I would like to chat to my guests if I can but my property is a self-contained apartment in the central city. Checkin is 10am and checkout is 3pm. I have a self checkin process. If I wanted to meet them at those times I would either have to take time off work or in the weekend, make a special trip to the city to meet them. So most of my interaction with guests is via AirBnB Messaging. Only once did I actually make a special point to meet a guest since he was from a city in Germany I had recently visited and I wanted to share experiences. That was worthwhile.
I’m confused. I don’t have guests’ personal email? I’m asking if hosts who communicate using the ABB relay email address find guest response times to be quicker than when using messenger? (Just generally speaking) Both methods stay on platform, but emailing has no “saved messages” or boilerplate templates.
eg. Jane-Doe-Jhfbm7btt7668890j@guest.airbnb.c om
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i don’t communicate off platform unless it’s unavoidable. i don’t use that email address. i wouldn’t know how without using my own email clien t
i just call electronic communication on a computer ‘email’ in general. sorry for confusion.
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A lot of hosts successfully host remotely without ever meeting their guests but I truly believe that if guests are met by the host they have a personal connection and therefore are somehow more respectful of the rental.
In all the years I’ve been doing this I’ve never had bad guests. Some not brilliant, of course, but never bad. I put it down to the personal connection, although there are probably many other factors.
Can’t you use a co-host to greet your guests? I really believe that it’s important for many reasons.
I don’t either, but when I get slow or no responses on messaging, which is a lot, I’m thinking of trying it rather than texting. Yes, you have to copy paste into your own email client (unless the app is different than the website in this regard) but at least it stays on platform. 
I use the email option with every guest because I need to send them my hand-drawn map, as my place would be impossible to find without it. I actually pick most of my guests up at the bus station, which is a 5 minute drive from my house, so the map is more for back-up in case we fail to connect for some reason, but occasionally guests have taken a cab instead, so they need the map.
Sometimes that coded email adress fails to attach the map, so then I ask guests for their personal email address, which none have objected to giving me, as I also give them mine. I let them know via Airbnb message that I am going to email the map, and then again to tell them I’ve done it and ask them to confirm that they received it.
I have no idea if guests would normally be on top of checking their email more often than their Airbnb messages, but so far almost all my guests have been good about responding either way. I think younger people are less into email, they tend to use social media and texting and whatsapp to communicate.
I think the mobile app allows images in the messaging? Honestly I don’t like using the app unless I absolutely have to so I wish they would add this functionality to the website.
Young and old, more times than not I struggle with getting responses, even to my welcome on ABB Messenger. I send guests a message within minutes of booking usually. I think I’ll start emailing them at the same time if only to let them know that they have a new message from me! Who knows, it might save me some time in the long run.
Just so you are prepared, I wouldn’t expect more functionality added to the website. I expect more features to be only available via website and perhaps eventually airbnb will be almost entirely app based, similar to Uber or Venmo. I’ve read that already half the booking are made on a mobile device. At some point it won’t be cost effective to continue supporting the website functionality.
Thee mobile app does allow pictures to be embedded but it’s not available on the website. I would like images on the website also as that’s my preferred method of interacting with guests. Occasionally I need to send images like pictures where I might have hidden the key and other things
Oh wow. For guests, I can see why this would be acceptable. But as a host, we do a lot more work. I really don’t want to be building my listing and managing my calendar from an app! I hope at least they continue to support current features on the website. Oh wait, I’ve gathered here that they don’t care about hosts! Doh?!
I wouldn’t know. I’ve never used the app and don’t even use a smart phone 
But I do know that the guests who said the map didn’t attach to the email I sent using the coded email, were all accessing their email through their phone, rather than a computer.
I just read about constant glitches on the app, so I’m not even interested in using it. And my latest guest who wrote a review using the app had a really hard time with it- it kept cutting off what he was writing, so his review stops right in the middle of a sentence, and the rest of his review came through as private feedback, starting where the review sentence left off. Which is a shame, because it was all glowing.
This is my (limited) experience. It stalls a lot on me
I do most my work on a desktop. If I had to I could do it on a tablet or smartphone. Since Airbnb is much more visual and hosts often have mulitiple listings maybe it doesn’t make sense to move to app only compared to something like Venmo or Uber. When I was at the thing for DogVacay hosts back in 2016 they said that apps were just easier for them to manage from the back end therefore they would try things there first and or have features on the app that weren’t on the website. That and my seeing that Airbnb has done the same thing is the basis for my speculation. I’m sure there is someone here on the forum who knows far more about it than I do.
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The website can be intolerably slow at times but there are some functions of the website the mobile app does not include such as the host dashboard.
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I hope you are right!
I don’t think it really has much to do with age. As I recall, 15 - 20 years ago I used to reply to email more or less within a minute of them arriving. My computer beeped when an email was received.
These days, the idea is that I check my email every evening but I often forget so I end up checking it every other day or so.
But I’m certainly not in the ‘younger people’ category. I just think that email has had its day.
The app is a lot more convenient for me, and probably for others too. Using the app I can run my business from the supermarket queue, the beach, the doctors waiting room and more or less wherever I happen to be.
I agree with this. Fewer people are using computers, fewer people are using email. The app is with you everywhere you go. I don’t know what others think but I can more or less run my entire life from the phone. Suits me
Thanks for being a great guest, I will review you this afternoon when I get the email from AirBnb, I would appreciate it if you could take a moment and do the same.
RR
Short and sweet - I like it!
I review all guests. Basically I write “All Fine” and give them 5 stars for everything, unless I’ve had a problem. If I’ve had a problem, I write clearly what it was, and mark them down in the stars in relation to the problem.
@Londoner Well, just so you know, I disregard any reviews that just read “All fine”, “Nice Guests” and others of that type. They seem to me like reviews written by faceless property management companies and hosts who have no contact with their guests and only write a bad review if the guest trashed the place. In other words, reviews like that tell me nothing and I don’t trust them. I’m sure not all hosts feel like that, but i know a lot of them, especially those who home share, do. A review doesn’t have to long or detailed, but it has to have a personal element to it, or it tells me nothing useful about the guest.
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