Airbnb, Isn't It Time to Realize the Issue with Email, SMS and App Notifications?

[Dave-and-Deb0]

Dear Airbnb,

I do not know yet if I am affected by the issues noted in the title above as I have for some reason not received even an inquiry in quite some time but as a huge contributor to the Community Center, I am seeing a great deal of posts on the issue of notifications/alerts on the CC, Twitter and the old groups.

Many of the posts are about hosts no longer receiving alerts or notifications through either email, SMS, or the Airbnb app.  Other posts indicate that Airbnb are planning on removing the ability to receive these notifications.  I went back through 6 days of posts in the CC to see that there have been 9 posts about this issue and several complaints within each of the posts.  I have saved you some time and am including all the posts below for your reading pleasure.  

I have also been in contact with your team @Airbnbhelp who have twice said they will forward this to the appropriate team.  Can you provide an update?

I have two questions in which I hope somebody who is a decision maker or influencer at Airbnb can answer:

1. Is there a problem with the notification system and if so, is it currently being worked on?
2. Is Airbnb in the works or are they planning on getting rid of the notification system?

As promised, here are the nine posts which were written on this topic over the last six days:

No Notice of Inquiry

issues on being notified of new inquiry

NO EMAIL NOTIFICATION

Airbnb Glitches

Where to from here!

Buggy App - been missing guest messages, inquiries and booking requests.

missing texts and admin contact?

I can't actually believe this

Reservation Request Alert Problem

[Andrea9]

I'd personally like to add that I'm quite perturbed that ABB has decided on starting to implement such a VITAL change for hosts without the decency of informing them.

Changing the placing of a setting lhere and there or the direction a sliding window comes from isn't that important, however this new change has affected lots of hosts missing inquiries and requests which ultimately impounds their status negatively! It is also causing a lot of unnecessary anxiety.

Why ABB, do you not consider us important enough to be informed about this fundamental change?!

And why are those asking always told about changing settings on the APP only.

Please keep the option to change setting on the website too.

[Mirjam0]

Seems both functions are still on and should work.. You should be able to choose  for  sms on or of on  your  smartphone. I   got this answer from an Airbnb product manager: 'Looked into this. I'm told they recently rolled out a granular settings where you can configure if you'd like both the push notification and the SMS message, or just one. If you are receiving push notifications then SMS may have been disabled automatically. You can easily turn it back on by going to your notification settings in the Airbnb app, and enabling SMS. Let me know if you can't find it.
--
Lenny Rachitsky
Product Manager, Airbnb 

[Christine28]

Lenny, the issue isn't that these functions still work if you go in and re set them.  The issue is that if Airbnb knew that people's hc to go in and reset them they should have told us.  It's dreadful behaviour to do this and then just say 'it's not our fault'.  It is absolutely airbnb said fault that people are losing bookings because they weren't told to go in and re set their preferences. 

[Alyx0]

Airbnb does not seem to know what they are talking about. I have everything checked in setting to get notifications.  I have spent the evening aplogizing to potential guest because I did not reply right away, one was 2 days old.  Then to add insult to injury I see this message that says they are going to deactivate me because of my response rate.  Airbnb does us all a great diservice.  😞   Alyx

[Mary42]

I use to get Text notifications, and they are turned on in my profile and info center...but I'm not getting them... I do receive emails, but when I'm out and about the text notifications are important... I'm not so computer savvy so how do I get the text messages again...

Please advise..

Mary

***

[Dave-and-Deb0]

Post removed

[Lizzie]

Thanks @Dave-and-Deb0 for highlighting this to me. 🙂

Hello @Mary42,

Thanks for posting here and welcome to the Community Center. I am sorry to hear you this about your trouble with the SMS notifications, it has been a common discussion here in the CC over the past few weeks.

I am afraid the CC is for Community discussion and isn't managed by any of the Support Team. This said, I wonder are you also using the App? If you are, if you take a look in your Notifications, which is in Settings there, there should be a button saying Text Notifications, are these turned on?

Do let us know if this helps. 

Thank you, Lizzie

[Mirjam0]

 Hi Mary,

 When Text notifications and SMS mnotifications  is still switched on,  it can help to  turn off your smartphone completely and  turn it on again. ( a restart) Does the Airbnb app update autonatically? Perhaps an update might help as well?  Good luck!  Mirjam

[Kyriakos0]

I did not get sms , I complained and you helped me to solve it, but the problem came back tomorrow, my guest sended me a message yesterday and I did not received a notification in my mobile phone, I tried to phone him today  but I could not reach him.  Today there was a direct booking for April,  again no sms from airbnb.  What is going on? please fix it , if you do not, I must find another way to communicate with my guests.  Communication with sms is mery important because communicating with mobile phones cost extremely lot of money for both.

thank you very much in advance

[Mirjam0]

 Hi Kyriakos,

Indeed very frustrating when  things don't work while  you are depended on it!

Since this communityCenter  site is only  a host self help group, I would advise  you to call directly with Airbnb after  you have  tried again to get the latests app,  check  your settings on  your desktop version,   and restart  your smartphone ( last night  I recieved another  update fornm Airbnb 's app so  Airbnb is constantly working  on improvements. which  oftebn causes bugs as well.

Their helpdesk  number is on each  booking confirmation.

There was another way to find  the telephone nrs  through Help,  but  I cannot find that possibility any longer.  Twitter  is another possibility to get in contact directly: #AirbnbHelp

Hope  your problem will soon be solved! Kind regards: Mirjam

[Christine28]

My sms/email notification was turned off when Airbnb did an 'upgrade' recently.  I phoned the helpline and was told that they knew that doing this would affect the SMEs notifications of. Number of hosts and chose to go ahead anyway without notifying us.  I am livid as I missed a $400 booking.  After 45 mins on the phone and seeking to 2 people I was offered a $100 'coupon' as compensatIon.  I have rejected this offer as it is of zero value to me and have had the problem escalated.  

If Airbnb don't start looking after their hosts they will all just move on when the next player hits the market. 

[Katherine19]

I just realized the same thing happened to me and lost a few hundred $$ in bookings and assuming that it has now affected how I am rated on responding to requests.

[Olivera-And-Russell-John0]

Keep at them Katherine, they do eventually fix it.  I can only imagine that they have grown at a rate that their IT systems can't cope with (plus a lot of unnecessary changes)

[Marjun0]

I have the same problem. I've made a posting today on CC. It seems to be a huge probem to several hosts.