@Airbnb
Firstly I would like to thank Admin for taking the hosting communities issues regarding Superhost criteria on board. It is gratifying to us that you consider us important enough to give a bit of ground at times to make what is a hard job for us just a bit easier!
We are however always looking at ways we can, not only help ourselves, but help the company as well, and there is a specific anomaly that causing major concern throughout the hosting community.
We appreciate that you try to make the review process as transparent as possible but, during the process, guests are getting mixed messages from Airbnb, and as hosts we are finding we have to take it on ourselves to point out to guests where issues come up that do nothing but create friction between the host and the guest .
The first step in the review process is to give the host an overall star rating from one to five. How was your stay at Robin's place. Many guests are happy with their stay, had nothing to complain about and are conscious of the way the Airbnb review system works, give a five in every category and would on first thoughts mark the host a five overall. The third step is virtually a duplication of the first.....How did your stay at Robin's place compare to your expectations ! At this point Airbnb gives the guest five prompt options, and the inference of these options is that Airbnb considers that a 'middle of the road' option is ok..... About the same as I expected!
I include this screenshot to illustrate my point.
The guest at that point considers a 3 star 'middle of the road' rating is ok because Airbnb have told the guest it's ok! Some of those that originally gave a 5 star will rethink their decision, say to themselves..."Well if Airbnb say a 3 is ok, lets give the host a 3 or a 4" They backtrack and amend downwards their initial star rating and they do not realise they are penalising the host.
I can state this is a fact because I host in a structure on my home property, I host around 10-12 guest stays per month and I get to have a lot of interaction with my guests. All are genuinely surprised to find out that, to do as Airbnb suggest and leave something for improvement actually penalises the host. When they learn that 5 stars is Airbnb's default host rating they become annoyed to learn, that by trying to be constructive and help the host, they were actually hurting them.
A significant proportion of guests are now choosing to bypass the review system, their reaction being....it is better to say nothing than to stir up trouble.
We fully understand you have to have some way of rating stays, but I would ask you to give some thought to include in the review process an explanation of how the star rating they are about to give will impact on the host.
Because of this anomaly we hosts are using a work around in our house rules information to educate guests. Here is mine.....How did your stay at Robin's place compare to your expectations?
We should not have to resort to these sort of tactics.
Airbnb should accurately inform guests of the way the Airbnb rating system works.
Thanks for the effort the development team are putting into making this platform work but I would ask you to please give this item some thought, it is causing major issues!
Cheers.......Rob