So today my response time went from 100% to 97% I thought this strange since we have not had an inquiry or request in the last 2 days. I sent an email to Air to find out why and they did respond with their canned answer about how response rates are calculated. I persistent and got a call from Airbnb to explain exactly when and how this happened.
According to them we had a guest asked several questions before booking and I answered all within 5 minutes. Her last question was how far the closest beach was. Answered and she responded āOk, thanksā then immediately booked. Air says because I did not respond to her Ok, thanks I lost points. Seriously? Thought it was end of conversation. Dropping down a few percentage points for me is not a big deal but just needed to know why so I donāt make that mistake again. Guess I just want to pass this info along to all since this forum has been so helpful to me being a new host with airbnb. In the future I will make sure I am the last to respond until the booking is made. Lesson learned.
Same thing happened to meā¦
Exactly. Iām not playing this āgameā where we score points. But I thought that once youāve replied to the guestās first inquiry, response rate doesnāt matter after that. I have loads of messages in my inbox where the guest have said āgreat, thanks for the infoā and Iām not going to reply to every one with a āyouāre welcomeā. This hasnāt affected my response rate.
Iām a bit confused about if you mean response time or rate. I assume you mean rate since that is measured as a percentage. Iāve had lots of meesages I didnāt respond to and Iām still at 100%.
Although I havenāt had any issues with ABB yet itās distressing to not be able to get straight answers from them.
You might want to call back and ask for a supervisor. According to Airbnbās website, āYour response rate and response time arenāt affected by follow-up messages between hosts and guests. You donāt have to send the final message in a conversation to maintain your response rate.ā
https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/430/what-is-response-rate-and-how-is-it-calculated
You are right. Response rate is what I should have said
My first time having an issue and I really did not want to get caught up in the customer service nightmare but did want clarification. Next time I will end with you are welcome, etc
ellenN, that is what I read and understood.
Which you shouldnāt have to do! I recently got a 1 star review from someone who intended to leave 5 stars. It just wasnāt worth my time to try to get it changed. The guest said she tried but she probably didnāt try very hard.
Itās clear that you got a clueless customer service representative. Imagine how irritating it would be for hosts and guests if hosts always had to have the last word. We would have to send a message saying, āPlease donāt respond to this message or Airbnb will ding me on my response time.ā
I love you, you big lug, but how can I miss you if you wonāt go away!!
Lol. Is that from a country Western song?
I have no clueā¦I took it verbatim from The Dudās post (about 9 above this one).
Same thing happened to me. I just went from 100% to 97% response rate because instead of responding to a guests message that said āIām here,ā I decided to open the doorand let him in. This was like the 8th message from him, not the first, and it still counted.
I called AirBnB and the rep was baffled by the situation. In the end he basically said heāll put a note on my file in case this continues to happen and affects super host status assessment. In the meantime, I apparently just have to live with the lower response rate despite the fast that I always respond right away.
That doesnāt make any senseā¦
I donāt always respond back to guestās messages when it is unnecessary (such as āIām hereā or āOK thanksā) and my Response Rate is 100%, Response Time is 5 minutes. I only make sure to respond to the initial inquiry (when not an Instant Book booking) as soon as possible. The rest can wait.
If it is worth it to you I would continue to pursue it with Customer Service as it sounds like a bug.
The answer from the customer service is bullshit. Response rate is affected when you donāt respond to inquiries (first āsign of lifeā after an inquiry) or a request to book within 24 hours. This is most likely a bug.
I looked thru past conversations with other guests and had one just like youā¦they texted from the driveway so I just went out and met them. Did not return the text and that did not seem to be a problem and did not lower my response rate. Wonder if this is a glitch that hopefully will be fixed soon. If this is happening suddenly to other hosts and they start getting a lot of calls/emailsā¦well
I think it depends on how the message was sent. Just a message isnāt a problem. Last week a guest used the āinquiryā method to book, then used it later to say āThanksā. The ABB app warned me that the guest was trying to book a blocked date with the second message (yeah, because the guest booked it!!) I was surprised the app wasnāt smart enough to figure that out. I think the only reason I wasnāt dinged for response was because ABB didnāt hold it against me since the inquiry was for āunavailableā dates.
This is getting preposterous. If there is a he said/she said, and hosts have to have the last word then throw that onto to list of latest and greatest and give the hosts noticeā¦not ding before notice.
AirBnB is SLIPPING. I donāt even use it anymore. Too bad. It was so great for so long. It started out as being the most host-friendly site out there. It has changed from a truly community-building resource-sharing platform with great customer service to an overblown, unnecessarily complex, and increasingly hypocritical monster of a site that puts guests needs above the concerns of hosts and neighborhoods. Pressuring hosts to accept guests into their home with instant book and slapping hosts for not complying with total 100% acceptance of every Tom, Dick & Harry that wants to stay in your private home, and then asserting that they are host-friendly and that hosts are not hoteliers is hypocritical.