an idea to be helpful to new hosts AND to make Airbn into a more host friendly organization

Annette33
Level 10
Prescott, AZ

an idea to be helpful to new hosts AND to make Airbn into a more host friendly organization

Considering the endless complaints here in the forums on how Airbnb is just not available and how thus losts of particularly new hosts end up frustrated and discouraged: 

 Airbnb should regularly run 2 hour workshops in each bigger location, put one of us more seasoned hosts in charge to take people through their own listing, and then 5 typical scenarios that might show up, and how to solve them/deal with them.

that would save them a lot of phone calls and create much better good will towards Airbn the organization. I  just realized a while ago that some hosts here are getting paid  by Airbnb to be "experts", I imagine to be available to individual clients on the phone or per messaging.

My idea would put 20 or so of those advice seekers together and give them a methodical run down on how to handle their listing and typical problems.  seems much more effective to me.

Well now, I should even get paid for this idea

44 Replies 44

@Annette33: How do you apply for the "expert" position?

@Tim-and-Holly0 , I don't know, never have looked into it. But I seem to have heard that it is actually fellow hosts who then answer queries on Airbnb's behalf, sort of pretty much what we all are doing here good naturedly for each other, just volunteering and enjoying the camaraderie without pay.

 

Andrea9
Level 10
Amsterdam, Netherlands

@Annette33

Good idea. There are usually host groups in most areas.

It could even be an idea to have have each new host automatically get the link to their local group.

 

Paid experts, huh?... I'd like to get paid too for my time. Air, you guys listenin' in on this??!!

@Andrea9 , don't know much about hosts groups, non available here, and there are over 250 listings in my town. through my presence here in the forum I did get a few questions/messages from hostss around me, and had one very nice meet up with a potential host, so that makes me think there is a need out there.

The self motivated people don't need much help,,they figure it out, just like most of us more experienced hosts here are doing. But the ones that don't really understand much about running a business and come here with their specific concerns, those are the ones I think would really benefit from a personal crash course concerning the basics of Airbnb. 

Any host meet up, as they now exist,  is probably more of a social get together, not a focused learning experience like I envision. sure would be interesting to see if my idea is doable.For sure, it needs to be truly qualified people doing this, not people who would actually give out wrong info, as it happenes here at times, and as it happens through the Airbnb experts, I believe. 

@Annette33  i really like "The self motivated people don't need much help,,they figure it out, just like most of us more experienced hosts here are doing.   in the big picture you are spot on.

actually if one is to make a profit and enjoy what hosting is along with the loony guest once in a while do it right.

but i am not renting a room in my house.

im amazed at the level of hosts we have here as a group.

this forum has been good for me.

 

@Nancy67@Andrea9@Tim-and-Holly0

 

Great thoughts! When I became interested in setting up with Airbnb, I contacted a friend who is an experienced Superhost and asked her for advice. She became my mentor. Within my first three month period with Airbnb I became a Superhost too. She continues to be an inspiration to me. I think the one-on-one mentorship idea has merit.

 There have been a few Airbnb events in my area and meetups too. Unfortunately, there's not a good system in place for finding out about those opportunities. Even for the Airbnb sponsored meetups, I couldn't reach the organizer. I finally got my name on the email list for one local host who arranges a monthly event. Those events tend to be educational, with a speaker of some sort, more than social.

 There's a lot of good information available through the Airbnb website too, but it's not intuitively easy to find. I'm definitely one of the 20% who seek what I need to know. I totally see the need to have better Airbnb guidance for those who are flailing and if we can help out, I'm all for it!

 Marcia

@Jim-and-Marcia0  Thats fantastic you had a Superhost as your mentor!  And even better that they helped you achieve Superhost.  I hope you are enjoying hosting. I too am a Superhost mentor and was so happy to read your post. Thanks for sharing it.   If you ever find yourself coming to Hawaii, look us up.  I am currently hosting a young couple new to Airnb from Vancouver and they have shared with me that they are possibly interested in Airbnb hosting too. My family loves your city so its been great to share with our guests about our favorite things in Vancouver.   Especially how many people love their dogs. 🙂

If you feel that me or another host have helped you, feel free to click on the "thumbs up" button at the end of any post. Thank you so much.

Aloha, Momi

Great way to contact Airbnb or via Twitter at AirbnbHelp / Facebook


We had meetings here when Collin came but he no longer does.  Once the Govenor signed the shared homes bill we haven't had any.  I volunteered to do one in Phoenix but no one on San Francisco responded.  

Nancy67
Level 10
Charleston, SC

Not to cast shade at a 2-hour seminar idea @Annette, but if I could have learned everything I needed to know about hosting in that amount of time, we wouldn’t need these boards-ha!

Hosting is an education you essentially purchase, like a degree, except you are an intern from the moment you hit '“go." Its not cheap, and there are going to be things you must experience first-hand to learn from and understand.

Keeping host help inside the walls of ABNB assures continuity, and that procedure doesn’t get misinterpreted, ABNB already has seminars on-line for new and experienced people to use as a tool to gain insights. Conducting seminars locally opens up a world of technical challenges that must be overcome. 

  1. Where to conduct it? Venues cost money to rent, as do chairs, Audio and video equipment. Who pays for that?
  2. Will experienced, busy hosts give up time to set up, manage and conduct said seminar?
  3. Why would a host give away knowledge to competition? As ABNB and other home share travel options become more popular, the market share and profits to hosts get watered down.
  4. Hosts in many areas are living like undocumented workers, and don't want to raise attention to themselves, for fear of being shut down. With an open format seminar, people from municipalities who have negative views of home shares in the area, might use these forums to gather information. 
  5. Creating the master program, and teaching it to the teachers is a huge expense monetarily in actual dollars and people hours.

 

BTW: If something like this were to be considered, my opinion is a one-to-one mentor/sponsor program in an adjacent area, or mine would be my choice, with ABNB pairing people up based on commonalities—A civil, open exchange of ideas. It's real people in the same boat; connecting emotionally and working it out in real-time with the idea that your success is also my success. Taking into consideration always, that what works for me, might not always work for you. Everyone is a mentor/sponsor; every one has a mentor sponsor. It doesn’t go all crazy dogma that way. Isn’t that more in-line with the original concept… People connecting with people for a more enriching personalized experience? Who knows, maybe I could make a few new friends-- cant have too many of those?

@Nancy67 , great points! You added. lot of things that would need to be considered. I just tossed out an idea, pretty sure nobody at Airbnb is actually going to considern it, and for sure it could and should be morphed into something that is doable and effective, so for example,  I'm not stuck on the idea on a 2 hour seminar, could be 4 hours, whatever.

1.) Quite a few of us hosts here are self motivated people who solve their own listing issues and problems, but others just aren't. the idea of one on one is exactly what we are doing here, and endlessly the question of how to reach Airbnb gets asked and answered over and over again- until one just gets tired of repeating it. That one on one is less effective (and more costly?) than  getting larger groups of new people together, I believe.

2.) Cost: it cost's Airbnb lots of $$ to staff their help desks, and people aRe still complaining all the time that it is  inadequate. So it would be in Airbnb's interest to work on that image and provide better help, and prevention of trouble might be cheaper that dealing with trouble after the fact.

3.) The online seminars for experienced people you mention is 3 steps up from what I am talking about. I do believe that physically getting together with a real person, bringing your own desktop/mobile and getting guidance is much more effective than online/abstract teaching. 

4.)I'm not concerned about some hosts not wanting to share, or seeing something like this as competition, luckily a lot of us are willing to share and don't worry about competition.But for sure, whoever would conduct such seminars needs to be absolutely qualified, not just people who think they know what they are talking about. Vetting by Airbnb is a must.

5.) Undocumented Airbnb listings should actually  get found out - it is not in Airbnb's interest to quietly tolerate them. That would actually be one of the corner stones of such seminars: to give a run down how to be legit in doing this.

6.) Nobody would be forced to attend, so people who want to stay under the radar would simply nit attend.

7.) Informal host get together would be so fun! but to me, that would be more of a social forum, not a fcused learning experience.

 

@Annette33 "5.) Undocumented ABNB listings should actually get found out - it is not in ABNB’s interest to quietly tolerate them. That would actually be one of the corner stones of such seminars: to give a run down how to be legit in doing this."

 

My comment regarding undocumented workers was more of a metaphor about ABNB hosts living in areas where the local governments cant make up their minds about whether or not they are "legal," and arbitrarily, at random, shutting people down in certain spaces without notice or reason and not others. Hence the fear of living like an undocumented person or worker—you know, always looking over your shoulder? Maybe it was too high concept. My apologies.

@Annette33 and @Nancy67

Some very interesting points raised in this discussion - thanks!

I think that Airbnb promote 'Meetups' to enable this kind of comraderie, sharing and learning, and perhaps even mentoring.... here's their official blurb on it....

 

  • Meetups: Meetups are a great way to meet other hosts, share best practices, and get advice from people like you. Over 12,000 meetups have been organized by hosts in 85 cities around the world.

So Annette, why not try a meet-up? If there isn't one in Prescott AZ - why not try to organise one? Could be interesting.

 

Best Wishes.

@Rachael26 , meet ups sound like a fun thing to explore, might try that one day....would be interesting to see how many people actually show up.

With this post, I was more thinking about something more focused, set up or going straight through Airbnb, perhaps with minimal charge per participant (which would almost guarantee that they would then show up), something with a clear agenda, or "program" if you will, beyond the good natured socializing I imagine meet ups would be.  

Perhaps even doing it as a class through the local college/community college, but then it probably would be a class, meeting 6 times for 1 1/2 hours for example, which would actually be much more thorough than a one time 2 hour workshop. I'm pretty sure the college here would let me do and develop such a class, they have the space, they pay the teacher, 2 hurdles taken.

But I feel pretty strongly that it has to be co-sponsored by Airbnb, otherwise anybody could just do that kinda thing, and who knows what they would be teaching? 

@Annette33

OK - so let's try out some hypothetical scenarios. Let me break down the numbers using what I know about human nature and some Airbnb hosts. I think the 80/20 rule applies here throughout.

Look at the posts in the community center discussion rooms. They range from basic to silly back to basic again (80%), with a few thoughtful and complicated issues along with computer glitches (20%). So besides the complicated, illegal issues or computer glitches - most can be answered with a site search. And we know that Airbnb's site is convoluted - but there is a lot of information/learning available, it just has to be dug out with a little time and thought. So approx 80% of hosts want someone to get them the answer and 20% are your self-helpers and figure it out themselves.

 And 80% want the 20% to answer/help/fix their problem, so they try the Community Center. But they want their answer RIGHT NOW. Hence the most popular question in the CC - how to contact Airbnb. This is because most of the time it boils down to I want a person to immediately answer my telephone call so I can ask the question I could have answered myself about - where's the security deposit - what is Instant Book - where's my money - can I take a booking from a cat profile pic - where's my listing - can my landlord tell me to stop hosting - where's my 1099 - I want to claim new sheets for old stained sheets - why can't my guests check in on time - how do I cancel/refund/change a booking - why did I let them bring their dog - why are my reviews so bad, is it because I don't bother to describe my space well and the pics are crap?.

You know what I mean.

But all these issues are immediate for hosts - and they want answers right away - and they don't want to: 1. pay for answers 2. wait for answers 3. drive to the local college for a class to get answers.

Sure there will be some people out there (20%) that are thoughtful, responsible and sensible enough to want to do preliminary research and get as much advice from experienced practitioners as possible before setting up their new short term rental business and then create a brilliant listing with professional pics because they know just how important the marketing side is. And that person may just want to sign up for an Airbnb sponsored class - but it will either be the wrong time or in the wrong place to be of any use to that person. The other 80% want a bit of extra (perhaps some even think easy) money by renting out a space in their property to some nice people that will turn up and pay them and then go away again (without making a mess). So they bash out a listing and start asking how-to questions after things start going wrong. So a class won't really help those hosts either.

 

So we are whittling down the actual numbers of hosts/potential hosts that a sponsored class would appeal to. But perhaps (as @Nancy67 suggested) a sponsor/mentor 1 on 1 situation would work. Similar to the AA Sponsor or Life Coach - the mentoring helps with listing advice and suggestions for improvement and dealing with difficult situations. And this could/should be paid for... But here is where the human nature comes back in - most people don't think they need any help, they want to do it their way, or they just don't figure that anything extra is needed - until it goes south and then they are wanting that instant phone call for help.

Look at how many people (80%) post in the community center - asking for help - and then don't even bother to check back in to see the answer, let alone acknowledge the help or share the results (80/20 again). This is a smaller picture of how it is out in the world.

 

BUt how wonderful it would be if Airbnb sponsored the production of host tutorials available 24/7 online? I have an Ancestry membership and their tutorials on how to use their site, make changes and create family trees etc. are brilliant. Easy, foolproof and quick to access, just point and click. And free with membership.

So how about we get a team together and pitch an outline brief to Airbnb to produce some 2 min videos - answers to the top 20 questions on the Community Center? Perhaps that might have more mileage and future possibility than a local class..... and I still think the area Meet Ups can (and do in lots of areas) deal with learning and problem solving, as well as a social get together.

 

If you got this far reading you have too much time on your hands! I apologise to all who did get this far for taking up so much space in this thread. It's raining outside.

Best Wishes.