Philippine Customer Service

[Isamu0]

So I've found that dealing with the customer service located in the Philippines is extremely aggravating and they are hard to deal with, often jumping the gun or grasping straws to make decisions as case managers. Is there any way to make sure you get US based customer service agents or case managers?

I'm to the point where I feel like asking customer service where they are located before I even talk to them.

[David4221]

I agree. Customer service where it is now. I think Phillipines is not good at all.  They are not able to handle and issues. They just tell you to email responses and the email responses are not helpful.

Airbnb customer service is terrible right now.

[Simone387]

Philippines customer service is a complete nightmare and worse than none at all. Really time consuming and costly in lost revenue for Superhosts with several listings

[Juho1]

From tens of Airbnb bookings both as a traveler and as a host I have had this year unfortunately 2 different occasions where I was forced to contact Airbnb support (as a person I try to solve issues first before contacting support):

I) As a guest where Airbnb canceled our booked apartment without explanation just weeks before the trip

II) As a host had ordered their professional photography service only to be later informed the waiting time to get 5-10 photos "accepted" was 4 weeks and asked them to just give me the photos regardless if it meets their quality criteria as I see the photos belong to me and can decide do I publish them or not

In both cases I quickly learned to be interacting with their "global" support in Philippines and their robotic handling of cases is causing severe damage to Airbnb's reputation and lowers host's commitment to the platform compared to their competitors. Why is that?

I) They are called case officers but actually can only provide canned replies (and why would you be contacting support in the first place only to receive a canned reply which you can read on their FAQ page?)

II) You can ask "do you have the necessary rights and expertise to handle this case" only to experience later that you are describing the same challenge/situation to the 2nd or 3rd customer case officer as they have very limited knowledge transfer for some reason

III) Good example of their robotic behavior is user authentication. Despite you calling from your registered phone number they will ask your phone number, registered email address, default payment method and paypal email address. After calling them the 3rd time that day, the representative refused to listen when I tried to share all three of these in sequence to speed things up.

IV) Their biggest challenge is to see the bigger picture. So let's say you have a minor problem that needs solving but end up wasting your time and receiving canned replies, you then decide to book your next 1000€ travel from their competitor because of this. 

[Cha13038]

Same here. Got bad experience from Airbnb cs in Ph. It seems like you're dumped elsewhere when they can't give you the right recompensation from bad hosting

[Danny404]

Totally. They said they would put you on hold but eventually the call just "suddenly" drops. No call backs. Nothing. Geez.

[Irene850]

How can I contact Airbnb Philippines?

[Shaun69]

Hi Fellow hosts, It is with regrets that I must say that I am asking C/S reps where they are based now!!!! My company who have multiple listings always try to sort out issues in-house and normally this works!!!! However when there are software issues then we do not have a choice but to contact BNB, my experience with call centers in certain countries has wholly been bad and a total waste of time. Maybe its a language problem but trying to explain software issues to a non English speaking native is about as successful as Saracens Rugby Team explaining why they have breached the salary cap for the third year running!!!!!! Come on AIRBNB you know it is not working so please sort it out.

Be happy Shaun.

[Dennis674]

The service of the Philippines call centre is absolutely appalling and shocking! They do not understand what customer service means! They give you the run around and do not care about your issue, they try to wear you down with copy/pasted standard texts in messages until you give up, this is their ploy, they are all about a very bad work ethic and very low service standards that has no place in Australia or the Western World. The service is so bad that I am now looking at shutting down my account and never to use Airbnb again! The word is spreading fast and with such poor level of service a lot of people are choosing NOT to use Airbnb and moving to other platforms that have platforms in Australia or the US/UK. The Philippines call centre simply do not hold the same values, ethics or customer expectations and standards we have in the West, these are the facts. Airbnb should be ashamed of themselves, you are ruining a good product at the hands of your Filipino Call Centre staff! Do you not understand that no matter how you train them they will not change their attitudes because that's how they are plus they are able to get away with it because the US Managers are turning a blind eye to it! Get rid of the Philippines call centre or many will leave your brand until no one would want to use Airbnb anymore! Absolutely disgusted! 

[Sarah977]

@Dennis674  While I agree that the outsourced call centers have abyssmal service, I find your post to be quite racist.

This CS reps behave as they do because Airbnb does not train them properly, or require them to be conversant in Airbnb policy.

It has nothing to do with them being Filipino- it is Airbnb's uncaring attitude that is the problem.

[Donnie35]

I agree

[Donnie35]