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Post by trafalgar on Mar 11, 2016 19:15:09 GMT
Well said, Trafalgar. Surely at some point they'll figure out that they can't shift the CX burden to a place where people are getting bad information and coming out more frustrated with Airbnb than they were when they went in in the first place. One thing it definitely won't do is save money. The CC reveals what an absolute mess they are behind the scenes, how many hundreds of hosts are angry and confused and finding it impossible to get basic and consistent information. And they've made that freely visible to the public and the press - which is like leaving the door off of your bathroom. It's mind-boggling that they decided to make CC public and visible to all. As Deborah said, the BBC have already linked to one of the threads about the delisting cull, and inevitably the lurking media will only be looking for negative stories. Okay, this forum is public too, but it's anonymous, like *every* forum I've ever known. Yet not only is CC airing its dirty laundry in public, it's doing so when the contributors are far from anonymous. Sure, there are no surnames but in a lot of cases, if the host gives identifying details in his/her profile or listing such as profession, education etc, the identity of the host is easily discovered via Google. |
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Post by trafalgar on Mar 11, 2016 19:22:41 GMT
Dave and Deb and a few other regular contributors on the CC are somewhat torn I think. (By the way Dave and Deb are also members of THIS forum!) THey don't really like the Community Center but they like helping people, and probably find it addictive. Dave and Deb (I think it's mostly Dave who posts) have done a large number of "How To" posts and gotten praise for that from Lizzy. REally they are the stars of the whole show there and it's probably hard to give that up -- even knowing that it's a bad show. I think they are sticking with it hoping that changes will be made to improve the CC, as has continually been promised. I have to say I am glad that there at least are some folks like Dave and Deb and Clare on there who are giving good advice, compared to many who aren't -- and if they want to engage in what I see as incredibly boring work answering the same questions over and over, I have to say, more power to them if they really want to do that. My feeling is that the less cooperation, the more refusants, the more who abandon ship, the better. That way the FAIL message will hit home sooner and more clearly. Dave & Deb are effectively holding back that natural process by being so very helpful! |
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Post by trafalgar on Mar 11, 2016 19:37:32 GMT
Re Robin's farewell message: the correct internet term when you bid a final adieu to a forum is the verb 'to flounce'. I know this from a few years on LiveJournal a very long while back. I also know that when you flounce, the official internet reaction is that Nobody Cares.   |
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Post by High Priestess on Mar 11, 2016 19:42:00 GMT
I agree, trafalgar ---
Early on I felt in a very awkward position as I was the first host community leader that Airbnb contacted, to get my help with getting their new Community Center going. They called me into AIrbnb HQ in San Francisco and asked me to help them start the CC. They asked me for other host community leaders and I provided them several names of hosts active in the old host communities, and thus they formed the "Launch Pad Hosts" on the new CC. (WE have our own board on the CC, hidden from all other users, called "LAunch Pad hosts" and we have been posting questions and suggestions there for Airbnb since the CC began -- actually before it opened up to public use) . They asked us all to seed content in the new CC by "migrating" posts over there . I helped them start the entire CC, I was one of the very first hosts to ever post on it, and I posted about 40 threads with info and help for hosts on a variety of topics, all the while feeling distressed about it and quite ambivalent because I really did not like the idea of having hosts move to a forum with "corporate moderators", and also one that had such an awful visual setup and organization.
(I hear they hailed me in Paris at the Open, my face was on the screen along with Andrew and Helga and the other Launch Pad folks, but I wasn't there to see it. )
When in spite of my help and that from some of the other hosts, the CC never took off (ironically all my helpful posts quickly got buried by the barrage of Help Desk queries) I continued to post on it, but only replied to those threads I was sincerely interested in (and there were ever fewer such over time!) ALl of us Launch Pad hosts kept pointing out the problems with the CC on the Launch Pad board, and we were promised that our feedback was important and changes were going to be made. But gradually we mostly dropped out of regular or even sporadic participation -- Helga is really the only Launch Pad host who regularly participates -- because it was just all so horribly dull.
I and some others have communicated with Dave and Deb and Clare about how we think their regular participation on the CC is sort of forestalling its natural demise, and that really for hosts to abandon that ship more completely would force Airbnb to take back its customer service work that is occurring there and shift it back to paid staff. Yet I can understand and empathize with Dave and Deb and Clare if they dont' like to see hosts who really need help just standing there naked in the wind, ignored, so they rush in with a blanket and a warm drink. Also as the person Airbnb first contacted to help with the CC, I can't in good conscience tell anyone not to participate in it. I feel that is everyone 's own decision to make. I feel grateful to Airbnb for having provided the first host communities in the existing (old) groups and think it is valuable for Airbnb to try to continue to provide host community. I really do hope that they can set up something that works better than the existing CC. I just would like it if they offer hosts both a direct line to the AIrbnb customer service, as well as a place to find help from PAId "expert hosts", and also a real host community, and provide these in a way that does not conflate host community with help desk.
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Post by trafalgar on Mar 11, 2016 21:20:44 GMT
I really do hope that they can set up something that works better than the existing CC. I just would like it if they offer hosts both a direct line to the AIrbnb customer service, as well as a place to find help from PAId "expert hosts", and also a real host community, and provide these in a way that does not conflate host community with help desk. Absolutely spot on - there can be no conflation of community and work-a-day help desk. The current CC is proof. Community first, and then the help comes in the context of that community, not the other way around. I suppose somebody at Airbnb noticed that groups were helping hosts (and in their eyes, cutting down on CX time) but not enough so how about maximizing the principle, rolling it out, directing everyone with a query to the brave new 'Community Centre'. Presumably met with whoops and cheers at a board meeting, but nobody thought it through, nobody understood why groups work. It's disheartening to hear how all you Launch Pad hosts' feedback was ignored. But, I am not at all surprised. It's the behaviour we have now learnt to accept as the norm. I have felt increasingly cynical about Airbnb since the delisting cull and their flat refusal to give any valid explanation to hosts, many of whom were loyal and long term term hosts. The advent of the CC, along with Lizzie's corporate contributions and censorship, has underlined this feeling. I just accept it, the disconnect between what they say and what they do. I accept that I depend on the platform. I would prefer it if they were just open and honest and said, hey, we're here to make money, and if you don't like how we operate then too bad. I hate the pretence of warm and fuzzy. |
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Post by helgaparis on Mar 11, 2016 23:10:19 GMT
Deborah, interesting to hear the background of tge beginning.
The description of the scary space it is now, with monsters and cobwebs, is spot on.
When I was contacted with a mail that you proposed me, I had a cery long conversation with Jonny, an hour maybe, till his skype credit run out. He had nit intended it being so long, but I had prepared my list of doleances and suggestions ;-)
My impression was they wanted people with an audience to shift the opinion and get everyone over there at once. The invitation to help to create it and councel was the sales job. But hey, we too are obliged to deliver what we offer, so I decided to take the offer and they would get counceling. I said I would not promote if I was not convinced.
What they did not say at the begiining or ever, but you found out, was that the forum was not created in house, it was a complete solution bought. It's underdimensioned and anyone having a look at the producers homepage could have seen that. I think the promised changes cannot be made or at least to make them means creating a new software with the additional hurdle to import the existing content. That's always a problem with data base software if you change the sizes of fields (or other characteristics )
In the first presentation, there was no mentioning of external censors. The forum would be under airbnb surveillance but with the intention to cut back staff quickly and to have hosts do most of the surceillance work. Flagging would call staff in. If he said external company as censors, I would not have touched the thing with a fire hook.
And I asked very clear questions.
Lizzie is no robot, Andrew, they are not biased. Lizzie has cronies and they need to be stupider than her, what is a challenge but she found Rob, Jeet and Moni.
Deborah, did you see my launchpad post? I wanted to have it private for airbnb but the example thread I used thati or so, jeet and moni and the sheets where 60 guests slept in, should be here too, in the anecdotes chapter. If you read that loud on stage, you can go on tournee and have a full house every evening.
That's why I posted again there: the point is long passed where not good enough turned into incredible damaging.
That CAN 'T be the job description for Lizzie to let such things go on and stand. I found it as a Proposition to check that interesting post in one of the small frames that pop up.
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Post by High Priestess on Mar 12, 2016 3:40:17 GMT
Helga, the post you put on Launch Pad hosts is a real treasure! I was laughing and so delighted at the excellent wit and the super, wonderful astute insights. Really you are the best commentator on the problems with the CC! You and often Andrew too, can say it better than anybody! I would love it if you would post that comment from the Launch pad HOsts board here on GHF. I will copy the "Unwashed sheets" thread for ANecdotes on here as I agree, it is one of the most idiotic threads I have seen on the CC. (I posted it here: globalhosting.freeforums.net/thread/1964/unwashed-sheets-on-cc )
The OP who posted the original comment, and then Jeet and Momi in their responses, were so full of themselves that they missed the entire point -- how rude that OP Tasha was, to call up her host out of the blue and ask, out of nowhere and with not so much as a little hello to begin, "Do you wash your sheets between guests?"
Not a single one of the hosts responding, except for Sara, finally, practial Sara, pointed out how rude Tasha was to just dial her host and ask this question out of the blue.
"Ring Ring Ring"
"Hello?"
"Hi, do you wash your sheets between guests?"
"Excuse me who is this?"
"Oh, I'm a guest. I was just wondering."  Indeed, this could make a great cabaret show. Add some music and tap dance and song and come up with some other wacky and rude one liner questions for hosts by dopey guests and we have a Cabaret and Saturday Night Live skit and the house will roar with laughter.
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Post by helgaparis on Mar 12, 2016 13:11:43 GMT
Deborah, I wanted to give Jonny a chance to keep the discussion out of public view. If there is no acknowledgement of the post, we can post it. Or post it in the restricted area.
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