A proposed fix for frustrating CS interaction

[Sarah977]

@Airbnb   Here's a suggestion that would make claims, cancellations, review issues, and everything else easier and more efficient for hosts, guests, and Airbnb itself.

Instead of having your front line CS personnel trying to handle all manner of issues, have CS depts. that are specific to each issue. The front line CS receives the initial message, phone call, etc, and then immediately forwards to the appropriate CS team. Review issues, cancellations, claims, tech problems, confusion on the part of new hosts or guests who don't understand how to work the platform, etc, etc, immediately shunted to the appropriate CS Dept, rather than many back and forths with the initial CS rep trying to sort things out or even get them to understand why you are contacting them.

In other words, they don't have to be knowledgable about anything Airbnb, just know what dept to hand it to and have good customer service skills.

Each team then only has the need to be thoroughly informed about Airbnb TOS on one specific topic and can better help both guests and hosts to sort things out. This would streamline the process of dealing with all issues, be easier on CS reps, and users would be dealing with someone who is fully cognizant of all the policies pertaining to the issue at hand.

As is stands now, many CS reps seem very poorly informed of actual Airbnb policy, often fail to understand what the issue really is or what the user is asking CS to do, have to be led by the hand by hosts or guests to the appropriate policy, and often get CS reps who close a case because, I suspect, they feel overwhelmed, or, for all I know, they are downgraded by Airbnb for not resolving cases quickly, so simply close them before a user has indicated that they feel their concerns were addressed.

I think it's a lot for Airbnb to expect all their CS staff to be able to be fully up-to-date and cognizant of all policy, and it's obvious that many of them aren't. And I doubt if most have ever been hosts, although they might have been guests, so often, understandably, don't fully appreciate host and guest issues or frustrations. And many seem quite young- they don't have enough life experience to know how to handle all the different personalities and approaches they are bombarded with all day.

A change like this in CS could be a win-win for all.

[Ben551]

@Cathie19 agree, it’s a good place to start as any. If they can get their CS right I expect it would solve a number of things.

Airbnb strikes me as a company that has grown far too quickly and in an unstructured way. There are the usual visible symptoms like poor CS, bad policy, and a less than fit-for-purpose system solution... all these things were probably fine when the platform was smaller, but it has likely reached the limit. I’d love to take a good look at their entire company structure... and the operating model... hell, and the accountability structure (I bet that’s a pile of mince too).

Like a growing city that doesn’t address its plumbing... a company in rapid growth can quickly end up drowning in its own excrement.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Sarah977 

I think you are a genius! 

When you think about it.......as @Cathie19 and @Ben551  have mentioned it really is how most call centers work. Depending on the issue/complaint/reason for your call the person who takes your call will forward the caller to the appropriate department that has the knowledge and authority to handle them properly. 

If there is anyone smart at ABB, they'd pay serious attention to the suggestions and ideas posted here on the CC. 

[Ann72]

@Sarah977 I love this.  Airbnb's growth has probably resulted in the hiring of new call centers and doing some sort of lookalike training for each of them, then throwing the poor eager kids to the wolves.  In their expansion (HotelTonight and the French property management company, to name two) they're acknowledging they're no longer one-size-fits-all, so it shouldn't be a stretch for them to acknowledge that CS should be more bespoke.  One of the most populated posts I've seen here is about guests who are furious at the treatment they've received, many of whom express the desire to sue.  That can't be good for a growing company seeking to go public.

[Ben551]

Without making light of this very good suggestion, I told my wife about this thread this morning, and I have to share her reply...

“People always underestimate the effort it takes to correctly handle customers testy calls.”

I spat my tea down myself....

[Sarah977]

@Ben551  Your wife is right. That's why it's not fair to CS staff for Airbnb to expect them to have to handle so many different issues. Because they are expected to, I think that's one of the reasons that hosts and guests get unsatisfactory responses from CS who can't possibly be expected to be conversant with every single policy relating to every different issue, nor know about any precedents regarding specific issues. Add to that, that I'm sure they have to deal with people who have a hard time staying polite (they may be normally polite people but just at the end of their frustration threshold), those who tend to have hostile approaches from square one, those who refuse to be patient when it's not actually a matter of extreme urgency, messaging the CS rep over and over again, when they've already been told it's been turned over to a supervisor or tech team, etc.

Of course, if they can't handle the issue, they can escalate it to a supervisor, but it seems they're probably discouraged from doing so, expected to handle it themselves if they want to keep their jobs. Which, I also suspect, aren't very well-paid. Why else farm it out to the Phillipines?

[Cormac0]

@Ben0

who are you telling, most hosts have become experts dealing with guest with unreasonable expectations, how a about a call at 01:30am about my facilities that they did not bother to check up on my listing, or a request to put on the kettle from a guest that left me guessing about there arrival time twice over a ten hour period.

[Beth80]

@Sarah977  Great suggestion. Now let's see if the powers that be actually read through this and act on it..

[Helen427]

@Sarah977 @Beth80 @Ben551 @Cathie19 @Ann72

There could be challenge there though, one team may be more run off there feet than others!!

The main thing is that these Customer Se4rvices people are versant with basic Common Laws, which is sadly lacking!

[Sarah977]

@Helen427   Well, there would have to be more CS reps in teams that have a higher volume of issues come their way, obviously. Cancellations, reviews, reports of guests who refuse to follow house rules, would probably need more reps than say, those dealing with new hosts and guests who are confused about where to access this or that on the platform. The latter would be pretty straightforward and not need a lot of training nor have to deal with irate users. There would be coveted teams to be on, for sure 🙂

"Better work your way through that pile of call-back requests tonight, otherwise we're sending you over to Revenge Reviews- believe me, you don't want to have to deal with what they get over there."

There could even be sub-teams. If a host needed to cancel reservations under what was clearly an extenuating circumstance, like the house burnt down, that could be handled by less experienced CS, a contentious cancellation issue handled by a more experienced rep.

[Ben551]

@Sarah977  I also wonder about the quality vs quantity of CS staff.

My wife was talking earlier about optimization projects she's been on.  In UK banking (post the crisis) one bank reduced it's call centre size by 30% by rationalising and introducing an advisory layer who were more highly paid.  Something about... past inefficiencies created by throwing large volumes of the wrong people into call centres vs. having less people doing more of the right things.

[Sarah977]

@Ben551 For sure. Some people know how to be highly efficient, and some don't at all. A CS rep who quickly scans a mesage, picks out the word "review" and sends you a cut and paste answer having nothing to do with your question may think they are being efficient, but when it then takes 3 more back and forth messages before they actually bother to fully read and comprehend the original, they're wasting the user's time and theirs.

You could ask 4 of your friends to come over and help clean your rental unit because you're pressed for time and your wife is out-of-town, but if those buddies are essentially lazy and disorganized, it won't take any less time than if you had one super efficient, detail-oriented, power-cleaner friend come by. And the power cleaner should be paid as much as the 4 slackers put together.

[Ben551]

@Sarah977  precisely!  You explained it better than I, as usual 🙂

PS:  I wouldn't trust my slacker friends to hold a mop in a empty room by themselves.  Many hands doesn't always make light work.  It sometimes makes a bigger mess.

[Inna22]

@Sarah977 are you sure house fire is streightforward?

Host: I need to cancel my future reservations

CS: May I ask why?

Host: My house burnt down

CS: You have used your three cancellations for the year, please keep in mind this will be a penalty on your account and you might not be able to host in this home any more

Host: It burnt down, I will not host in it anymore! (voice quivering). Can’t I use extenuating circumstance policy for this?

CS: I have looked on the list and it has death, change of flight, road closers and sudden diarrhea. Sorry, but house fire is not on the list

[Sarah977]

@Inna22  My laugh of the day- love ya. 

FYI I had a tech issue the other day, dealt with CS, it got passed to a tech tem member and it was resolved. Then I said that as long as I had his ear, the tech tem needed to know that when they change the format of the hosting platform, they needed to show respect for their users and post instructions along with the changes, as many things are less than evident or intuitive.

He wrote me back, saying he would definitely pass that along to tech, and he didn't want to take up a lot of my time, but would I please let him know what changes I'd suggest to make CS work better! I almost fell off my chair.

So I'm going to direct him to read this thread, and others, like the recent one in Airbnb Updates about the outlier reviews.

Hard to believe, but maybe they are actually starting to sit up and take notice of all the bad mouthing they're getting.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

Another thing is.......ABB should really provide better call center *scripts* that include accurate and up-to-date info about the ABB rules and policies instead of leaving everything to the discretion of individual reps who have varying levels of knowledge and understanding of the rules and policies. 

For instance, if a host calls about a 3rd party booking by a guest, it should be very straightforward how the CS rep is expected to handle it. Same for a call from a guest user who wants to cancel a booking that has already started. 

In this age of laptops, PCs and databases, how hard would it be to maintain and distribute a database with various *standardized* scripts that the CS reps can pull up on the screen with a quick keywork search while taking a call?