This is unbelievable. Airbnb has a terrible website when used by someone in my niche situation. My big handicap is that I do not want to have or use a smartphone, yet it is IMPOSSIBLE as a host to use them without one.
When I got my first customer after several months of having been signed up as a host on this site, I received a rather cryptic text message that said someone wanted to stay at my place for two whole months (a $12,000 value). Yet when I tried to log in I found my account had been hacked by someone and my name and profile photo was someone from India. I can't imagine why anyone would hack an AirBnB host account but they did.
I spent hours trying to contact a person at AirBnB and could not do so. After hours of searching I finally found a phone number burred DEEP within their help system. (BTW its 844-424-7262)
I needed to talk to a person because once I reset my password and tried to regain access to my account, I found that they had added a required photo method to verify my identity. Unfortunately, they would only allow me to upload the photo via a smartphone. Never mind the fact that I could take a reasonable picture of someone, hold it in front of the phone and take a picture. The fact that I could not upload an image from my computer made it impossible for me to get back into my account. I finally had to borrow someone elses phone to accomplish this step. LAME-O-Tech
By the time this was done, my customer had been lost.
The cryptic url you get from AirBnB in your phone text message includes 0s and Os which can be very confusing. I had to try 4 variations to get the right URL and the one that appeared right said "You are not authorized to view this message". Well that helps a lot.
What was also weird was that when I went to my account online there was absolutely no evidence that I had any customers interested in my place. The support person could not explain or correct this either.
The call center guy also had to admit, I cannot use their system without a smartphone.
I will send them a link to this article as feedback to their system and hope maybe somebody there will be able to make changes so I and others like me can use their services.
AirBnB seems to run their company like US Worst/Verizon does. An impossible maze of attempts to thwart people from asking intelligent questions and getting real help.
As a test, on their help page I tried searching for "How do I ask a question" - no relevant answers were found.
Specific fixes they could do:
1) Forget photo verification via cell phone. It doesn't prove anything, and it can easily be thwarted. Either let people upload an image or get rid of this ridiculous method of user verification. Better to get them to sign in with facebook - at least then you have a face recognition algorithm working for you.
2) for shortcut URLs don't use 0s or Os - just use lowercase letters - its not a password so keep it simple for users to type in if necessary. In fact, I would implement it so that words from a simple dictionary are used. Imagine how simple it would be to type in https://www.airbnb.me/lovelyflowerstogether.
3) Put your support number on the root help page. Don't pretend to be happy to help me if you hide your number. Better, add chat support or true email support or some kind of ticket system. It works and things don't get lost. Maybe your customer is like me and lives way out where there is little or no cell coverage - ever think of that? Let people really talk to you using an efficient system via multiple channels. I can understand the cost of personal support but with a good chat-bot you may be able to still answer most questions in an automated fashion. Hiding your support or making it hard for people to talk to you just cuts you off from you customers and pisses them off.
If I see no progress in fixing this so I can use it, I will simply have to shut down my account and go elsewhere. Don't do this guys! I want to use you if I can!
Note that I have a general problem with all these "middle man" rental listing websites. A host can only manage so many middle-men and besides loosing profit on their rentals, every site is different and there is simply no way to support all the possible ways a person might offer or manage his rental. A small fee to allow the listing to simply contain a link to the renter's website would be wonderful and I would gladly pay a reasonable fee for the listing.
If this isn't done soon, I bet a craigs-list kind of rental website will become a defacto winner and eventually dethrone all of you "middle-men".
When I got my first customer after several months of having been signed up as a host on this site, I received a rather cryptic text message that said someone wanted to stay at my place for two whole months (a $12,000 value). Yet when I tried to log in I found my account had been hacked by someone and my name and profile photo was someone from India. I can't imagine why anyone would hack an AirBnB host account but they did.
I spent hours trying to contact a person at AirBnB and could not do so. After hours of searching I finally found a phone number burred DEEP within their help system. (BTW its 844-424-7262)
I needed to talk to a person because once I reset my password and tried to regain access to my account, I found that they had added a required photo method to verify my identity. Unfortunately, they would only allow me to upload the photo via a smartphone. Never mind the fact that I could take a reasonable picture of someone, hold it in front of the phone and take a picture. The fact that I could not upload an image from my computer made it impossible for me to get back into my account. I finally had to borrow someone elses phone to accomplish this step. LAME-O-Tech
By the time this was done, my customer had been lost.
The cryptic url you get from AirBnB in your phone text message includes 0s and Os which can be very confusing. I had to try 4 variations to get the right URL and the one that appeared right said "You are not authorized to view this message". Well that helps a lot.
What was also weird was that when I went to my account online there was absolutely no evidence that I had any customers interested in my place. The support person could not explain or correct this either.
The call center guy also had to admit, I cannot use their system without a smartphone.
I will send them a link to this article as feedback to their system and hope maybe somebody there will be able to make changes so I and others like me can use their services.
AirBnB seems to run their company like US Worst/Verizon does. An impossible maze of attempts to thwart people from asking intelligent questions and getting real help.
As a test, on their help page I tried searching for "How do I ask a question" - no relevant answers were found.
Specific fixes they could do:
1) Forget photo verification via cell phone. It doesn't prove anything, and it can easily be thwarted. Either let people upload an image or get rid of this ridiculous method of user verification. Better to get them to sign in with facebook - at least then you have a face recognition algorithm working for you.
2) for shortcut URLs don't use 0s or Os - just use lowercase letters - its not a password so keep it simple for users to type in if necessary. In fact, I would implement it so that words from a simple dictionary are used. Imagine how simple it would be to type in https://www.airbnb.me/lovelyflowerstogether.
3) Put your support number on the root help page. Don't pretend to be happy to help me if you hide your number. Better, add chat support or true email support or some kind of ticket system. It works and things don't get lost. Maybe your customer is like me and lives way out where there is little or no cell coverage - ever think of that? Let people really talk to you using an efficient system via multiple channels. I can understand the cost of personal support but with a good chat-bot you may be able to still answer most questions in an automated fashion. Hiding your support or making it hard for people to talk to you just cuts you off from you customers and pisses them off.
If I see no progress in fixing this so I can use it, I will simply have to shut down my account and go elsewhere. Don't do this guys! I want to use you if I can!
Note that I have a general problem with all these "middle man" rental listing websites. A host can only manage so many middle-men and besides loosing profit on their rentals, every site is different and there is simply no way to support all the possible ways a person might offer or manage his rental. A small fee to allow the listing to simply contain a link to the renter's website would be wonderful and I would gladly pay a reasonable fee for the listing.
If this isn't done soon, I bet a craigs-list kind of rental website will become a defacto winner and eventually dethrone all of you "middle-men".
