The Situation:
Airbnb is an online company that pairs people that are offering their homes as bed and breakfast locations to anyone around the world. If you’re in southern California and you want to stay at a quaint b&b in Monaco, Airbnb might be a great place to look.
If you’re a property owner that would like to list their home as a b&b, then using Airbnb might not be a first choice after what happened to one customer. A woman who is only known as EJ, used Airbnb to rent out her San Francisco home to people who literally destroyed it and stole her belongings, all while communicating with her via email that she had a lovely home and that everything was great.
In response to EJ’s complaints to Airbnb, she was met with a cold shoulder, promised things she has yet to receive and more or less told her she was out of luck.
The PR Angle:
What a giant misstep this was for Airbnb to grab some great positive PR. After seeking out Airbnb to try and get a little restitution, she was essentially told to go away. In the same week, Airbnb actually received a new $112 million investment. Why not take a small part of that money and put it towards the rebuilding of this woman’s home? It would be a drop in the bucket for them. Also, it could be publicized and it would show that Airbnb takes care of their customers and it would make other people who potentially host their homes on Airbnb be more comfortable with letting strangers in their homes.
After EJ took to her blog and complained, Airbnb saw the backlash that they received from people that took EJ’s side. In response, it was reported on Aug. 1, that Airbnb will be offering a $50,000 home guarantee starting Aug. 15.
Is that enough though? People that hear about this story now may be totally turned off from using the company. Those that don’t know about this story will see this as a great advantage to using the service.
The point of this story is that a person or company that is trying to be successful should not be in the position of being caught and have to back pedal to make up for it. They should have been more willing to help EJ from the beginning. That way they would have gotten positive feedback from the community instead of a large amount of anger.
NICK LACROIX 