Airbnb Insider here to help you all!

In regards to extenuating circumstances if a guest does not cancel a booking and the reso is completed without the guest staying could they then accept a doctors certificate or the like to put in an extenuating circumstances refund. According to the cs rep I dealt with this is OK???

Nope, if you take time to read over what I wrote again, you’ll see I refer to NT agents who we call “daycare agent” is simply because all they do is transfer 99% of their calls because people select the wrong number when first calling in. As a host, you’ll never talk to a NT unless it’s one specific pilot program we have with CXL (cancellation specialist agent). Any host call is a trip issue so it goes to my dept. The saying is meant to be light-hearted and a call center thing only. Those agents field calls from people whom don’t have accounts, have random questions about a possible trip next year, concerned neighbors, etc etc etc. Very limited job, no interesting calls with trip issues, no cancellations, no extenuating circumstance claims, blah blah blah. Please don’t take what I say on this forum the wrong way. I have the best intentions, I am just blunt and sarcastic but I’m here to help.

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see what? Something you need advice on?

which issue? Do you have a thread number to help me navigate?

She was replying to this post (which a complaint about something you have no control over)

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That doesn’t make referring to the folks handling calls from the general public as “daycare agents” any better. It still shows call center disrespect for the general public who are potential customers. IMHO that attitude does not belong in any real customer service organization. Period. Most of the hosts here would never call potential guests that unless their behavior indicated that they are/were not good guests, and then only after the fact.

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@TheInsider, for the record I have no problem with call center agents using the term “daycare agents” to refer to their fellow employees. If anything, it’s demeaning toward the agent not to the person calling in.

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Thanks for the clarification! Yes, that is something above my pay grade that I won’t respond to because I have no insight.

That is your opinion and I respect that. Making a career out of the call center world, I’ve came to realize that there are three groups of people in these positions: Kids right out of high school that last under 6 months, baby boomers re-entering the working world, or the middle aged person who have made a drastic life or career change and need to start over. There is not a single call center, that I’m aware of, that doesn’t bitch about a caller in some aspect or doesn’t have nicknames for each department. These terms are typically internal-use early, everyone knows they are light-heart names, and we all mean well.

Air is one of the most unique call centers you can possibly have. We don’t have scripts and the policies are there in place as a guideline for the agent to know which direction to take each call but the ultimate decision (75%) of cases is based on how the agent decides to go with it. That being said, our job and how we do it, is based on each agent’s personality in quite a few ways. If we didn’t have jokes, inside names, vented, etc then we would just become your robotic call center and guests/hosts wouldn’t reach out to us for support as much as they do now.

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Exactly. Even then, the NT agents refer to Trip agents as “big heads” because we handle so many different types of calls that some agents get too big for their own good. Case managers have names, Trust and Safety, etc etc.

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Are you sure about that? I get “First of all, thank you for being a Superhost” pretty much word for word every time I call in.

@tristanandangela, First, that’s shitty and I’m sorry you experienced that as a host. Second, don’t bother with legal action. ToS… you agreed to handle things “in-house” and Air will bury you in legal paperwork and you’ll end up filing BK just from filing fees prior to winning a dime, just my opinion.

Bed bugs are a rough one but every agent as a very strict workflow to follow in this matter. If a guest claims beg bugs in your listing to support they must provide picture documentation of the bed bugs themselves, casings on the mattress, photos of actual bites (a good agent will know the difference in bite types breakfast, lunch, dinner or commonly three bites in a row multiple times, and/or blood splatter from the bugs being present in the bed. In order for support to shut your listing down and require an inspection/treatment, the CM must have at least 2 out the required types of evidence. IF they receive that and believe it to be accurate, you’ll be blocked from future reso, and all current/scheduled reso will be CBA. The agent SHOULD reimburse you for the inspection but not for the treatment, if needed. Once inspection/treatment is completed, upload your doc, case closed, and you’re back to hosting.
If the guest only shows bites (that still need to resemble bed bug bites) the reso will either be CBG (if the agent thinks the case is fishy) or will be CBA w/full refund and no penalties to H but an educational follow-up call and msg sent to H.

In either situation, H is not penalized with an automated review, flags on account, or disqual from SH or PLUS status but does need to quickly get on the ball due to reso being blocked therefore no revenue.

Bed bugs suck for both parties, in your case it’s very possible the G brought them with, already had the bites, and had photos of their own mattress but was similar enough in photos that it passed the CM inspection. It sounds like you have a PITA CM but unfortunately you can’t do much.

It’s my understanding that this was a past case that has now been closed? So are you back to active and you’re unblocked, or has the CM left your listing blocked from reso? If you’re back to active, honestly just leave it alone and take this knowledge with you for the future. If you’re still blocked, call in to support, tell a CM that answers that you want a bed bug case re-opened and you want that CM to work the case for you “per community first guidelines” or because “you’d like to appeal the last CM decision because you provided all required docs.”

We have opening, resolution, and closing macros to use to help respond by message thread or emails quicker. We technically don’t have scripts on the phone other than outbound calls where the agent has to tell you the phone call is being recorded and get your approval and inbound calls authenticating the caller unless you self-authenticated while waiting on hold to speak to someone. With that being said, quite a few agents mock each other’s opening or the cheesy “thanks for being a great SH” type of crapola. I don’t use them personally. Each caller is a person and not a title to me so I will match their personality type and temp of the call to address opening, the overall call, and closing. Some hosts/guests get “yes sir” some get “absolutely man” others get “ok cool, thx for letting me help and have a great day.” It’s all based on the caller, the agent, reason for call, and if the caller is satisfied by the end of the call lol. I’m different though and do my own thing, but apparently it works because my caller survey scores are through the roof and the company just rewarded me with a $2000 travel credit. (If any of you have a nice property I can be a guest at, lmk lol.)

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AirBNB’s own lawyer (!!!) started off with that when trying to settle my lawsuit ahead of trial. More accurately she could have said, “Thanks for being a former SH, sorry we kicked you off the platform and you had to sue us.”

My answer: Crickets. :cricket:

I think I was close to having steam come out of my ears.

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I had that happen on my shift yesterday; it does happen but not often. When a guest or host claims an EC, the reso SHOULD be cancelled as CBG or CBH, the user then has 14 days to get valid documentation submitted. If within the 14 days the host ends up getting the payout due to CBG and the guest later submits valid EC docs within the time period, the reso will be changed to CBA w/o penalties and H will get a payout adjustment from the money they received. Vice versa if H cxl due to EC. As a host it WILL show as a CBH BUT once EC is verified the reso will change to CBA and penalities/SH status won’t be affected.

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Are most customer service calls made by guests rather than hosts?

I hope not to derail this thread, so perhaps a new topic is warranted, but it is hard to scroll past this comment. I haven’t worked in a call center, but I did work at Walt Disney World, and jokes were how we survived a customer service job that paid $1 more per hour than minimum-wage. If the general public is to he respected, perhaps employers should treat the customer-facing employees as those in a career rather than people churned.

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It is off topic but I’ll answer it, no problem. I agree agents behind the scenes are treated poorly, have unreachable metrics they have to hold to, deal with death, accidents, people at there worst times of their lives all while trying to either just earn some extra money or enjoy their vacation. Agents start off at $12 per hour so at this point, recruiters hire anyone with a pulse and until that changes, the quality of the person masked as an agent, the jokes inside the call center, and overall call center environment will never change.

Additionally, our calls are fairly 50/50. Lately, more guest calls complaining about hosts being unresponsive, being shady with their listing, having the listing set as an entire home but the maid randomly shows up and goes to “her bedroom”, last minute spring break CBH, etc etc. It honestly varies from day-to-day. If we get a bug issue that affects hosts, we’ll be flooded with phishing issues, site issues, etc. There is honestly not a way, for me as a CM, to determine who calls more as it changes by the minute on some days. I handle 15-40 calls per day and respond to just as many over the message thread with a solve rate of approx. 60-85 per week working five days/40 hours.

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It seems like Nordling is angry at Airbnb and our current political/regulatory/economic environment in general and Insider got targeted as the closest representative available of Airbnb.

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On the Android app, only a 30 day summary under progress, not daily views and never th graph format on the previous browser version. “Progress” has been replaced by “Performance” on the browser version purportedly to assist propery managers identify underperforming properties.