the money for the photos, inspection and making the suggested fixes (and waiting for months from the start of the process to the finish).   Don't want to jump ship if it's just teething problems, but I'm really disappointed with the listing and wouldn't have bothered if I'd know my detailed info wouldn't be included.  Has anyone else experienced this?   Thanks all.

1 Best Answer
Letti0
Level 10
Atascosa, TX

@Naomi152   Welcome to the world of Plus where you lose all control over your site. They will not put your previous narrative back. You get 2 or 3 sentences now that they create and you can not change it. Period! You have no say about any of your photos or the order in which they are displayed. Also as you said an inquiry  from every potential guests is now your future since there is no narrative anymore, so you will need more and more time devoted to your AirBnB account to handle them all. You need to keep up your response rate at or above 95% to stay in the program, so you are now glued to your AirBnB phone app. You will also be reviewed at a much higher level of scrutiny by your guests would be my guess since your listing is suppose to be top of the line that AirBnB offers. This program is not working well for most of the hosts that have signed up for it lots of views, but no bookings.  

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35 Replies 35
Letti0
Level 10
Atascosa, TX

@Naomi152   Welcome to the world of Plus where you lose all control over your site. They will not put your previous narrative back. You get 2 or 3 sentences now that they create and you can not change it. Period! You have no say about any of your photos or the order in which they are displayed. Also as you said an inquiry  from every potential guests is now your future since there is no narrative anymore, so you will need more and more time devoted to your AirBnB account to handle them all. You need to keep up your response rate at or above 95% to stay in the program, so you are now glued to your AirBnB phone app. You will also be reviewed at a much higher level of scrutiny by your guests would be my guess since your listing is suppose to be top of the line that AirBnB offers. This program is not working well for most of the hosts that have signed up for it lots of views, but no bookings.  

@Letti0 - are you able to Opt Out and get your old listing back ?? I just had a photographer out today and freaking out after reading many comments like this! I spent so much time on my listing, and I can't imagine people booking a stay based on a 3-line listing... at least in a 4-season vacation area like mine, where distance to things like ski hills, swimming, hiking, and local attractions is key!

 

Someone said they even take away your property/listing name! I really want to keep my listing name, as people love it... 

 

If you're accepted, do you get an opportunity to say Yes or No, or do they just remove your listing?

 

 

 

Naomi152
Level 3
Plaxtol, United Kingdom

@Lucia0 - having spoken to Airbnb, you can opt out and go back to a standard listing, although you won't be refunded the fees you have paid.  It seems you will still keep your professional photos though. I've managed to tweak the 3 line narrative Airbnb wrote to try and include a couple of further bits of information, but it's still in no way as good as the previous narrative on my standard listing.  Airbnb's opinion is that it's the photos that sell the property, not the narrative.  I have to disagree - since going to "Plus" I've had more enquiries and bookings that simply do not fit the criteria - people arriving without cars (cars are essential!), people booking with children (our cottage is not suitable for children), because the other thing causing a problem is that the house rules and policies are not obvious on the front page - guests actually have to click through to read them (and in a lot of cases, they're obviously not doing so).  My main concern is that once people are here, their expectations will be different to what they're actually coming to, they'll maybe be disappointed and my ratings will go down (they're perfect at the moment).  I've not upped my rates since upgrading to "Plus" as I don't feel comfortable doing so until I can give a full description of the property and what's on offer in the surrounding area.  I've given feedback to AirBNB about the problems I've encountered over my first few weeks on Plus - it seems I'm not the only one with these issues, so hopefully they'll listen and give us the option to add a fuller narrative at some point soon.

You can opt out and go back to your original listing with original photos. If you enter “opting out of Plus” in the help search, it will tell you that.

Dear Naomi,
I've made the same disappointing experience with Airbnb PLUS.
Do you know if one may opt-out back to Airbnb Superhost Status?
Best regards

Pete28
Level 10
Seattle, WA

Depending on where you are, season can make a significant difference.

 

Seattle drops to mostly people coming for work, hospital, uw, shows etc. far less general visitors. Price also becomes a more significant factor.

 

Naomi152
Level 3
Plaxtol, United Kingdom

Hi Letti - thanks for your comments, glad (but sad) to know I'm not the only one experiencing this.  "Plus" is a great concept, but hasn't been implemented well.   It's all very frustrating...

Jocelyn47
Level 2
Seattle, WA

With the addition of Plus, Airbnb is hoping to give their guests better insight into making decisions.   The verification step of having an on-site audit makes sense to me.  Photos finessed great.

Where I disagree is limiting the amount of information of one’ unique property.  The narrative, the story of our homes does not appear to a feature of the current Plus concept.  

 

Being from a marketing background (West Coast Marketing manager of a national shopping center group) I get having a professional presentation.  This however should never sterilize your product, which are in truth... amazingly varied, different places to call home.   I am going through the Plus process now.  I get having all photographers shoot in a similar fashion for a consistent look.  Fine.

 

Here is where I depart ways...  no copywriter from San Francisco can distill my home down to three lines of copy and no more.  Yes, the pictures will be fabulous, but they can not describe my neighborhood, my favorite restaurants just a walk away.  The Plus program currently does not offer a photo placement of Seattle’s best wine merchant a block away from my Airbnb.

 

I say the Plus program CURRENTLY does not include host narrative.  Hopefully this can change with time.

Hi Jocelyn,

 

Greetings from sunny Phuket Thailand. 

I followed your storey because I am in the process of getting an upgrade to Airbnb Plus.

What I don't understand is, if you have a new listing page on Airbnb Plus, do you loose automatic your existing listing page?

It took me also a lot of work with a professional photographer who made great pictures.

We were days busy, waiting for the sunsets, sun rises whatever to get the perfect shot.

 

I am an interior and exterior designer, had my own design company in Amsterdam. I have my own style and we are very successfull with renting out our 5 villas.

 

I wonder if the new Airbnb Plus site becomes more attractive than my "old" listing page (I am happy with).

 

Hope you have more information then I have,

 

Fred Majoor

Villa in the Garden

Villa on the Rocks

Villa on the Hilltop

Phuket

Thailand

A lot of the verification is nonsense. You can't enforce hosts providing bottled water, which I consider to be worse than tap water since it is generally tap water placed in plastic bottles. Similar for many of the other items. My flats have already been featured in interior design magazines like freshome.com and I really don't need a kid just out of college rewriting my listing. The process itself takes forever and it should not be centralized in San Francisco. It is a Soviet Union approach.

We tried to have "2in1 shampoo with conditioner" to reduce plastic bottles, but they rejected it, as "not Airbnb standards". So basically, they force us to use more plastic - unlike the rest of the world - and act against ecology... And demanding of 4 towels per guest. Seriously? For a weekend? 

Bethany18
Level 2
Nashville, TN

Plus has been a terrible expereince for me.  In addition to the grievences you've all listed above, I've now been fighting for two weeks for them to let me add my laundry room back to the listing.  It wasn't on my new listing so I went to "Add room" but it won't let you add a room without selecting a photo of that room.....Seems they didn't "choose" any of the photos that the photographer took of my laundry room so there aren't any to select and you can't upload your own photo, so I'm not allowed to have my laundry room on my listing which is a HUGE downgrade.  They also changed all my copy and it was full of misspellings and inaccurate statement (they called my place a rennovated building when in reality its a brand-new build completed in 2016 - my old listing proudly proclaimed as such.)

 

Plus is a great idea, but they obviously rolled it out WAY before they had all the kinks worked out.  It's frustrating too because customer service is usually super helpful, but they don't have access to Plus listings - only the "Editorial Board" can make fixes and they are apparently in a high tower somewhere and can't be accessed.

I am having the EXACT same problem! Nashville is so competitve and I worked really hard at gettng my home to "plus" level...my home has so many cute things that makes it special and they didn't capture ANY of it...including my cute little laundry room with bikes for use by the guest. I am very frustrated and considering leaving the Plus program...but not sure. I have called multiple times with no answer.

Same here. They are not responsive and they're picture choices are horrendous. I can't get them to change the featured picture from their current choice of THE COOKING GRILL IN THE BACKYARD