Support is now leaning more towards guest

[Will-and-Rãchël0]

When we first started around 3-4 years ago, Airbnb support are actually there to support hosts.

Nowadays, myself and a few other hosts find that in most cases, even with sufficient evidence to proof that the guests are at fault, we do not get much compansation. 

Our cleaning team takes photo everytime after their cleaning, and there has been a few cases where the photo shows damages were caused by the guests. We had provided receipts and repair invoices, but all we got was "Airbnb has the right to the final decision". Basically, just saying "Because we said so, p*** off" in another way.

Talking to a few fellow local hosts, they also have the same experience. I hope Airbnb doesn't forget that hosts are their real customer, the guest comes and goes, they book hotels. Now we're quite fed up and have started taking bookings at booking.com, agoda, tripadvisor, few others etc. They offer no support as well, but hey what's the difference, we ain't getting support here.

Anyone experiencing this too?

[Emiel1]

@Will-and-Rãchël0 

Very good posting, Airbnb should take serious notice of it.

[Robin4]

@Will-and-Rãchël0 

I have a feeling things are going to improve a bit. There is talk in support that there needs to be more guest accountability. They are taking this seriously. It is possible they haven't bothered about it greatly because there is an oversupply of hosts, but the scales are begining to tip and many hosts are now leaving the platform or, at least spreading their wings into other platforms.

Give it a bit of time, even the moderators here are all the time putting pressure on the company by compiling and providing statistical data about hosts issues.

We do have a voice and I am pretty sure we are being heard!

Cheers......Rob

[Will-and-Rãchël0]

Yeah i have already gone to other platforms. 

Good luck to them if that's how they want to run it.

It's actually the same mistake that a lot of real estate agent makes as well, looking after the tenant instead of the vendor. They forget who their real employer is. Although it seems like the tenant is paying all the money, but it's the vendor who employed the real estate agent. So what happens at the end, the vendor will leave and go to someone who knows how the business should flow.

[Rebecca181]

@Robin4 Please do keep us posted if this platform becomes less obviously 'guest-centric' in their policies and practices - I enjoyed being an Airbnb host very much, and we were extraordinarily successful (sold out the entire 20 months we listed with 50K in billings from Airbnb alone, not including other booking sites and consistent 5 star reviews from guests) - However, we have not been at all comfortable with the direction the platform is taking and so I have put my beach cottage listing into a 'Sleeping Beauty'-like state here on Airbnb until they can convince me that they value traditional (non-commercial) home-sharing hosts who are sharing their PERSONAL HOMES (and in most cases, their primary, largest asset / investment). 

[Robin4]

@Rebecca181 

Rebecca, I know that the CC moderators are putting serious effort into getting across host frustration to the program developers and the decision makers. 

As I said I have the utmost faith that we are being heard and that our voices are being taken seriously.

As far as the CC is concerned, I have asked for a couple of things!

1/.... an achive box that all our past posts  can go into so we can have easy access to topics we may have personally discussed weeks/months, or even years before. This would certainly speed up our productivity. I don't know if this is achievable but I have asked, and I think it will be looked into.

2/...... I think we are about to get a 'spellchecker' here in the CC and this will help us regular contributors who for one reason or another are not great at getting the spoken word into text!

Rebecca, I don't of course have a hotline to God, any more than you do, But I am confident things will get better!

Cheers......Rob

[Stephanie]

Hi @Will-and-Rãchël0 ,

Thank you for your feedback on this issue. @Robin4 is correct in that we are collecting and preparing this information, consistantly,  and delivering it back to Airbnb HQ.  I know it feels slow and can be frustrating but we are grateful that you chose to share your experiences with us. 

I'd love to know, in your opinion, what changes would you like to see to improve these situations?

Many thanks again,

Stephanie

[Christopher-and-Elisa0]

@Stephanie I have some suggestions to improve not just ‘these situations’ but all situations.

We’ve been hosting for 15 months now and learn more and more every day about being an Airbnb host. And frankly the more we learn the less rosy the picture becomes.

Btw these community forums are a great source of information so a big thank you! to all the hosts who are active here.

I think that putting the hosts on equal footing with the guests would be a good start. Right now we’re nowhere near equal.

Starting with the new policy of not disclosing guest photos until a booking is accepted. I understand where Airbnb is coming from but I don’t think this is a solution to the problem. If I was a guest I wouldn’t want to stay with someone who rejects me because of my ethnicity, gender, sexuality or whatever else bigoted people discriminate against. Plus there are ways to punish hosts who engage in this sort of behaviour without punishing every host. And if we’re going to stick with this no-photo-before-acceptance then please can we make sure that guests upload a photo of themselves. A photo of themselves. Not an image of flowers, puppies or a group of people.

Also, what about protecting hosts from discrimination? Should guests be able to see the host’s photo only after they have booked? This would be only fair, wouldn’t it?

I’ve seen plenty of stories in these forums about Airbnb not helping hosts who’s property has been damaged by guests or where it takes forever and countless attempts at contacting Airbnb to elicit any response. Several stories talk about disruptive or even violent guests being moved on to other hosts without the new hosts being made aware of the previous behaviour of the guests. This to me is a shocking policy. If a host can be delisted when they drop to an average of 4.7 the least Airbnb can do is to ban destructive or abusive guests.

Now the point of contention that are the reviews.

Most if not all guests are operating under the assumption that a 4-star review is a very good review. If Airbnb doesn’t view 4-star reviews as ‘great’ reviews (which it doesn’t when the review relates to a host) then 4 stars shouldn’t be labeled ‘great’. If 4 stars are viewed as ‘not good enough’ then that’s what should stand there. Also, it should be made clear to guests that 5 stars doesn’t mean 5 stars as in a 5-star hotel (unless the guest paid an amount that would buy him a room in 5-star hotel).

Recently I’ve noticed that there isn’t an overall star rating for guests anymore. They’re only rated on cleanliness, communication and adherence to house rules. And future hosts can’t see those ratings.  There is an overall star rating for hosts - why not for guests? Why are guests rated on only 3 performance markers and hosts on so many more? Why not rate hosts on 3 performance markers also? Just swap house rules for value. Or maybe accuracy because value is a difficult one. Most guests seem to have no idea what things cost and how much work goes into providing a quality accommodation. In a world of $5-t-shirts people expect bargains everywhere and think that they should get a Hilton for the price of a second rate motel. Additionally many seem not to take into account that what they pay is not what the host will get.

To make an informed decision if I want to accept a guest or not it would be helpful if the reviews of previous hosts the guest has written were easily accessible. They could be displayed alongside the reviews written by hosts.

It seems like the guests are protected all the way, the hosts not so much.

And then there is the case of the serial non-reviewer. My understanding is that reviews are part of the deal. So if you don’t review your guest or host you’re not holding up your end of the deal. There should be consequences. A guest who can’t be bothered to review shouldn’t be able to instant book until they start writing reviews. Maybe after 3 reviews in a row they could access instant booking again? Maybe they could be rejected as a guest without penalties for the host? Someone suggested to me recently that maybe the number of stays and the number of reviews the guest has written could be displayed also ie. stays = 10, reviews written = 6.

And lastly - unfair reviews. In this case I’m talking about guests downrating hosts because of things that have been clearly communicated in the listing like ‘NO stove’ (the guest doesn’t think the place is value for money because there is no stove) or guest rating check-in 2 stars because they were checked-in personally by the host (disclaimed repeatedly in the listing) or location downrated because the 10 minute walk to town was indeed a 10 minute walk but the guest thought that a 10 minute walk wouldn’t be that long(!?!)

Small things that can nonetheless be very frustrating to the host considering that Airbnb seems to find only 5-star reviews acceptable. Either that needs to change and 4 stars need to indeed be viewed as ‘great’ or the rules have to be explained clearly to the guests.

The problem of lack of support when it comes to damages is not a small thing. This is potentially a BIG financial problem for hosts operating with very limited resources. This has to be taken seriously.

Thank you for reading.