@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.
