We recently rented a beach house in Marbella, Spain, with some close family friends. It was easily the most beautiful beach house I’d ever seen and almost seemed too good to be true. Sure enough, things started to go sideways the moment we arrived.
We received a WhatsApp message from the person supposed to be checking our group in, informing us that roadwork was taking place in front of the unit and we needed to be careful. I didn’t think much of it and, after picking up the rental car at the airport, we drove to the beach. The road in front of the house was blocked when we arrived. I ended up going the wrong way down a one-way street and nearly got into a fistfight with an English football hooligan coming the other way. Not the most relaxing start.
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Once inside, we were informed (mansplained) that one of the bedrooms didn’t have air conditioning, but the unit would supposedly be replaced in two days. We were also told the elevator was broken. Frustrating, yes, but we chose not to obsess. We wanted to enjoy our vacation and assumed some kind of compensation would be offered, which the property manager assured us would be handled.
As we settled in, we also discovered that one of the bedrooms, advertised as having an en suite bathroom, did not. When I raised the issue, the property manager deflected responsibility, claiming Airbnb wrote the listing. That’s when accountability got murky. We started hearing about layers of people involved: the property manager, an agent or broker, and, of course, Airbnb.
All I cared about was that we had spent a significant amount of money on this rental and expected things to be fixed and compensated promptly. But now I had to stay persistent just to get a resolution, and, as I write this, the matter still isn’t closed.
The issues kept stacking up. Because of the roadwork, we had to park on the street. The rental vehicle was vandalized, first by a woman who spat on it and messed with the wipers, then by someone else who keyed it and made the wipers inoperable. The air conditioning still hadn’t been fixed, and we avoided using the hot bedroom entirely.
Midweek, I spent hours at a Spanish police station just to file a report so I wouldn’t be penalized on the rental car insurance.
The elevator never got fixed. The A/C was never repaired. And yet everyone involved remained civil. But when it came time for accountability, it felt like dealing with a multi-headed hydra. Everyone passed the buck, and there was no direct Airbnb contact.
Now, six days later, I’ve been offered a 30% discount on our stay. I thought that was fair, until I learned the 30% applied not to the full amount I paid, but only to the base rental fee, excluding Airbnb’s added charges.
To me, the number was the full amount we paid. To the property manager, it was only their cut. What should have been a clean, professional resolution turned into a murky, back-and-forth negotiation. I even explained, “I run a small service business. When things go wrong, we find a number that makes sense for both sides and part ways amicably. I do it every day.”
We ended up about $800 apart. I offered to split the difference. They said no. So now, over $400, I’m writing this article.
It’s amazing how one short-sighted decision can turn a potential raving fan into a critic. A happy customer tells one or two people. A frustrated client tells nine.
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This was a timely reminder of why, in our businesses, custom installation professionals are either adored or despised. When we’re adored, it’s because we anticipate needs, listen well, and skate to where the puck is moving. When we’re despised, it’s because systems — both physical and operational — break, and we’re left reacting.
There are many factors out of our control, but controlling the controllables is the name of the game. This experience reinforced for me why we go above and beyond for our customers, even when it hurts in the short term.
I’m not writing this as a “Karen” asking to speak to the manager, but as someone who runs a service business and saw, from the other side, what happens when someone chooses short-term savings over long-term goodwill.
What are you doing in your company to handle situations like this?
Stay frosty, and see you on the field.
Update: After much squawking on my part, the incident escalated to an Airbnb manager who offered a coupon code to make up for the difference in $$$. It came with a one-year expiration date and couldn’t be applied toward any reservations I already had in the system. This minor additional friction only served to rankle things further but in the end, I had run out of steam and accepted their offer. I tried to imagine how a refund with strings attached would go over with one of our high-net-worth customers and also thought about how they would handle the same situation. After all, our same clients who “never pre-pay” have Netflix subscriptions or buy things on Amazon, don’t they? In any event, the case is now closed, and I penned a generic 5-star review on Airbnb to keep the karma see-saw balanced. The only record of what actually happened lies here in the preceding screed, where the names have been omitted to protect the guilty.
