Special offers to returning guests (workaround)

1

It is apparently a long-standing problem/bug that the Airbnb host interface does not routinely provide the host with the option to send a “special offer” to a returning guest.

I had a great guest last summer and he said he was thinking of coming back here for TWO FULL MONTHS this year. I said “If you stay for two months, I’ll use a special offer to guarantee this years rate and override our planned 25% summer price increases.”

I thought it would be a simple matter: get him to make an inquiry about specific dates, and that inquiry would present me with the option of sending a special offer. The system did not work that way because he was already established as a previous guest. We fiddled around for well over an hour trying to create a “special offer” button for him on my host interface

I finally convinced him to go to the calendar and make a reservation request (after I turned off Instant booking). I had to reassure him that I would not accept a request at the new (higher) rates listed in the calendar, but would click on an an anticipated “special offer” button and send him the promised (lower) rates.

His booking request arrived on my host interface with two options: ACCEPT and DECLINE. No SEND SPECIAL OFFER button. As soon as I told him this he retracted his reservation request and voila! – his retraction left behind his preferred dates and a (you guessed it!) a SPECIAL OFFER button.

So here is the simple, quick way to work around a flaw in the system and make a special offer to a returning guest – discovered by accident after more than an hour trial-and-error with the guest and lots of 180-degrees wrong advice from poorly-informed C.S. staff:

  1. if you have instant booking, temporarily turn it off

  2. After assuring the guest you will not accept it, ask them to make a reservation request using the default rates listed in the calendar.

  3. Ask the guest to wait a couple of minutes and then immediately withdraw/retract the request as soon as it appears on your host interface.

  4. After the guest withdraws, the host interface on the guest’s message thread will still be populated with the new dates for the request AND a big fat SPECIAL OFFER button.

  5. Move forward with normal “special offer” process, including prompting the guest to accept quickly before another guest asks for the same days

  6. If you had turned off IB, turn it back on once booking is complete.

If you have synchronized with the guest and are working online together in real time, you can do all of this in three minutes or less.

The other half of this story is how utterly useless customer service was. It would have been nice if they could have shared the workaround I just described, but they told me that it was NOT POSSIBLE to send a special offer to a returning guest. They had NO CLUE a workaround even existed, and were cocky and smug in telling me so.

Customer service told my guest in Taiwan that the host needed to initiate the process by creating from scratch an “invitation to book” NO SUCH THING.

Nobody in this forum is surprised to hear yet one more example of script-reading CS agents who do not understand either their own system or the hospitality business in general, but I couldn’t share tips on an accidentally-discovered workaround without also sharing the details of related CS incompetence.

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2

Thanks for posting this workaround, which of course makes no logical sense (not your explanation, but the absurdity of a guest having to make a request and then withdraw it in order for the “special offer” option to appear).

I’m sure the CS reps don’t get paid enough to want to spend their days off boning up on Airbnb policy, and they obviously receive the bare minimum of training.

The most obnoxious part of my most recent interaction with CS was the 3rd CS rep (the previous 2 apparently kept passing it on) giving me entirely useless information which didn’t relate to my issue, patting himself on the back for “solving your issue” and closing the case immediately, before I had even responded.

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I’m convinced that most of the reps are just working from scripts and – like a bot – don’t really understand the advice they are reading from digital cue cards popping up on their screen. Even their piss-poor training and piss-poor pay don’t explain the malpractice that fails to pop-up the correct workaround on screen when the rep punches special offer for returning guest into their “solutions” database search engine.

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4

Thanks for sharing your tip.

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5

I believe the Special Offer button is now only available if the guest sends an “inquiry” not a request to book? Is that right?

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When my previous guest went through the steps to send an “inquiry” he says the process just cycled him back to the message dialogue screen, without sending me any info about his hoped-for new booking, and without providing me with a choice of PRE-APPROVE or SPECIAL OFFER. It works differently than for someone who doesn’t have a previous booking.

7

I can sort of understand why a previous guest might be routed to the old message stream when they send an inquiry, because inquiries are really just a way for guests to ask questions. But Airbnb should certainly make it possible to preapprove a new inquiry (and send a special offer) with new dates, just like they do with all the other inquiries.

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Airbnb was founded by a bunch of coders who know shit about the hospitality business, and it shows every day

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They fell all over themselves and admitted that they dropped the ball in a follow-up to my complaint about bad advice to me AND the customer from Customer Service. Here is my response to their apology:

Has Airbnb ever surveyed Hosts to measure the extent to which they do not trust first-tier Customer Service reps to be well trained and "know their stuff? To measure how widespread the belief that the company just doesn’t care that CS is not trusted as reliable?

Twice in the past week I have dealt with telephone CS reps at other companies (my Canadian health insurance company and my Canadian bank VISA card) and complimented them when their training and deep knowledge were apparent within minutes. (They did not have to put me on hold to “look something up” or “check with their team.” ) Their advice was detailed, it was at their fingertips and it was reliably accurate. This is the rule at these companies, and the exception at Airbnb – a perception I share with every other host in every online forum where I participate.

Airbnb is one of the largest and richest hospitality companies in the world, and it needs to upgrade it’s embarrassingly amateurish customer-service operation to reflect that fact.

Peace

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10

I do direct bookings with repeat guests that I like.

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11

Doesn’t work for us with our house insurance, which covers us for short term rentals from a referral platform like Airbnb.

12

I snorted when I read that! So AirBnB is going to vet the guests for you and will provide better guests than one that you already had a good experience with? SMH

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It is what it is. I’m just glad we were able to find an insurer wiling to cover us.

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That’s probably what the insurance company falsely thinks. Or they, like newbie hosts, think that Airbnb actually has a million dollar guarantee and will cover any damages if a guest trashes a place or burns it down, so the insurance company doesn’t have to. :laughing:

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:laughing:

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