AirBnB add configurable alerts (or IFTTT recipes) for second-order text notifications

AirBnB add configurable alerts (or IFTTT recipes) for second-order text notifications

This suggestion may be a bit hard to describe, so I'll start with what functionality I'm after:

 

Currently, when I confirm a booking, I go and manually create two reminders in my iOS or Google calendar. One reminder, 7 days PRIOR to the booking, is to alert me (via text msg) to send the guest the new door code and some other info related to their arrival. The second alert (text msg) is set for the day they check out, to remind me that we need to clean the apartment.

 

If you think about it, both of those reminders should be easy enough to have happen programmatically and automatically, every time a booking occurs. Either by AirBnB setting up some slightly user-configurable "alerts" (which would NOT be all that hard) or by enabling some tie-ins to services such as IFTTT (If This Then That). I use IFTTT for other things, and I was hoping I could have an AirBnB auto-entry in my iOS or Google calendar trigger those reminders. But it won't work. If I share my AirBnB calendar with my Google calendar, I *can* use IFTTT to generate a new Google cal entry for any specific date/time after the booking commences, but (due to the limitations of Google's "Quick Add" feature) I can't create any new event *before* the booking, and I certainly can't create one with a relative date (such as "7 days before) instead of a specific date (such as "September 21, 2016"). And, triggering a reminder ("Clean apartment") based on a guest's departure date is even more difficult. (Be aware that I want the alerts to happen via text message, and not depend on me checking my email or viewing the AirBnB calendar, etc. I want a text popping up right in my face.)

 

So, I can imagine a couple of different routes to achieve this. The most obvious and, as I've said, not really all that difficult, would be for AirBnB to set up a small system of host-configurable alerts based on already-existing AirBnB-tracked events. For the Do-Something-In-Advance category, let me set up an automatic alert that happens based on the start of every booking. I choose the number of days in advance and I supply the text for the message to be sent to myself. For the Time-To-Clean message, no need to let me select the day, since that's already known. Maybe I don't even need to supply the text, but just click a box for "Send Clean/Prep reminder".

 

Getting really ambitious, I suppose AirBnB could expand the capability of such a system so that hosts could use any date to trigger any reminder. (For instance, if halfway through a long booking -- whatever "long" might mean to a host -- one could trigger a reminder to provide clean sheets or ask the guest if they need blah-blah-blah.) That sounds ambitious, though, so I suggest starting with events triggered by the start and end of bookings.

 

The second way to achieve this, without AirBnB implementing the whole thing themselves, would be to enable more flexible tie-ins with services such as IFTTT. As I mentioned way back at the beginning, this doesn't work right now. Not because of anything having to do with AirBnB or IFTTT, but because of the limitations of Google Calendar and (even more) the iOS calendar. Maybe AirBnB could enable a way for hosts to set additional *automatic* (has to be automatic; remember, we're trying to make it so that I don't have to do this manually for every booking) AirBnB calendar entries. Which hosts could then, by sharing their AirBnB calendar with iOS or Google, feed into those calendars. At which point, the hosts could set up IFTTT recipes to trigger events for dates other than just check-in.

 

If any of this is too poorly explained or just doesn't make sense, feel free to contact me directly, AirBnB. And if any host reading this has any workarounds already making this possible, please contact me and make my day!

 

 

14 Comments
Tim209
Level 7

@Dede0 thanks for the feedback! What happens is that our calendar syncing takes place about every 30 minutes, so that's why your turnovers didn't appear immediately. We'll probably change that so it syncs right away when someone uploads a new calendar.

 

The icloud emails are still frustrating us. We have no problems sending to gmail, yahoo, or virtually any other email host, but icloud has been giving us problems. We're going to migrate to a new email host, which we hope will fix that problem.

 

I'll go ahead and send you an email anyway with my contact, so you can reach me anytime, if you have any problems.   

 

Tim

Tim209
Level 7

@Dede0 Just fyi, we resolved the icloud email issues and shouldn't have any further problems.

Doug-and-Teri0
Level 2

Hello,

 

we too really want the feature as Dede describes because we need to be able to contact guests in timely manor so we too need configurable alerts.

 

I just talked to support about this and they don't have plans to provide the feature (at least that they were aware of). There is an airbnb API if you have multiple listings, but from what I can see, that won't even help as it doesn't appear to interact with calendars.

 

I looked at turnoverbnb, but it didn't seem to have all the features I am looking for. 

I too am thinking about writing an application that provides the level of configuration we need. Will let you know if/when we do that.

 

Thanks,

Doug

 

Tim209
Level 7

@Doug-and-Teri0 Yeah, Turnoverbnb automatically your cleaners for upcoming turnovers and allows you to find new/backup cleaners in your area. It doesn't contact your guests. 

 

Tim