Superhost stats: Is anyone else seeing something weird?

[Huma0]

Hello, after maintaining Superhost status for years, I lost it at the last assessment due to one 3* review (I host long term stays, so every rating really counts). Oh well, never mind...

Since then, all my guests have left 5* and I saw on my dashboard that my rating for the current assessment period (October 21 to September 22) was back up to the 4.8* requirement for Superhost and I was hopeful that I could maintain or increase this going forward.

However, yesterday I noticed my dashboard is now saying the rating is 4.6* for the same period. I haven't received any new reviews in the meantime, nor have any been removed, and anyway, the numbers don't add up. The total for guests who reviewed in that period, including the 3* review, comes to 4.769, so I should have 4.7* at least (or would it round up to 4.8*?). Why is it showing only 4.6*?

[Huma0]

Latest response from CS when I said I didn't want to close the case until the problem was fixed:

"I talked to colleagues and found out the following information. Since this isn't a new calculation error in our system, I have no influence on this solution.
We can't keep your request "open" for so long, as it's related to this. Bug report sent to another team. In this case, you just need to wait.

If after a while there will be the same result, you can contact us again and say that you have previous request (with CS rep's. name).
And a colleague will be able to read our message history. That way you don't have to explain everything again."

[Gillian166]

"We can't keep your request "open" for so long, as it's related to this."

I suspect this is related to their earnings as employees. They are timed on how long they take to resolve issues, this is why they always are keen to close cases as soon as they can. 

my daughter works at mcdonalds and on the drive thru they are also timed for how long they take to process orders. So when a customer is stuffing around on their phone (making a tiktok or something inane), or has to transfer money over, she struggles to smile at them with good grace because she knows she's going to get in trouble for it, also gets into trouble for not smiling with good grace.... lose/lose for her, so she's on edge half the time. This nonsense is destroying customer service. 

[Huma0]

@Gillian166 

Sorry, only saw your response now. Yes, I believe for sure that the frontline reps (and probably others) are under a lot of pressure to close cases as quickly as possible regardless of whether they have even been looked to, let alone resolved. I can't remember which publication it was now, but there was a detailed article that someone posted here on the CC that explained all of that in great detail, and those details were sourced from actual CS staff.

In the earlier years of my hosting experience, I certainly do not remember CS reps constantly telling me they were going to be out of office rather than answering the question and then have a BOT (or a rep) persistently try to force me to close the case.

[Huma0]

@Wendy117 @Emilie @Sybe 

So I've been really grilling the CS rep about this as I wanted to know whether, given this is a known glitch and has apparently been around for a while, the Superhost assessment would be based on the correct stats or the incorrect ones if the glitch is not sorted in time. 

At first she tried to avoid answering, then contradicted herself, but after I continued to press, admitted that basically, I should just hope for the best, i.e. hope that it gets sorted in time but, if not, well bad luck really. Every system has errors and it doesn't affect all users, so oh well... Anyway, that was the gist of the conversation. 

Also, when I asked her why CS are not aware of these types of ongoing errors (by her own admission, it's been around for some time) so that they can answer questions about it, she just told me "You can't know everything." 

Perhaps she did not know about it when I first made contact, but I find it suspicious that she continued to use the same tactic of trying to convince me that the stats were correct, when her colleague had already admitted it was a glitch.

Anyway, I don't see how I can get any further with this as the rep is basically saying that it's not CS's job to either get these problems solved, nor to communicate about them and that I should just accept that every system is flawed.

So @Emilie @Sybe I would be really grateful if you could pursue this matter if possible. I will be hopping mad if I miss out on Superhost due to a technical glitch.

I don't know how many other hosts are experiencing this apart from @Wendy117 and I, as probably a lot of them don't even use the CC, but I do remember a lot of hosts posting about not understanding why they didn't get SH status at the last assessment, even though they were sure they qualified. Maybe this has something to do with that...

[Wendy117]

@Huma0   Actually the figures I reported were wrong, but doesn't change the overall issue.  I actually only have 30x5 star, 1x4 star, 1x3 star which still calculates to 4.91 for the period.

[Huma0]

@Wendy117 

Well, true, it's still the same issue. If your total should be 4.91 and it's showing 4.8, that's still wrong.

I'm not very impressed with the CS response that it's a glitch, but if it doesn't get sorted in time for the next assessment, well, it's not their problem as no system is perfect. That's basically what I've been told...

[Huma0]

@Wendy117 

Did you hear anything back about this?

My stats are still incorrect, but I've heard nothing back from CS about it since they forced the case to be closed...

[Wendy117]

@Hum0   Yes of course my stats are still incorrect.  I am not like you - I see that you follow up issues doggedly - I am always reading your posts - and more often than not you are successful.  I didn't even raise an issue with CS - just posted in this forum.  I also posted on the Sydney Host facebook page.  I guess I don't have much faith in Airbnb doing anything about it but I will go ahead and raise an issue to keep it alive as soon as I have the spare time. for a long phone call.

[Wendy117]

@Huma0   After reading your trials and tribulations with phoning and finding someone in CS who understood, I decided instead to send a Superhost Help message where I could clearly outline the problem - repeating the evaluation period twice.  Will keep you in the loop how they respond.

[Wendy117]

@Huma0   Nice quick response from someone at CS who understands.  I hope this means it will be corrected at next assessment - not sure if that is what he is saying.

Good day to you. Thank you for reaching out to us.

This is Aris a Support Ambassador from Airbnb, and I am taking over this case of ours about your query on the current overall rating for your account.

We do apologize for any troubles this has caused.

I've checked on your Airbnb Superhost account details for this current assessment date, and yes it does that your approximate overall rating should be around 4.9.

We would like to kindly ask for your patience on this matter, the current assessment will be till the end of this month September of 2022. Please do kindly wait for this to be updated since the current assessment is still ongoing.

We do apologize for this, Wendy.

We are hoping for your kind understanding.

[Huma0]

@Wendy117 

Glad you didn't get the run around that I initially did. The second rep I was dealing with was polite and straightforward. He basically told me that the technical team was working on it, but that they do not tell CS when glitches are fixed so I just need to keep an eye on stats.

When I asked if I would still get Superhost at the next assessment if the glitch was not fixed (I am currently eligible), that's when I was passed back to the the awful rep. She did her best to avoid giving me a straight answer to this question, but when I kept asking, she eventually admitted that there was no guarantee of that and that basically I should hope for the best, and closed the case.

She also said that it was not a new glitch. So, I am not totally confident that this will be fixed before the end of the month, but it's not really fair that the assessment should still be based on incorrect stats due to an Airbnb glitch. I believe that an actual person should be able to override the system to allocate the status when they have been alerted and are aware that the numbers for that host are incorrect due to the glitch.

[Huma0]

@Wendy117 

Actually, the whole thing was via message. I think I probably would have hung up if I had gotten that rep on the phone! The second one was actually logical and tried to be helpful. With CS, I think it's less about whether you phone or message, it's about the rep you get handling it, which is just the luck of the draw...

[Huma0]

@Wendy117 

Well, it depends on the issue. Your incorrect stats are showing 4.8*. Although that's incorrect, as long as you only get 5* reviews until the end of September, you will still keep your Superhost status.

Mine are showing 4.7*, also incorrect, and I am not sure whether that is 4.25 or 4.75 or what. As it's incorrect there is no way of knowing. I will get a maximum of two reviews before the next assessment, and even if they are both 5*, I don't know if that's enough to push the incorrect stat up to 4.8*. So, I could easily miss out on Superhost status due to this glitch, despite having the met the criteria...

Of course, one or both of those guests could leave me less than 5*, in which case it won't matter!

[Wendy117]

@Huma0   Good news. I received the following message from CS.

You're welcome. We would like to guarantee you that before the current assessment end, everything will be reviewed and recalculated to show the correct ratings for our Superhosts.

We also do understand how important this is for you, rest assured that everything will be fine.

Since it has been confirmed that as of the moment we will need to wait till the end of this current assessment for everyone's rating to be reviewed, ...............

[Huma0]

@Wendy117 

Well, the first part of the message is certainly promising and at least your rep seems to get it. I had to ask mine if she had ever been a host and explain to her why it was important that the stats were correct. She just kept responding with stuff like "Every system has its flaws."

The last bit confuses me a bit, but I assume he/she is talking about the rating being reviewed as per normal during the Superhost assessment.