Improvements to guest reviews, house rules, cancellations & more in the latest Host Update

[Airbnb]

*Post shared October, 20th

In the latest Host Update, Catherine Powell shares how Airbnb is addressing your top concerns from the past few months and provides detailed answers to several direct questions from hosts. Thanks to host feedback voiced in workshops and here in the Community Center, there are several features being put into action. 

*To add or change subtitles to the video, hover over the video and click on the little 'Settings' wheel in the bottom right corner. Then select your language. 

Airbnb is improving the guest review process to make it feel more fair. This includes rewriting the majority of review questions that guests answer after a stay. For example, instead of asking guests if the description of a listing was inaccurate, we’re now asking if it was accurate instead. These changes will help guests leave reviews that feel more impartial and truly reflect the quality of your hospitality. 

Unauthorized parties are another top host concern, and we’re launching several new features to help protect you against them. For example, by the end of this month you’ll be able to immediately cancel a reservation without contacting support if you have valid reason to believe it will lead to a party. As long as your reason is upheld by our review team, you won’t receive financial penalties or have your Superhost status affected. 

When our team reviews a cancellation, they’ll search for evidence of a potential party from message threads or previous guest reviews. As always, these cancellations must adhere to Airbnb’s nondiscrimination policy and we’ll carefully monitor them for unfair treatment that violates that policy.

Many hosts have also asked that house rules be more prominent on listing pages so guests can both read and understand them before booking. By next month, your house rules will be visible in four different places when a guest books a stay:

1. Key house rules—like not allowing smoking or pets—will be visible at the top of your listing page so that they’re more prominent as guests search
2. All the house rules you’ve listed, including important safety disclosures, will be visible in the details of your listing page
3. House rules will be displayed again on the booking confirmation page to help better ensure that guests understand and agree to them before completing a reservation
4. They’ll also be included in the booking confirmation email to remind guests of your expectations before they arrive
   
   

All house rules must be in line with Airbnb’s policies and terms—including our terms of service and nondiscrimination policy.

To read a full overview of all the updates being put into place, visit this Resource Center article. As always, thank you for sharing the topics that matter to you and providing feedback that helps elevate the hosting community. Please let us know what you’d like us to cover in future Host Updates with Catherine.

[Angie547]

I will never understand why a guest who has never set foot in my property and had a reservation cancelled is allowed to post a review.  

Additionally, revenge reviews are a thing. I had a guest leave a terrible review because she did not check out on time and the housekeeper came in while she was still there -- TWO HOURS after the checkout time.  I had to request extra compensation for sending the housekeeper back and ultimately got a negative review.  

There seems to be little leeway for this.

[Del2]

Yes, agree to all.

I've had both happen recently and trying to reach Airbnb and get them to do anything about it is an extraordinary amount of time and effort.

It takes many calls and e-mails until perhaps if you are lucky someone will follow through.

Need customer service to address small issues quickly in a timely manner, not forward them, close the case, then have someone else ask you again and again if all is ok when nothing has been done.

Sadly the mode of operation.

Airbnb could save a lot of money and a lot of host frustration by simply following through with customer service as they say they will.

[Sajjad9]

I think guests who break house rules should lose the right to review. This would help guests not breaking house rules. I have been on Airbnb for a little over 2 months.  But dealing with parties and guests breaking house rules is constant pain. 
The issue is guest knows that they can use revenge review against the host. Many times I found out a guest is running a party but all I could do is plead and request. In the end, it's not good for Airbnb, it's unfair to hosts and encourages bad behaviour (on part of guests). 

[Marcie45]

Hello - I appreciate this opportunity to have this conversation - I have been an airbnb host for 10+ years with great reviews . I received two retaliation reviews in the past couple of years that a) caused me to lose my superhost badge and b) subsequently made it statistically very difficult to get it back and c) reduced the quality of support I have received from airbnb by far.

I have had incidents of serious damage and illegal activity, and despite my persistence, my tickets keep getting closed. Over and over. The only time I have had a salient, 100% satisfactory experience has been when I guest has opened a case, and I was contacted by someone (on their behalf) who seems to be a competent, knowledgeable associate.

This leads me to believe that the loss of my superhost badge (after several attempts to have the one star ratings removed), has put me in a place that I can no longer trust that airbnb has my back, to be honest...

Again, thanks for the opportunity for the conversation.

[Paul1875]

Exactly the same happened to me this month.

Airbnb gave me absolutely no support

[Gee178]

Totally agree,  i have been doing this 2 years and at 1st thought they were marvellous but this past year has brought a few problems and airbnb has failed to appease me every time. I feel totally alone.

[Nicky168]

@Gee178 I completely agree. When we had major bushfires on the east coast of Australia, the support offered by airbnb was fantastic. I had numerous telephone conversations with support reps, as I had to cancel many bookings, and they were easy to contact, helpful,  understood the computer system, were reliable and showed a great deal of empathy for my situation. About 6 weeks later, we experienced floods and it was necessary to cancel bookings, and again the support provided by the reps was exemplary. Recently, however, everything has changed and what is now considered to be support is laughable. It is now impossible to actually speak with a rep, everything has to be submitted online, which is frequently not read, the concern is forwarded to another rep, who either has no access to what has gone before or can't be bothered to read it, promises of telephone calls which never eventuate citing family issues, or days off and lately it has been time zone differences. To further add to this frustration, what I can only assume are system generated messages, are continually sent, asking if help is still required or can the ticket be closed or an apology for the delay in responding to the issue but they have been out of the office for a day, using exactly the same wording as the one sent the previous day and the day before that and the day before that. Finally, so much time has been spent, or should I say wasted, and you are no closer to receiving any sort of resolution that you just give up and it's consigned to the all too hard basket. 

[Helen744]

Hello Marcie,my sympathies,I too have gone under the 1 star review bus by a revenge review . I feel that it should be made clear that hosts are the owners of all properties. These are not hotels,motels or chains or owned by conglomerates and that Airbnb is a facilitator for hosts . Frankly if airbnb assume the responsibility for assisting travellers while taking money from hosts and travellers they ought to make it very clear that hosts have their own rules and assume on ground responsibilities and rights in actual fact and are responsible for everything from toilet paper to ringing the police if necessary. Our homes are part also of a wider community which includes our neighbours . 

[Nava35]

I would like to introduce an option for Guest reviews only hosts can see. I don’t always feel safe writing a negative review of a guest when they know where I live and might be vengeful. I would hate to see a fellow host go through an unsafe experience because I didn’t review a negative experience. 

[Denise1193]

I totally agree with this post. I find it very difficult to write a bad review even though I would like to protect other hosts, simply because the guest does know where I live (obviously) and as hosts we are very vulnerable. 

In fact, I think that air BnB needs to factor in hosts vulnerability a heck of a lot more in many areas.  For example, prior to booking, a guest can see our photo, read about our interests, and generally make an informed decision about staying with us. As hosts we do not see an image of the person so have no idea of age, or sometimes even their gender etc, we do not get a description of their interests or personality, we simply get a circle with an initial in it!  Yet we are letting them into our space! Guests are not as vulnerable, they can drive away at any time if they were to feel vulnerable with a host. 

I believe we need as much information about a guest as they receive about a host. 

[Mj69]

This is SOOOO very TRUE!  They know where we live, their family and friends they visited LIVE in the area.  It IS certainly a disadvantage...thank you for bringing this to light!

[Michelle1648]

agreed.  I think hosts should have a review system only we see on a user profile. 

[Helen744]

Negative reviews can be couched in terms other hosts understand,such as, could have communicated  more or not very tidy or  any thing that can alert other hosts of a problem . Did not read the rules or if really bad consider. I could not host again. All the best Helen.

[Justin230]

What are you actually doing other than talk ?

Hosts have almost no recourse to damage or unfair reviews & you bang on about accurate v inaccurate reviews.

Really how about actually engaging with your HOSTS  concerns?

[Cathy828]

So true.  We have no recourse for unfair and dishonest reviews.  A guest can write absolute lies yet it stays on our reviews and we can't have it removed because Airbnb says "because reviews help to generate an honest portrayal"  How are reviews that are lies or inaccurate generate an honest portrayal?  A friend hosts 2 bedrooms in his home and even though this is clearly explained in the description that they are only getting a private "room" in my home, and may share the bathroom with other guests, some are aghast upon arrival  and declare, "what's private about this?  There are other people in the house."  Then they proceed to give bad reviews and many lie as they attempt to get complete refunds all because they don't read the  description and house rules and think they are getting the whole 3 bedroom house with swimming pool and hot tub for the price of 1 bedroom.  So they make up reasons and Airbnb  mostly favors the guest over the host who has prepared everything and completely kept up their end of the agreement.  Also I do not understand how a guest who has never been in the property is allowed to leave a review.