Q&A with Airbnb Founders

[Lizzie]

Hello Everyone,

As part of the Airbnb Open in Los Angeles this year, Airbnb Co-Founders: Brian, Joe and Nate along with Aisling Hassell, Head of Global Customer Experience will be taking to the stage for a live Q&A session. 

Here in the Community Center we have been asked to submit questions for the team to answer, which is very exciting! This is a fantastic opportunity for you to ask the Founders of Airbnb questions that are important to you, so lets take advantage of this by submitting some great and constructive points. 

Please reply to this thread with your question(s) by Sunday, November 6th. We will select as many as we can for the team to answer during the live event. 

We can't wait to see what you come up with. 

Lizzie 🙂

[Ange2]

Cancellation Policy - Hosts fee increase. 4% and 5%!

Firstly, I have yet to find out when/if this will be rolled out. There is much conflicting information. Please let us know.

Plus I wonder at it.  It is certainly advantageous to Airbnb, increased hosts fees offset Airbnb's loss of returning the guests fees if they cancel and it gains Airbnb positive perception all paid for by the host!  It is well known guests hate paying the Airbnb fee if they cancel. Also the guest is allowed to be irresponsible and disorganized and cancel at the last minute with no cost to themselves.

For the host is now becomes a risky business.  Reservations cancelled at the last minute mean a loss (or one can choose to take a loss by paying a higher percentage fee to Airbnb across the board for keeping Moderate or Strict policy - either way it is a loss to the host alone).  It's very hard to find last minute bookings.  Plus, as many hosts attest to (ref: Community forum)  last minute bookings are more likely to result in bad even dangerous experiences for the host.  Airbnb does not have time to verify even the payment method in some cases. Some posts show hosts as left high and dry,  Airbnb has told them they are not responsible for the payment when the payment has been denied by the credit card etc and now the guest is in their home - what to do?   Yet another risk of last minute bookings.

In effect the host is expected to take all the risks and on top of that pay for Airbnb and guest gains!

[Dee9]

@Lizzie

Can you please make public the star-ratings for guests as you do for hosts?

If not, then can you please do away with the star-ratings system altogether since it is currently one-sided.

Thank you for listening.

[Lizzie]

Hello everyone,

Thanks so much for sharing your questions here, it is fantastic to see such a range. 

I just wanted to say that there is still a little bit of time left to get some final questions in before the deadline, so please do continue to reply to this thread. 

Also, just to add, for those of you who aren't attending the Airbnb Open where this Q&A will be taking place, we will transcribing the questions and answers here in the Community Center so you won't miss out on hearing the responses. We will provide you with more information around this closer to the time. 🙂

Thanks again and speak to you soon.

Lizzie

[Helen3]

Hi @Lizzie

Rather than transcribing why don't you just provide us with a video link ?

How many questions are you putting forward from this forum?

When will we know which questions are being put forward?

[Alice-and-Jeff0]

Why don't you just video tape the Q&A session and put it up on Youtube or in the Toolkit if you don't want it to be public? 

[Lizzie]

Hello @Helen3 and @Alice-and-Jeff0, 

This would be fantastic, at the moment we are waiting to hear if this session will be filmed. If it is, then of course it would be great to share it here in the CC, but if it isn't you still get the information through the transcriptions. I will keep you posted. 🙂

Lizzie

[Robert78]

Nothing to add! Just really curious if the founder's will get softball or hardball questions! Intriguing!

Looking forward to the transcript @Lizzie

[Pearse2]

Good morning. Why do guest not have to put their surname on their profile? What are they allowed to put just their first name and a bad picture in a group. When using IB it can cause a problem!

[Andrea9]

@Pearse2 this is for privacy before booking. I wouldn't like everybody to know my full name prior to booking either. It's better both sides get full names after booking.

I fully agreen with the picture. Why can't there be a better oversight regarding this. Or animal and other depictions!

[Jeet0]

1) Why aren't guest ratings breakdown visible to hosts in the same way how guests can see the details of host ratings (stars)? #unfair
2) The site says that the Guest service fees are typically between 6-12%. However I all of my guests from the last 1.8 years have been charged 12%. Is 6% no longer valid? #permanentsurge ?

3) Please provide regular updates about feature changes to the app/site/policies. Stumbling upon them is not the ideal way. We don't do Airbnb full time and cannot the watching all sections of the site everyday. #transperancy

4) Can we have the Open in Asia next year please? Travelling to the USA and back to India is almost as expensive as all the money I make from Airbnb each year. #inclusiveness

5) Service apartments/boutique homes/commercial budget hotels are all on Airbnb. Some hosts have 50+ lisitngs. Are we moving away from the "Sharing spaces and culture" philosophy? Can we have a separate platform for them, please?

@Lizzie - All the questions on this post are already present in Host Voice and are top rated. I'm sure the founders won't have the time to answer all. Can we have someone from Airbnb answer the unanswered ones post the event? I really appreacite how so many hosts actively provide suggestions and voice their concerns, knowing that these are being heard and answered will be assuring and will motivate us more to provide more suggestions going aheas 🙂

[Mary-Ann0]

@Lizzie - sorry this is late but I thought I would try to make it so here is my question / suggestion. Thank you.

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Please consider rethinking the 5 star rating system.  The system that is currently in place now causes hosts much anxiety and aggravation because we are being judged on things that are not within our control and are merely guest’s opinions that we cannot do anything about (or improve upon). 

May I suggest having just 2 categories - cleanliness and accuracy with a thumbs up or down and remove the star rating.

I believe that three of the current categories for 5 star ratings are not appropriate - they are as follows:

We can’t do anything about our "location"s.

We can only have good "communication" when we get good communication back - that is a two way street.

And "value" is subjective opinion. One place considered to be good "value" to one guest could be considered something very different to another guest.

So the only two things that are completely on us hosts are cleanliness and how accurate our listing is.  That is all we have complete control over and so those two things are what we should be judged on …. and that’s all.

If a thumbs down is given for any of these two things, an explanation needs to go with it.  If the guest does not participate in the review system then it should go on their profile that they book and stay but don't leave reviews and let the host decide whether to have them stay without a review or not.

Thank you.

[Robin4]

@Mary-Ann0...You are right Mary Ann and @Sandra did make exactly this post on 'Host Voice' about two weeks ago calling for a simple thumbs up or a thumbs down and let the reviews decide the quality of the experience.

I think we would all agree with that but I must say I personally regard anything less than a 5 star, a failure on my part somewhere.

What many are missing here is, '5 star' is a totally nebulous thing! What is a 5 star facility in one location would be a 2 star in another!

Five star is seen as how the guest felt the dollars they had spent related to the experience they received!

If I charged $200.00 per night I would have many less bookings but I would also have many more 2-3 star reviews because the experience would not match the price expectation.

For this reason I do enjoy the 5 star system because it tells me that I did a good job! It tells me the guest appreciated what they got for what they paid.

In my reviews across different sites I have only ever got one 4 star review, and that was because I did not attend to a simple detail the way I should have....it was my fault not the guests.

Cheers.....Rob

[Alice-and-Jeff0]

Since the thread is still up, I'd like to ask: 

When can we expect, as hosts, to be informed of new product roll outs before they are actually implemented in the system?  Is there going to be a mechanism for hosts to pre-view, train, and get clarity before having new functionality?  Will  you ever solicit a group of experienced hosts to test new product offerings outside of Silcone Valley and a very tech-savvy community?

And: 

How can I, as an experienced host with some knowledge about Airbnb, move toward being a valued partner who can help make Airbnb better, bigger, and more rewarding?  Some of us are doing an awful lot of volunteering at the host level - including being prompted by the Admins of the community forums to ask you questions and make your question/answer period valuable.   

[Ange2]

This is someone else's idea from a post that appeared a while back.

I thought it an interesting idea to look at so here it is.

QUOTE:

"Maybe now it is time for Airbnb to split in two parts.

Airbnb Pro: A section for ''hotel managed'' kind of accommodation, this is where all the listings with a great many places are managed by one firm. Hotel rules apply.

Airbnb LiveLikeALocal: For individually managed accommodation. Slightly tweaked system required here to keep happy hosts."

and I will add a third:

Airbnb Share a Home.  Getting back to the original branding and what is often cited as reason to local Government that Airbnb is good for cities and people, is not taking away rental accommodation for locals and is not a new hotel chain.

[Andrea9]

@Lizzie

and all other hosts here -

I just got a huge shock. If what this host has discovered is true and a new thing being (as usual quietly being tested), then IB hosts are AGAIN being deprived of a safeguard against not-so-good guests or the newbies with no track record:

https://community.airbnb.com/t5/forums/replypage/board-id/listing-and-reservations/message-uid/25151...

From my side it looks like the possibility to only let guests with RECOMMENDATIONS book has been REMOVED????

@Lizzie this is just awfullly deplorable and should be addressed at the Open!

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I saw another post in a Facebook group who had spoken to the helpdesk today and was told that IB was already causing them so much more work.

How is it possible that Airbnb would even be considering this step of removing a host safeguard???

I really hope this can be clarified, Andrea