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.
Wife stayed in London recently via airbnb. Got to the apartment -
* "There's the TV - it doesn't work".
* Booked room for 10 day stay - 2 hangers in closet.
* Stained bed sheets and pillow case ("Well, no one else has complained before").
* Stained pillow cases.
* No mattress comforter thingy.
* Broken shower hose (water leaking in 5 spots - no water making it to shower head.
* Curtains didn't close - people across street could see in to bedroom.
Complaints were lodged with airbnb website - 'host' eventually fixes some issues during first few days, but... wife's alone and airbnb recommends to attempt to fix things with host. And... they've got your money already - we have no idea how to get an immediate refund (the screens all seem to prompt you to resolve things with host first).
Filed for partial refund on getting back. Host immediately rejects that - doesn't offer anything at all - claims that wife "doesn't understand how airbnb is supposed to work - it's like staying at a friend's place". My friends don't charge me $2k then give me stained sheets and complain that I want a working shower. Picture and video evidence for all of this is in hand and send to airbnb. Response 20 minutes later is "well, you did stay there, so it couldn't have been all that bad. Here's a $200 coupon to use us again in 2015". Host then posts personal attacks against my wife, suggesting no host ever rent to her (despite other host reviews indicating she was a fine guest).
Had they even refunded $100, that would have turned this around - instead we were told "nope, you are stupid, use us again at a slight discount". Horrible experience (which was not the first experience - wife has used it before with "not great but certainly not horrible" experiences.
If they only allowed people to share out rooms/flats they actually lived in, this would reduce these sorts of issues, I'd think.
EDIT: to keep it more on topic, they might have better call centers but if policies aren't changed, it won't make for a much better experience for customers.
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.
Having been in a few not-great and weird situations after making purchases on Amazon, they've come through for me with a stellar performance every time. Better than any other company I've dealt with, though AMEX is almost on-par.
Really, their (buyer-side) customer service is fantastic and same with AWS. I'm not sure I'd want to be selling through Amazon though.
How do you get a partial refund? You have to submit to airbnb's arbitration process which is basically someone there making what (in our experience) were snap decisions. Broken shower for 4 days, stained sheets, photo and video evidence. Airbnb response? "You stayed there the full time, it couldn't have been that bad - no refund."
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.