Check Out The Extreme Lengths Airbnb Will Go To In Order To Please Customers

AirbnbAirbnb's famous Tiny Fern treehouse in Lincoln, Vt.Airbnb recently beefed up its customer service staff with a team of 50 investigative agents who track down guests who abuse their hosts' generosity.

The move came after the company got tired of seeing its brand name associated with a tiny number of horror stories, in which people's homes are trashed by unruly guests, that are not representative of most experiences. (We covered one, in which a $2.5 million condo was trashed in Toronto, a couple of weeks ago.) Airbnb also offers hosts a $1 million guarantee against rental disasters.

"The initial Airbnb customer service operation was humble: one guy and his cell phone. The guy, in fact, was Joe Gebbia, one of the company’s founders. Whenever a customer had a problem, they’d call the customer service line, get patched through to Gebbia’s phone, and he’d work with them to fix the problem," a company spokesperson told us.

Now, Airbnb has hundreds of agents available via phone, chat and email, 24/7, in every time zone and in 30 different languages. Monroe Labouisse, director of customer service, told us:

At Airbnb we aspire to provide highly personal service and to be very available. ... We want to give people peace of mind by being there for them when they need us. We want to be the front desk that travels with them.

Here are a few examples of above-and-beyond customer service from the company.