
Airbnb invents a call center that isn't hell to work at - zt
http://www.wired.com/2014/12/airbnb-invents-call-center-isnt-hell-work/
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zorrb
All this really proves is Airbnb knows how to get press. Article should be
titled, "Here are pictures of new Airbnb office". It looks cool, will be
interesting how it can scale.

The concept of, "not the worst place ever in the world to work" call center
isn't some magical break through. See Zappos, booking.com etc.

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makomk
According to someone in the comments it doesn't have to scale - almost all of
the call center work is subcontracted out to standard call centers with the
usual sea of cubicles, awful working conditions, etc.

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jordanthoms
So it's _not even a call center_. This is very impressive - as a piece of PR.

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hwh
I've been working in a call center (tech support for a pay TV company) for two
years - and it wasn't hell to work there. It became later, I heard, months and
years after I had left (no causal connection). The reason is plain simple: The
amount of money that customer relations should cost.

When I was working in said call center, it was policy that customers should
have a fulfilling experience if at all possible. We were allowed to make and
schedule call-backs and these were actually done. We were small case-managers,
honest ones, as our possibilities were quite limited - as in most situations
with first-level support. There was no "maximum time" rules. No high-score
lists for the number of requests handled per hour.

Policy changed later. A "2 minute" rule was established. Feedback talks by
team leaders were set up where it wasn't strictly followed. High-score like
lists were put up. Tech support was encouraged to sell stuff, like bigger
contracts - and the "top ten" scorers on the contract-offer list got rewarded.

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jodrellblank
_“In a typical environment, the cubicle is your world and the rest is the
company’s world, and they’re very territorial about the cubicles. We wanted to
evaporate that territorialism and turn it into a collective place.”_

How does that read to anyone else? "People really want an anchoring personal
space and lol they can't have one"?

This article has nothing about working there, as the title claims. A call
center that's not hell to work at - what about the work? Call time target
pressure? Lack of access to information or power to change anything? Things
people complain about.

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deanclatworthy
It's mentioned as "concierge" in the beginning of this article, and AirBnb
talk a lot about their safetly blanket for when you get into trouble, but for
me it was not there.

We had just arrived in an apartment in Paris and the owner had had a friend
leave us the key. I went to have a shower, and the water was ice cold. There
was no hot water in the whole of the apartment. The apartment owner was
unreachable as he was (it turns out) in the middle of the Pyrenees, and nobody
could help us or fix it.

We called AirBNB highlighting that it was the new year period. No good or
fairly priced apartments in a central area were available for us to switch to,
no hotels would have fair prices at this short notice and we didn't want to
spend our short new year break even doing this in the first place.

Their solution was to offer us a refund and then we were on our own. If we
left the apartment we'd have no internet access to look for another place
(there was of course nothing worth switching to within our budget). They
couldn't even offer us hotel suggestions.

Hardly the great concierge service that they advertise.

~~~
smelendez
That's a tough problem. What do you think the proper solution would have been?

I think personally I'd want to stay in the apartment and wash with water
heated on the stove and get a partial refund, but I'm sure that wouldn't work
for everyone for a variety of reasons.

~~~
deanclatworthy
We were on a romantic new years break. Washing each other using hot water
heated in the tiny pans provided isn't really going to cut it ;-)

I had expected them to find us accommodation and pay for it, especially given
the time of the year and circumstances.

~~~
TheAnimus
Which, it's worth noting, Agoda did for a friend of mine on New Years Eve in
Thailand last year.

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sandstrom
Looks really neat! I guess this happens when the company is run by 2/3
designers.

It's interesting how vocation for people in charge can cause large differences
between organisations (and even countries).

This article have some graphs comparing countries:
[http://www.economist.com/node/13496638](http://www.economist.com/node/13496638)

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pjc50
Relevant to this subject is an excellent trio of blog posts on the "politics"
of the call centre: [http://yorksranter.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/the-politics-
of-...](http://yorksranter.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/the-politics-of-call-
centres-part-one/)

It describes how the traditional call centre is riddled with process anti-
patterns which demoralize both the employees and the customers. The reasons
for this are based in the deskilling and disempowering of customer service
employees, allegedly in the name of cost reduction.

This leads to exactly the problems described in this comment right here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8766637](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8766637)

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zachrose
> “Someone will be on a call, and you can see it’s difficult and another agent
> will sit next to them and listen in and give feedback while the call is
> happening,” Harvey says. And as much as the CX team is encouraged to solve
> problems in a hierarchy-free setting, “it’s a default that you ask at least
> one person how you might solve that problem,” Yu says.

As far as I can tell, this is the deliberate opposite of how most call centers
are designed. Most call centers prioritize leaving your neighbors alone so
that they can get better stats. I wonder if Airbnb's metric-taking also has
this approach in mind.

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personlurking
I see call centers more as for people who need a job rather than for people
who are good at sales. Having worked inbound sales a decade ago, I was on the
lower end of the stats board regularly but they continued to keep me on.
Although one example, it told me they didn't much care about the lower end
people as long as they had higher end closers. A bit like VCs, they invested
in many, as long as they got a few hits, here and there.

On a side note, living in Portugal, it was odd to learn that call center jobs
are the de-facto go-to job for foreigners and the jobless. Overwhelmingly so.

~~~
icebraining
_On a side note, living in Portugal, it was odd to learn that call center jobs
are the de-facto go-to job for foreigners and the jobless. Overwhelmingly so._

Absolutely. And everyone's hired through a temp jobs company, often on a
monthly contract (so you can be "let go" for any reason without any
compensation).

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conradfr
It's a call center but nobody seem on the phone on those pictures.

I worked at the (former) Dublin PayPal call center and it was cubicles but
certainly not "hell". Maybe I prefer sitting in a good desktop chair with two
monitors rather than dozen of "cool" but less comfortable places ?

But sure, great pictures, interesting design.

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codezero
I am really curious about this, are there any Airbnb folks here who could
connect me with someone on their support team to chat about their approach?

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nodata
...yet.

