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]

@Wendy117 

I totally understand why you have given up! When I first started hosting I used to call CS quite often, but they were pretty decent back then. Now, if it's something I can sort out myself, I would rather do that than get them involved. Obviously, with technical glitches to the system, it's not something we can fix from our end.

It's now totally hit and miss with CS. Sometimes you get through to someone who really knows their stuff, understands the issue straight away and deals with it quickly if they are able or at least gives you some sensible explanation of the situation, rather than suddenly being out of office for the next few days or constantly trying to close the case when nothing has been resolved. 

When you get one of these reps on the phone or the message thread, it's a great idea to ask them to help with any other outstanding issues. There have been a few times when I was getting nowhere with CS and gave up, but then had the issue resolved some time later when I happened to get someone effective on the line. I hope your other problem gets sorted!

[Wendy117]

@Huma0   I am pleased to say that my superhost stats are now showing 4.91 again.  This happened after I received another 5 star review so I guess it made the system recalculate - correctly this time.

[Huma0]

@Wendy117 

That's good to hear! My stats also updated after the last review I received, but unfortunately, not correctly! I did have a couple of guests check out recently, so let's see...

[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.

[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...

[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 

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]

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.

[Emilie]

@Huma0 @Wendy117 We're currently in touch with the team about this thanks to your examples, as Sybe mentioned above - we'll keep you in the loop as and when we have more info, but again a big thanks again for flagging this and providing ample details!

Emilie

[Huma0]

@Emilie 

Thanks very much for looking into this. The CS reps don't seem to appreciate that these numbers matter to us!

[Wendy117]

@Huma0  @ Yes,  something is wrong, for the first time in 5 years i have a problem with the stats being displayed on my superhost page. Was superhost most of this time but had a 3 rating bringing it down.  That rating finally dropped out of the current year and i was happy to see my superhost at 4.9.  Then suddenly it is showing at 4.8 although my Basic Requirements page is still showing 4.9.  i have 31x5 star,  1x4 star and 1x 3 star in this period.  Doesnt make sense but back on the knife edge again hoping next guest gives  5 star. The only other possible explanation is that i had a horrer guest who left a 3 and a racist review, but that review was removed by Airbnb and it had displayed 4.9 since. Who knows?

[Huma0]

@Wendy117 

The same thing happened to me. I had maintained Superhost status for 5.5 years and a 5.0 average for 2.5 years of that and then suddenly a 3* review made my ratings plummet. I was glad to see that they had gone back up to 4.8* and that I had a chance of regaining the status at the next assessment.

If your stats were showing 4.9 and you didn't get anything but 5* reviews after that, it makes no sense why it would drop to 4.8.

When you look at your basic requirements page, are you changing the dates to 1st October to today? That should show you what the rating should be for the current assessment period. Otherwise, it's automatically set to show you only the previous month (mine is showing 5.0).

According to the numbers you have given, your rating should definitely be 4.9 for the assessment period.

[Wendy117]

@Huma0   My basic requirements page does not have a date selection.  It is the tab across from superhost when you choose superhost under performance.  It shows Overall Rating, Response Rate,  Cancellations and Accepted Reservations.

But looking closer it does list each property separately - not combined like Superhost tab.

So two properties are showing 4.9 (one had one 3 rating and one had one 4 rating) and one property is showing 5 as that is not booked as often.

So who knows what date range Basic Requirements is using but it should be the the last 12 months same as superhost because we know if we fall below Basic Requirements we get an Airbnb warning.

[Huma0]

@Wendy117 

Sorry, I worded that wrong. I didn't mean the basic requirements page. I meant the 'overall quality' page. You will find it under Quality, rather than Superhost. Below you can see that the dates are automatically showing the last month. However, you can click on this and adjust the start date to 1st October to see the stats for the current assessment period.

[Wendy117]

Overall Quality from Oct 1 shows 4.9

[Wendy117]

@Huma0  forgot to tag you - tired - bed now Nite Nite

[Sybe]

Hey @Huma0 and everyone. I wanted to let you all know that I've forwarded this to the team now as well. As soon as I have an update I'll let you know!

[Huma0]

@Sybe 

This is the last response I got from the CS rep, so I guess that means that she is going to go ahead and close the case anyway, even though the problem has not been fixed (and even though I had previously been told it had been fixed when it hadn't):

Dear Huma,

I understand you’ve been having some bother with overall rating.
I have again reported this problem to our department. We still can't provide a timeline for a fix, but an issue has been reported.
Our engineers are already working to fix it.

Unfortunately, the engineers do not provide us with reports, and I will not be able to tell you exactly when this situation will be resolved. I recommend that you check your overall rating.
In this regard, I unfortunately can no longer provide any information on this request.

Is there anything else I can help you with?