Missing messages in BDC chat

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Some of our guests (and us) have been having this ongoing issue of messages not showing up in the chat both on the website and chat. :man_shrugging:

Is anyone else here aware of such an issue?

I’ve reported it to BDC but haven’t heard back yet.

Guests showed me messages they sent to us but we never got them, the other way round same thing.

Today, I got chat notifications of messages from a guest that never came through in the actual chat.

Not to mention some massive delays when messages are sent (sometimes hours later).

This has nothing to do with network issues. Guests and us have been sending messages and didn’t receive them even when having perfect connectivity.

We feel forced into using off-platform messengers which obviously is taking a risk if things go wrong. But at the same time it’s super annoying and a poor guest experience if their message to us shows as “Delivered” and we never get it. Time sensitive inquiries are just one problem.

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But if you can show that it’s BDC that’s at fault because of their buggy system, wouldn’t you be okay?

When you say ‘if things go wrong’ I’m reading that as meaning ‘if I need to claim on their insurance’. Am I reading that right?

I’ve never used BDC but if their insurance is genuine (and not a marketing ploy like Airbnb) I might decide to!

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It’s hard to prove not receiving messages. I don’t know how else to put it.

Once we talked to some guests about having issues with messages from either side not being responded to, it was only possible to track that by literally holding both mobiles with the chat window open next to each other in order to see (or not see) the missing messages.

It’s not just about damage or insurance matters but also any other booking related issue like documenting any house rule violations including photos to document it - which I can still try to do but wouldn’t hold my breath that all those will actually go through.

It comes down to either sticking to BDC’s chat, risking subpar communication and possibly disappointed guests in case we never received any inquiries etc. or communicating via another messenger service but then be off platform and BDC might not even remotely consider that as any form of documentation if there is a problem of whatever kind.

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