How many agent interactions a month do you have by chat? by phone?
How many are with self titled "Ambassadors" or "Agents" or "Case Managers" or the Elite "Trust and Safety"?
Do you track all of it as backup?
You are not going to love my post, so strap in.
Keeping this a bit vague on purpose, if you are interacting with over 50 agents per month, with names, I would say you have opinions about what that is like I might pay closer attention to-- more than the lucky listings who have under 10 interactions a month.
Before we wonder about how that's a sign of a terrible host, how many guest check ins a month go with that number? 50 out of 400 is quite different than 50 out of . . . . lucky listings who have maybe 20 check ins a month. We do like life on the edge. And - it's discount, near airport/hospitals/train/cruise ships one night, all hours type stuff.
Agents scripts they read from and cut and paste from tell us often what is really going on behind the scenes.
For the frequency, they get so predictable with us, we sometimes finish their sentences, or cut and paste a user guide link they are about to deflect us with - and we do it to them first - with a "was this the URL you were looking for?". Don't do that too much, they do get testy, and it's ugly when they are mad and on a mission.
They are mad or prone to trigger easily more than ever. Here are some reasons
- They have scripted answers to policies that delay, annoy, deflect and hopefully distract hosts out of having something concrete to work with.
- Even when you know it's coming, the ones that apologize to you, empathize with you, thank you for what an amazing host you are - - they will suck you right in, calm you, and let me assure you - they are scripted, deliberately non-specific, and if you thank them and ask them what makes you a great host in their opinion - the trap door falls out on the script because they don't really know or believe any of it.
- The games change frequently. They are hard to keep up with, but when we started tediusly logging everything OUTSIDE of the app, it was clear as day what was happening.
- Hold times are always "2 minutes please", and mostly are delay tactics. There is no supervisor they are checking with. They already have the permission for tasks and exceptions at their level - or they don't. They USED TO ALWAYS have an actual case manager, and that system was very honest from the beginning - including supervisors.
- Last night was a new shock, using the safety urgent help system, supposedly prioritized - I had to tell the exact same story, and answer the exactly same scripted questions - FOUR TIMES, to four agents with names. I also named each previous agent to the next one, and made each one write the internally dreaded "chat message/email" while telling them that I would not mind waiting until they completed it, and be sure to "sign your name please at the bottom" which if you're not careful, you see "Best, " with nothing under it for days.
This was a female guest with authentication, who gave her keypad codes and access to a male stranger, who entered our home, did not like the booked shared/partitioned off room, so he went looking for a better one, and walked at 1am into a womans guest room that was closed, but the deadbolt not turned fully.
She was in the shower, and then found herself locked out in a towel - it is one foot from bathroom to her door so it was not irresponsible in this case.
We got the message, reacted in two minutes, man would not answer door at all. I used our code and he had unpacked tons of boxes crawled into the bed in underwear and went on the verbal whining immediately. at 1am.
Good thing her husband - 6'4" and Law Enforcement, was smoking outside - and "Extraction" (write that word down, it's officially on the test as per agent usage) - so the usual two hours was twenty minutes.
That's not the part you need to know.
This was a cut and dried as any incident ever gets.
Third party, instant booking, same day, two violations, one of the most serious, invasion of privacy.
This should have been canceled, red line comment on guest account, host on the phone 10 minutes, and the most important sentence:
"Canceled by AIRBNB" must be in red, NOT "Canceled by host".
I will end with the worst news.
DO NOT agree anymore with the phrase "the guest made me/us feel uncomfortable".
Because now? That officially, and I mean this - it is now YOUR FAULT for feeling that way, NO MATTER what they did. YOU feel uncomfortable.
I might have just saved you $100. So be careful out there.
Genaro
