New Team Feature has shot itself in the foot

Helen267
Level 10
St. Andrews, United Kingdom

New Team Feature has shot itself in the foot

I have just one listing: an entire place that I manage remotely. The cleaning is done through a local cleaning company, who at the moment I email every time I get a booking. (I'm moving to Properly but that's by the by).

 

I was really pleased to see the new Team feature recently introduced by Airbnb - I didn't want to give my cleaners co-host privileges but I did want them to be able to access my calendar and read the guest details (cot, dogs, special occasion etc) and guest correspondence. I really liked the fact that you can manage permissions to limit or increase the information shared and authority granted - there are six levels of information & access that you can choose to share.

 

However, testing this on my husband, it became clear that the Basic permission also includes the amount of the rental fee, and this makes the Team feature useless to me. This is private business information that I do not share with a subcontractor.

 

It seems absurd that Airbnb would reveal information of this nature in the basic level of permission - has anyone else noticed this and has anyone else complained? Such a pity because the Team feature would have been REALLY useful to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Screenshot 2019-03-19 at 19.11.56.png

12 Replies 12
Ben551
Level 10
Wellington, New Zealand

@Helen267  This is really helpful information Helen, thanks for testing and sharing this. I agree, that seems quite flawed! It would make far more sense to have a suitable role for a cleaner. Indeed, that’s what I had thought they intended.... either that’s not what they intended, or it’s not working as it should. Clearly we can’t have the cleaner knowing the booking fee... they’d likely start haggling for more money, seeing only revenue and not appreciating the other overhead costs...

 

This is disappointing.

 

i admit I have only used it between myself and my wife so far. It’s been useful, but I see problems with it working how you describe in regard to cleaners.... I foresee sticking to SuperhostTools and manual messages for my cleaner communications... 

Ann72
Level 10
New York, NY

@Helen267 As soon as it was rolled out, I wanted to use it with my cleaner and caretaker, but saw that the pricing would be shared with them and of course couldn't do it for the reasons you cite.  

 

Sharing the calendar through Google also turned out to be untenable.  When I imported the calendars to My Calendars on Google, they remained static.  Importing a dynamic calendar to Other Calendars in Google makes them either public or, when private, unshareable, because they're not "mine," they're Airbnb's.

 

So we are back to a Word doc that I update with new bookings and send as a PDF.

 

SO. ANNOYING.

Helen267
Level 10
St. Andrews, United Kingdom

@Ann72 Gah I feel your pain.  I posted this on another forum and someone pointed out the 'Feedback' button at the foot of the Team page - so I've suggested they move the booking fee info to the set of permissions called 'Financial'. Maybe if enough people object at this initial stage of the rollout they might change it? It's so frustrating because this could have been SO USEFUL.

 

 

@Helen267, great, I'll go give feedback too.  

Krys4
Level 4
Maryland, United States

The worst part is no one in customer service can assist. I was having issues and they said it was because my team member was currently listed as cohost. So i deleted her on everything .... only to dicover this didnt solve the problem. she keeps getting the same error that her account is already registered.

 

I've been on and off hold for an hour while they try to find someone who knows whats going on with this function

https://www.airbnb.co.in/help/article/2514/how-do-i-set-up-and-manage-a-hosting-team-on-airbnb?_ga=2...

Here is the link that the airbnb support team sent me. It doesnt help me because I wasalready taking these steps but it may help someone else..

same here!..smh

Inna22
Level 10
Chicago, IL

@Markus251 @Helen267 @Ann72

I use an app called Awesome cal. It syncs with google calendar. You can share it with anyone. It has all of my calendars combined on one page each in different color. For example, anything personal goes under my personal calendar (pink of course). My properties each have a color. My daughter (red) shares her calendar with me so is my husband (blue) and back. They do not see any of my property calendars so it is not crowding their space. I put each reservation into this calendar. It takes a few seconds. This gives me a really good picture of what is going on each day without having to log into Airbnb. I also put any important notes about the reservation in the note field so I do not have to scroll through all the messaging with each guest to look things up every time (for example, bringing a dog, needs an air mattress, leaving early am, etc).  To take it one step further, if I need to greet a guest at the property, I put it into that calendar so it is in that property’s color on it. If I need to give my daughter a call, I see she has a class so I should call later. You can build in reminders, etc. Awesome cal is awesome 🙂

Helen267
Level 10
St. Andrews, United Kingdom

@Inna22 THANK YOU!!!!  I will investigate it, it sounds JUST what I need. I don't suppose you know whether I could automatically sync my bookings from my main Lodgify calendar- maybe via iCal?  I'll go ask the developers!  

@Helen267 

I am not sure. I know I can sync it with third party sites through google. For example when Evite offers to sync an event. Airbnb has just started to allow developers to connect apps to their platform (there is a name for that, I just don’t know what it is). It would be the easiest if it were to sync with Airbnb calendar

@Inna22 Thanks!  I love that your color is pink.  🙂  @Helen267 It doesn't sound as if it syncs automatically, but let us know what you find out!

Lauren3211
Level 2
London, United Kingdom

Hi,

I just set up my cleaner as a TEAM MEMBER as I need her to see the reservations/calendar on the go in her phone to optimize time, so I don't need to be sending her screenshots of the calendar every day. Unfortunately to much total disappointment, Airbnb won't let the cleaner see the calendar/reservation in the 1st option TASKS, but on the 2nd option GUEST MANAGEMENT my cleaner does have access to the calendar/reservations but she ALSO has access to my PRIVATE FINANCIAL INFORMATION! She is able to see my earnings and how much the guests are paying me! This is DANGEROUS and causing tensions among us! Hundreds of other Superhosts are complaining about the same thing on Facebook forums and in communities on Airbnb. Please change this settings ASAP!