Messaging in Desktop and Web

[Nadine-And-Lazaro0]

I'd just say: Messaging functionality on airbnb, both desktop and mobile is broken.

The situation is the same for me for almost three years now.

I like airbnb, but messaging doesn't work.

[Sarah977]

@Nadine-And-Lazaro0  What about it doesn't work? You aren't able to send or receive messages? Your guests don't receive your messages? I've been hosting for about 2 and a half years and have never had a problem with this. It sounds like a problem specific to your account.

[Nadine-And-Lazaro0]

@Sarah977 :
From current Airbnb Support Message:

"...There is some technical glitch on the messaging at the moment and our technical team is constantly working on this to resolve it as soon as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience. It will be resolved soon...."

Well, to me it's a constant thing, perhaps we get too many messages.
We get a notification on the phone, and when click on the notification (which we can read part of the message) then the message is gone. What Airbnb does is excuse by saying: "we prefer the desktop over the mobile app"
Today, I got a message on the phone (Notification), clicked, I couldn't see it, then went to my computer (Latest Google Chrome) and the message was not there! 

Also, There's no way to search for a message, and the search on mobile just doesn't work (even searching for the name).

Also, some messages do not show on the inbox, you have to go to the particular reservation. What's the point of having an inbox? the top message has to be the last one received... well, it is not.

This also worries me: The deluding of facing real issues as what they are. (I see you are "Level 10", but in this case, you're contributing to the problem).

Every bug has to be addressed, IF it is a bug. The devs behind airbnb have to be able to identify a problem and put it on a list, perhaps it deserves fixing. What really happens is: every one that complains about a bug gets excuses such as: "it should be only you", and that way, real bugs are not documented and thus cannot never be addressed.

Messaging with guests is not just "an email", it's business... so if I take all the precautions, and explain the exact steps, and what I see (with screenshots), then someone has to investigate, because it's an issue.

I 'm thankful that someone inside is now aware of this "glitch", and hopefully The whole messaging experience would be re-done from scratch...
I'm using this conversation to say:
This is happening to me. If it happens to you, raise your hand. If not, don't try to bury it.

(English is not my mother tongue and I apologize if it doesn't sound in the utmost level of politeness and respect)

[Sarah977]

@Nadine-And-Lazaro0    "This also worries me: The deluding of facing real issues as what they are. (I see you are "Level 10", but in this case, you're contributing to the problem)."

Perhaps it is a language barrier, because I'm not sure what you mean by this. The levels on these forums have nothing to do with anything except how active hosts or guests are on this forum.

You gave no details in your original post as to what wasn't working for you re messaging, so without details, it's hard for anyone to give you advice. Saying I hadn't experienced problems with messaging wasn't intended to mean that you aren't having a legitimate problem with it and that it's not working for you as it should, so yes, it's fairly rude for you to say I was contributing to the problem- I was trying to understand exactly what the problem was, which you explained in your reply.

I have no idea why messages aren't showing up in your Inbox- it appears there's a glitch on your account and that Airbnb is doing nothing to remedy it.

As far as notifications go- you can't reply to notifications, they are just alerts that there is a new message in your Inbox (which seem to be missing in your case), whether you get the notifications as push notifications, texts, or emails. So clicking on a notification doesn't do anything for anyone, as they can't be replied to, and will always only have the first few words of a message in it. It works like that for everyone. Unfortunately, Airbnb doesn't seem to explain this anywhere, so it's confusing to a lot of people and they think something is broken.

But if the messages you're being notified of aren't to be found in your Inbox, there is for sure some glitch there.

[Nadine-And-Lazaro0]

"As far as notifications go- you can't reply to notifications, they are just alerts that there is a new message in your Inbox (which seem to be missing in your case), whether you get the notifications as push notifications..." In your mobile phone (at least Android) if you click on the notification which has part of the message, it opens the airbnb App on the particular conversation. Well, the conversation is totally out of date, the new message doesn't show. Yesterday, I got a message from a guest, to which I responded and when after 5 hours I went to the apartment to help the guest, he actually showed me my response did not hit his phone, so he was totally unaware ( and thought I was not paying attention to his messages...) So, it's not only a technical issue, the people involved are not aware that the messaging on airbnb is totally messed up. And it keeps being the same, and as you well said, nobody at airbnb seems to be doing anything. Sad.