In Case You Missed It: Review update, Host Guarantee & more

[Airbnb]

We’re excited to share what we’ve been working on over the past few months, from expanding our efforts to tackle inconsistent reviews (we heard your feedback!) to offering new promotional tools that can help your listing stand out. Read on to learn more.

A review update inspired by your feedback

Late last year, we announced a new tool to help address inconsistent reviews. Here’s how it worked: If a guest gave you a 5-star rating in each category (cleanliness, value, etc.) but 1, 2, or 3 stars overall, they’d get a prompt asking them if they wanted to correct that inconsistency.

We got lots of great feedback from hosts on the new tool, and some of you asked why we set the threshold at 3 stars or less—in other words, why wouldn’t a 4-star overall rating trigger the prompt if the guest gave 5 stars everywhere else? We heard you, and we’ve changed the system so that now, even a 4-star overall rating will trigger a prompt if the guest has given 5 stars in each of the specific categories.

With this update, we’re continuing our work to make reviews more relevant and useful for hosts and guests, and we look forward to sharing more changes later in the year.

New custom promotions to get your listing noticed

We recently rolled out our new custom promotions feature, which lets hosts choose their own date range and discount amount. Hosts who set custom promotions can get access to special perks, including:

• An eye-catching strikethrough price in search pages and on their listing (e.g. $100 $85/night)
• Special callouts on their listing page, and the discount clearly detailed in the price breakdown
• A spot in the emails that go out to guests who browsed their listing

If your dashboard doesn't currently show custom promotions as an option, it may be because you're in a location that isn't supported or because you've had fewer than three bookings in the past year. In the meantime, you can still offer deals to guests by setting a lower price for specific dates, or setting up weekly and monthly discounts.

Host Guarantee will soon cover damage by assistance animals

We know that assistance animals (which include service and emotional support animals) play a crucial role in the lives of many of our guests, and we appreciate your willingness to accommodate them. We also know that there are rare cases where an assistance animal causes damage to a host’s property, so in the coming months, we’ll be expanding our $1,000,000 USD Host Guarantee to cover those incidents. (Keep in mind that the Airbnb Host Guarantee is subject to certain terms, conditions, and exclusions—you can learn more about it here.) We hope this update helps bring peace of mind as you continue to welcome guests with different needs into your spaces.

As always, we’d love to hear your feedback on these changes in the comments below. We’ll continue to work on updates that help make hosting easier and more enjoyable for you, so stay tuned for more to come!

[Alex-And-Rhea0]

@Naledi2 Always have a review for your guest.  And that is disappointing when you have written a good one for her and she has not. But bear in mind that even after the review has been published for the public to read you have the opportunity to reply and deny the statements.  People read reviews and not everyone is a bad egg, many are sympathetic and will read between the lines. Then call CS and explain the situation. Remember that they will not take your side-ever. Why? Only they know. But give it a go.

[Jen5221]

Thank you, this is a good innovation. I was given glowing comments from two Korean guests who seemed happy with everything --but who gave me three stars. This had all sort of ramifications for me as a new host. The star system is ok if used as intended. I suggest the airbnb system giving all new guests a little brief about the star system at the time of their first three stays. BTW, the communications and accessibility of airbnb is awesome, thank you! 🙂

[Alex-And-Rhea0]

@Jen5221 Hi! It's very strange but we have never received 5 stars from Asians They could be from HK Malaysia, Singapore.  A review seems to be an opportunity for them to Criticize. The most we ever received is 4 stars. I think the problem is they assume it has something to do with the level of luxury that hotels use.  Frankly, I'm not sure. BTW  I  'm married to a Japanese girl so I'm not a racist.

Aussies are best! Always excited, enthusiastic, grateful, clean and generous with their reviews,

[Deborah924]

I hope that these new updates will take us feather into the future on a clearer and positive not. Great changes 

[Dorothy134]

What if you list your place as hypoallergenic?  having any animal at all would negate that, wouldn't it?

[Dan12156]

Air Bnb needs to better protect their hosts from malicious reviews.  Had a guest who left comments that i could dispute with actual evidence left in our message chain.   But Air bnb support would not remove his review.  

[Cathy175]

We had a similar situation.  Guest falsely complained about one thing but gave us 1 start in all 6 categories.  In addition we proved the complaint to be false by getting a certified inspection.  

Would be nice to see Airbnb remove false negative reviews with sufficient evidence.

Although I can see where this would lead to Airbnb needing to hire a team of people to police such a system. 

[Cathy175]

I appreciate the feedback check. The helps ensure we get a fair rating.  Guests place a lot of trust and emphasis on the rating system.  But I've noticed that Airbnb doesn't do much to help hosts in regard to the rating system that guests receive.  

We can only see the star rating and written reviews, but not the rating on the 3 categories, but guests do get to see our ratings on each of 6 categories.

Seems like the system is a little one sided to me.

[Colleen253]

@Airbnb 

Regarding reviews, it may have already been mentioned by other hosts in the comments here, and elsewhere as feedback, but it bears repeating, as nothing has changed. When a guest gives anything less than 5 stars in a category, require them to leave corresponding feedback before they can move on to the next step in the review process. 

It is absolutely no help whatsoever to a host to receive 4 stars or less in a category, but have zero idea by way of guest comments, on what needs to be improved.

Secondly, if the guest has hit 4 or less stars by mistake (which happens), being required to leave feedback will prompt them to go back a step and fix it.