Buckle up, kids: We're listening to Airbnb's CEO tell the story of the time someone demanded a full refund because their Airbnb was 'haunted.' (via CNBCMakeIt)
Credit: Mike Cohen/ The New York Times
Since launching Airbnb in 2008, CEO Brian Chesky has pretty much heard and seen it all when it comes to customer complaints."One day, a customer calls us and says they want a full refund. We say, 'why do you want a full refund?' They said because the house is haunted and there's a ghost," Chesky said at The New York TimesAs with any other complaint, Chesky's team called the hosts to relay the message and find out what happened.
"The host confirms the ghost [but] says that it's a friendly ghost named Stanley and that the ghost is in its listing description," Chesky said."So we go back to the guests and the guest says, 'Yes, we knew about Stanley. That's why we booked it, but Stanley has been harassing us all night,'" Chesky told the crowd at DealBook. They were upset he wasn't a friendly ghost. "How do you adjudicate that?" Chesky said.
For Chesky, the story is not just funny, it also illustrates that in today's sharing economy, where businesses are built on trust — Airbnb only works if people are willing to trust their homes to complete strangers — companies need to be flexible and open to a wide range of issues.
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