Making reviews more relevant and useful for our community

[Airbnb]

Many of you rely on reviews to grow your business—they highlight your amazing hospitality. They’re also a helpful way to get specific feedback on what you’re doing well as a host and where you can improve. But there are times when you feel like a review may be misleading or irrelevant to future guests, and we know that can be painful both personally and professionally.

It’s tricky. Guests and hosts need to be able to share what they feel is important about their experience, so we don’t want to limit what people can and can’t say on the platform. However, it’s also essential that reviews reflect a guest’s stay and that they provide useful information to future hosts and guests. As part of our ongoing journey to get this balance right, here are some of the changes we’re making:

Introducing our updated Review Policy

With our updated Review Policy—effective December 11, 2019—we’ve addressed two types of reviews that we know can be frustrating: irrelevant reviews and biased reviews. The updated policy clarifies our expectations and ensures our customer support agents are equipped to remove these types of reviews.

By updating our policy to cover irrelevant and biased reviews, we’re strengthening our commitment to building a community of trust. These review updates build upon our existing Content Policy (which outlines the kind of content that is never allowed on Airbnb) and our new Guest Standards Policy, which will introduce a system for tracking bad guests. Under our updated Review Policy, guests and hosts who repeatedly leave certain kinds of biased reviews may be removed from the platform.

Let’s look at irrelevant reviews and biased reviews in a little more detail:

Reviews that are irrelevant

This policy covers situations where a review contains information that’s irrelevant to you as a host or your listing—and isn’t useful to future guests.

Here are a few examples:

• A guest accidentally leaves a review on your profile that was meant for another host
• A guest never checks into your space (for a documented reason unrelated to you as the host or your listing) and leaves an irrelevant review about their experience. For example, a guest never shows up, due to a canceled flight, but leaves you a review that complains about a dirty couch.

Under the updated policy, both of those reviews would be removed because they contain only irrelevant info.

There are also times when a guest comments on issues outside of your control, or unrelated to the service you provided. Those types of reviews may be removed if they only contain irrelevant content that isn’t useful to future guests. Here are a few examples of irrelevant content that could result in the removal of a review:

• A guest leaves a comment about your appearance
• A guest leaves you a bad review because they were frustrated by public transit in your city
• A guest leaves a review about the type of people in your neighborhood

These comments have nothing to do with your listing or the service you provide as a host and aren’t useful to future guests. So, under our updated Review Policy, our customer support agents would be empowered to remove both the review content and star rating.

Reviews with biased information

Our community benefits most when reviews share an unbiased view of the member’s experience. Our updated Review Policy covers the removal of reviews with inappropriate bias—this may include situations where the reviewer is attempting to extort the person being reviewed, has a conflict of interest, or competes with the person being reviewed. Here’s a closer look at three types of biased reviews that will be removed under our updated policy:

• Extortion: This is when a guest tries to use reviews to get something they want—for example, if they threaten to leave you a bad review unless you give them late checkout. Any attempt to use reviews or review responses to force a person to do something they aren’t obligated to do is a misuse of reviews, and we don’t allow it. People who use Airbnb also aren’t allowed to tie positive reviews to promises of compensation.
• Conflict of interest: We appreciate how much hard work goes into earning a positive review. As a result, we will not allow hosts to unfairly boost their ratings by accepting fake reservations in exchange for a positive review, using a second account to review their own listing, or providing something of value (like cash or a late checkout) in exchange for positive reviews.
• Competition: We’ll remove reviews written by hosts of competing listings or experiences where that person (acting as a guest) leaves negative reviews for competitive listings, or where we determine the content is intended to dissuade others from booking those listings or drive business to other listings.

Guests and hosts who repeatedly violate our updated Review Policy may face consequences, including account suspension and removal from the platform. We’ve also invested in retraining our customer support agents and improving our workflows, so hosts will receive better support in instances when irrelevant or biased reviews happen. As with our new Guest Standards Policy that tracks bad guests, our updated Review Policy includes warnings and education that can lead to suspension or removal of people who repeatedly leave biased reviews.

Updating our Review Policy is another important step in our journey of supporting guests and hosts like you who rely on relevant, useful reviews.

Your top questions, answered

What kinds of reviews will be removed by this updated Review Policy?

A healthy review system is one that respects and protects our community’s genuine feedback. For that reason, we take the removal of any review very seriously and only remove reviews that clearly violate Airbnb’s Review Policy. You can read the updated Review Policy in full, but, in short, this means a review is only removed if:

• The review is in violation of Airbnb’s Content Policy,
• The review is biased, or
• The review is irrelevant to the author’s experience on Airbnb

Guests and hosts who repeatedly violate our updated Review Policy may face consequences, including account suspension and removal from the platform.

What kind of documentation should I have under the updated Review Policy?

We can’t emphasize this enough: Always aim to communicate with guests through the Airbnb platform. If conversations happen off-platform, be sure to keep a record of those conversations too. That way, if you ever need to report a review to our agents, they’ll have—at their fingertips—the information they need to make the right decision. That said, even when you don’t have this preferred documentation, we encourage you to report any reviews that violate our Review Policy because we may be able to identify other evidence or patterns of behavior regarding that guest. 

Will all irrelevant review content be removed?

If Airbnb determines that the review contains no relevant information about a host or guest or listing, the review will be removed. Reviews that contain mostly irrelevant information are also subject to removal, but only where the relevant information does not meaningfully inform community members.

Where a review contains information that is unrelated to an experience as a host or guest, or is focused on something beyond the control of the person being reviewed, our team will determine the relevance of the review by considering how useful it is to our community of hosts and guests. To do this, we’ll look at two things:

• Does the review recount the reviewer’s experience and provide their personal perspective?
• Is the review helpful to other members of the Airbnb community? Does it provide essential information about a host or guest, listing, or experience that would help others make more informed booking decisions?

What’s the difference between extortionary and retaliatory reviews?

It’s considered extortion if a guest attempts to use reviews (or review responses) to force a host to do something they aren’t obligated to do. So, for example, if a guest threatens to leave a bad review if you don’t allow them to bring additional guests, that review would be extortionary and would be removed under the updated policy.

Then there are times when a host may feel that a negative review is made in retaliation. This is when, for example, a host doesn’t allow the guest to bring additional guests, and the guest goes on to leave a review about how inflexible their host was, or even writes a negative review about cleanliness or location. However, without evidence of a threat to leave a negative review, this would not be considered extortionary and would not be removed under the updated policy. If this happens, we encourage hosts to use their public response to politely address the issue.

Why aren’t you removing all retaliatory reviews?

While we understand how frustrating it can be when you receive a review that feels retaliatory, we don’t have a crystal ball to tell us what a person’s true motivations are. So, without a documented threat to leave a negative review or other evidence of a biased review, Airbnb won’t intervene. Here’s why:

• As a marketplace, we often don’t know the truth about what took place, and our review system is a critical feedback mechanism for our hosts and guests. That means we want as many reviews as possible to remain intact—so our community can put them to good use.
• Most guest reviews contain honest feedback about their experience and useful information for hosts and guests.

To reiterate, as outlined in our updated Review Policy, Airbnb can—and will—intervene where there’s evidence of a threat, promise of action that’s dependent on the review, or other conflict of interest and/or competition. Additionally, we will continue to intervene when a guest leaves a review that violates our content policies—including discriminatory content or a violent threat.

For more information, read the updated Review Policy or learn more about how we moderate disputes of our Review Policy in our Help Center.

How we’re tackling inconsistent reviews

Sometimes, a negative review is less about the guest’s experience in your space and more about them not understanding how reviews or the platform work—they can even be the result of an honest mistake. Earlier this year, we built a tool to help address these types of reviews by automatically detecting inconsistencies, and then interrupting the flow to give guests a chance to correct them. So, for example, if a guest gives you 4 or 5 stars in every category (cleanliness, accuracy, and so on) but then a 1-, 2-, or 3-star rating overall, a pop-up will ask if they’re sure about their overall rating.

Similarly, if a guest leaves a low rating for something like location or value—two categories we know can be interpreted differently by guests—a clarifying question will appear.

• For location, we’ll ask if the location was accurately described in the listing
• For value, we’ll ask what would’ve made the stay a better value

These interruptions force guests to think a little more about the rating they’re giving, which they can then go back and correct. As a result, we’re already seeing more consistency between the category scores and overall scores. Improvements like these help ensure that guests’ ratings align with their experience—better ratings are more useful to guests and reward the hard work of hosts.

There’s still more to come

Reviews are the backbone of our community—they help hosts grow their businesses, and they help guests gain the confidence they need to make the booking. We have a dedicated team doing lots of thinking around how to make our entire review experience better for hosts and guests. We’ll continue to improve the review system over time—please keep sending us your feedback about improvements that you’d like to see. In the meantime, we’re excited about these changes and hope you are too.

[Steven532]

Hi Donna

Firstly, what a great host you are and super accommodating. I treat this issue slightly differently, so that guests or possible guests have a clearer expectation. 

I have set check-in and check-out times but also note  on the listing and the first email I send to guests (the confirmation one) that (like you) I am flexible based on existing and potential bookings. My advice to the guests is that there are three options:

1. I can provide early or late 'in or out' based on a fee if they want confirmation now (the $$ moves around based on the nightly rate paid) , or

2. They can wait until a couple of days before arrival/departure and it could be complimentary if no other bookings exist or

3. I can store their luggage before or after existing timings.

Of course it is easier for me having a few properties and staff but guest expectation management is always top of my list. It is always funny to me that guests who have a flight at say 2345, want a free late checkout (I initially offer a 40% discount for these hours as the night cannot be resold, which I explain).

As a by the by, my guest communication plan is:

1. Straight after receiving a booking - Confirming email with details about various items, services, transfers from airport information etc AND asking about arrival and departure times

2. One week before arrival - Email confirming everything and (if they have booked one) that the airport transfer information will come 2 days before arrival. That 2 day notification email from AirBnB is a gem.

3. Transfer email as appropriate

4. Day of arrival - the villa staff tells me the guest has arrived, all is well and the guest is happy. I send a 'welcome' email, with basic household tips and rules reminder (yes there is a 'guestbook' on the bed but not always read I find)

5. Day of departure - thanks  for staying and welcoming into the 'Family & Friends' program, which gives them a discount for coming back and a smaller discount for any family/friends they recommend the villas too.

While I let the team look after the 'in situ' issues, I take personal management of the guest relationships and reservations. Any communication with my name on it, is written by me and sent by me. As for those thank you from  'Management' 'Duty Manager' etc form letters, blah.

Like you I ready the bribery clause with a bit of trepidation, due to my 'Family & Friends' program but as it is related to coming back, think that I am fine and I think you are just a great host and would be fine too.

Cheers

Steven Heath (yes me!)

[Nick539]

Hey Steven ,

Great suggestions and information, thank you for that, it shows the importance of personal care and relationships with the guests as it is an important part of the whole experience.

You have mentioned a guest book with tips and guidelines and I was wondering how do you create a polite instructions for guests without sounding too negative. I would like to indicate (briefly, else they won’t read it) some of the most often and annoying things that I want the guests to rather avoid (removing shoes at the entrance, not slamming the doors so loud , not occupying the kitchen and bathrooms for hours since I also need to use this space for myself, toilete cleaningness ). So I am wondering how do you communicate those points briefly without sounding negative “don’t do this don’t do that” it’s not so nice to read a list of prohibitions. 

Thanks 🙂

[Lisa1188]

Steven, I have a manual that I wrote about the neighborhood, thinks to do,  restaurant recommendations. It also includes where the  hospitals and urgent cares are located and things they may need to Know about the home. 
I also have in a stand up 8 by 10 frame that’s sits i. Front of the manual and it has the check out time , mine is 11 am  and Instructions  as to what needs to be done before checking out. Strip the beds, place towels in bathroom floor and then text me that they have fully checked out. If they forget to do so, I send something saying - I hope you enjoy your stay I do have a cleaning crew arriving at 11:30 am. Most people are pretty good about it. I hope this helps. Lisa 

[Taylor281]

Steven great tips. Thank you. 

One thing I started doing that helped get guests to read the "welcome binder" was to include the password on the same page as the house rules. In the check-in message I send out through the platform I note where they will find the binder with information regarding the property and area along with instructions for the TV and the wifi. 

[Laura4005]

Great Idea.!  Finding the password is the very first thing they want.  

[Lisa1188]

I have little frames in each room with the WiFi password written inside. It’s quite helpful and they don’t have to look through my big binder manual 

[Manasui0]

what happen if the guest throw your phone in the pool making it hard to communicate with Airbnb in real time, that resulted being question by the third party CS for integrity? 

[Patricia990]

Jeffrey-

...did that actually happen to you - or was that asked tentatively?

Nothing anywhere close to what you say has happened to us; but ... you never know.

So far, I have found AirBNB CS to neutrally analyze the situation and act accordingly.

I think to remember that AirBNB CS gives you 2 weeks to claim that not all was to your satisfaction before they return de renters' security deposit - that should suffice to get your drowned phone deductaed from that deposit and your account credited!

[Manasui0]

---

@Patricia990 wrote:

Jeffrey-

...did that actually happen to you - or was that asked tentatively?

Nothing anywhere close to what you say has happened to us; but ... you never know.

So far, I have found AirBNB CS to neutrally analyze the situation and act accordingly.

I think to remember that AirBNB CS gives you 2 weeks to claim that not all was to your satisfaction before they return de renters' security deposit - that should suffice to get your drowned phone deductaed from that deposit and your account credited!

---

@Patricia990 @Airbnb 

I Rather not say..

happen last year and things has improve since then..

I believe the relationship I gained between me and Airbnb is more precious than to talk about the past.. basically some thing did happen badly, and they were worried about me asking to take of a bad review.. a review that certainly are 180 degree different than reality and all other review

than this comes out.. an improvement

and I have more experience in dealing with these type of condition..

I'm more grateful to the improvement that has been achieve together.. Is not always a feel good experience.. but if I have to take one for the team .. I'll take it..

Through time, They save me more than they made a mistake judgement call.. 

What ever happen I feel save with Airbnb..

still have the evidence till today..

[Manasui0]

@Donna240 

I like your question..

I wrote a piece and some how got erased by my mistake.. it was nice and long, but ill keep it short..

It seems your fear to deal in your ideal way of flexibility has made you froze in an ice cube unable to create a creative solution that is unique and power full

the question is: is performing your best considered as a bribe.. helping them to spend their time in different way than staying in your place.. making a stranger to a friend is bribe??

it all come down to genuinely done or is it a fake ?

a hand made is not a fake, a exact replica with the intention to trick is a fake..

a genuine review is more powerful than a 5 star review.. it is only achieve when a genuine act is perform.. 

is for you to understand and other to know, through all the hurdle in judgment such as discrimination and others...

appearance is important.. but 

simply say..

fake is cheap shot.. and a genuine is a powerful blow.. 

I like to collect a genuine review cause my standard are often also to be assume as a bribe.. but i Don't mine cause I create an amazing experience at my place..

I do it to every one, an is my SOP standard.. if they don't like i, they can tell me, and I'll stop.. I make more money by it.. 

you give me money I'll take it .. if they expect some thing back.. should tell me before you hand it to me.. 

your house, your rules, your way, your style, your unique ness.. but it also come with a different level of responsibility..

If it's truth full enough, keep on going it is worth the fight..

if I am in your condition.. all I need to do is to move them some where else.. be creative a sight seeing and experience suggestion is always good.. offer them to keep the laguage.. make communication with all the guest.. use the right timing.. is possible.. just need to be creative..

is not a bribe is being creative.. 

I don't take my guest rights so we guard their rights.. but in a manner that is most understandable like feeding a bad vitamin in a burger.. bad news is bad news, but in a burger is better.. 

[Lynnie1]

I also stay as flexible as possible in my check-out and check-in times. I have had guests arrive at midnight or 2am or at noon. When people book, it is their house that day, and I want it to suit their needs. I also do not like rigid check-in and check-out times at hotels that often don't suit.
I also had a problem with the time between guests. I had it set to one day between, but Air BnB seemed to change the interpretation of it and makes it possible, as you've found, to have people leave and arrive the same day, and possibly overlap, because of flexible times. I now, unfortunately have to set it to 2 days.

[Catherine789]

Don’t know if it helps you or not but I leave a 4 hour period to clean the house wash & change bedding & towels. I have two sets of everything so if a guest leaves at 11am (check out time) I can get the house back in pristine condition for 3pm check in. I offer early & late check in/out on request at £10 per hour. It works out quite cheap if I have 6-9 guests. That means if nobody else has stayed the day before they can check in early & if I don’t have a new guest the same day. I want my guests to have as much time as possible without impacting other guests. 

[Anonymous]

Yes, I have mine listed to allow one day in between to allow for cleaning, but Airbnb just seems to ignore this. Of course, if you get a request from a guest to arrive the same day, then you must try to accommodate them, even though it only allows a couple of hours between for cleaning if guests checkout late and the next ones arrive early, as can often happen. I don't know why Airbnb ignores the one day in between.

[Christina573]

@Anonymous This is why I do not accept Instant Book. I also work casual shifts at the local hospital so need a distinct period between bookings to wash linen and clean. I do have doubles but with more than one-night stays, it seems guests like to use EVERY towel left in the cupboard and I don't have a clothes dryer. 

[Greg-And-Melinda0]

With respect to early check-in and late check-out:

I think expectations were set by the hotel industry years ago. Because they have many rooms, they can be very flexible. Because I have only 1 room, it's impossible if I have back to back reservations.

Most people understand this when you explain it in a friendly fashion.