Is it OK to reach out to a non-responding guest on FB

[Susan1188]

My guest arriving next week is not answering airbnb messages and gave an invalid phone number.

I need to reach her to clarify Covid travel rules, get ID's, plan her check in.

I found her on FB, is it ok to reach out thru facebook messenger?  Is that weird or invasive?

I also contacted client support, extremely disappointing - got a series of bots and even an answer to somebody else's question with personal info of somebody else's guest.

What would you do?

[Susan1188]

@Sarah977 Hi Sarah! Yes this was a savvy guest with many reviews.  Said the phone was not working due to travel, but it is not registered on whatsapp and now she is back home and it is still disconnected.  I of course messaged on the app several times saying "your phone xxx xxx " is disconnected so she knew exactly which number I was talking about (in case she forgot which number she used in her airbnb profile).
I agree I have had CS contact non responsive guests in the past but this time they couldn't of course because the phone was disconnected and she wasn't responding to anything.

Why do you think someone would purposefully not give their phone?

[Sarah977]

@Susan1188  Ugh, she sounds like bad news. I see your post where you say she's now trying to cancel holiday dates, bummer. If someone just had one bad review among a bunch of good ones, I'd probably dialogue with the guest to find out what happened there, but if they had a few bad ones, like you say this guest did, I'd not take the chance.

[Susan1188]

@Sarah977  Yes her 2 bad reviews were from several years ago and then she had like 7 good ones so I thought, OK.

But now I notice on her first/oldest host review on her profile (bad one), she mentions how she has done numerous Airbnb stays.  These numerous stays are not on her profile.

Have you ever seen anyone with reviews back past 2015?  Maybe she changed profiles because she had lots of bad reviews?

Yes this is an experienced guest who knows what she is doing so I think I'm in for a bad Christmas.

[Sarah977]

@Susan1188  Hard to say. I had a guest that showed she'd been a member for several years, but she didn't have any reviews at all. She said she'd had Airbnb stays but they were booked under her husband's account. She'd never traveled on her own before, booking through hers. She was a great guest. Another guest said her previous 2 hosts hadn't left reviews, and she was a good guest, too, so you never know. But given this guest of yours' other behavior, she might have deleted an account with bad reviews, I guess.

[Christine615]

I'm going to disagree. I don't think it's an invasion of privacy to reach out on FB. The first red flag is that Airbnb vetted a guest without a valid telephone number. Any communcation put on FB should be also placed on the Airbnb platform.

But one note about FB - if you are not in the person's friendship circle, FB puts the message in a "message request" folder that is sometimes hard to find. Airbnb should take on the responsibility of reaching out to the guest for you.

[J-Renato0]

@Susan1188 

Some guests do not have the Airbnb app on their smartphones. They access Airbnb  platform only via computer.

If a guest does not answer me, I usually contact the guest directly via whatsapp. The reaction of the guest is always positive. Usually the guests like that the host contact them.

It is not invasive. If they put the phone number, they know they can be contacted.

As for social network profiles, I have never contacted a guest via face-book. If there is phone number and whats app, why using face-book?

As far as I know Airbnb check the phone number by sending an SMS message with a code to confirm the phone number.

I have never had a guest with fake phone number.

[Sarah977]

As I mentioned above, I have had guests with non-working phone numbers before. And not everyone uses Whatsapp. I don't.

@J-Renato0

[J-Renato0]

@Sarah977   @Susan1188  and  to whom who wants to know about an usefull app (from my point of view)

I know that some guests may not use whats-app. However I always go for  whatsapp cos at least with my experience,  I can reach almost 100% of the guests.

If you do not know whatsapp very well, I recomment this for you! It is one of the best means of communication. 

1- You can talk to your friends and relatives without paying phone calls if you are in another city or country. Moreover, less complicated comunications. You use wifi connection. I recommend having internet on the smatphone, so you can use whatsapp anywhere.
2- You can leave written messages or vocal messages. So it makes the conversation easy and comfortable, nobody has to stop what they are doing at the moment to talk. You can answer when you want to.
3- You can send pics or take photos and send it immediatelly. Lets suppose you are in the supermarket. Your daughter ask you to buy something for her. Then you are not sure about she wants... you can shot the product and send to her to confirm.

4- You can use your whatsapp account not only from your smartphone, but also from your notebook or desktop if it is the case.

You do not need to share your whats app with your guests. Do it only if you want to.

Before using whatsapp, about 6 years ago, I was reluctant as well. I thought it was some useless application ... It is not! It is very useful and easy to use!

I have no connections with this app. Since it is a community, I am just sharing my experience with this app to the ones that does not know very well what is it for.

[Sarah977]

Thanks for taking the time to explain, maybe some others aren't, but I'm well aware of what can be done on Whatsapp. I've considered using it, but it's owed by Facebook, which I refuse to support. I don't use it for ethical, rather than practical reasons. @J-Renato0

[J-Renato0]

@Sarah977 

Yes, I know it belongs to face-book.

However, I have never seen any face-book ad there.

Everything on earth nowadays is owned by big corporations. What should I do?

Anyway I respect your point of view.

[Robbie54]

@J-Renato0 regardless of not having the app they still receive an email with the message. As far as I'm aware guests and hosts receive a text message, an email and a message on the app. One of them should be seen if they have internet or/and phone connection. 

[J-Renato0]

@Robbie54 

Maybe. However,  the email  (from companies) can go to "social" or "promotions" files/sectors of the email box, and amongst all the emails received in both sectors, the guest may not perceive it.

Antoher thing, SMS messages and emails dependes on the guests settings, as far as I know.

If they opt for not receiving emails and SMS, they will not get.

[Robbie54]

@J-Renato0  sounds like a lot of excuses for the guest if you ask me. 

[J-Renato0]

@Robbie54 

The guests has those options indeed

Account preference settings:

Menu >>> account >> notifications

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/14/how-do-i-manage-my-notification-settings

[Robbie54]

@J-Renato0  yes, I'm aware. It does not excuse a guest for not replying as those options are available, it's not a secret that they are not.