Hi all,
I'm a host with 81 reviews for my listing. I've recently become frustrated with how the average rating is calculated. Airbnb say that only the guest's overall star rating is considered for this. I have 8 four star and 73 five star overalls, which shakes out to 4.90, which is what is displayed on my listing page. ((8×4)+(73×5))÷81
However, when I go to my Insights and look at my individual scores for the 6 categories of Check in 4.96, Cleanliness 4.95, Accuracy 4.94, Communication 4.99, Location 4.94, Value 4.81, the total is 29.59, which divided by 6 is an average rating of 4.93.
Equally, when guest look at my listing and click onto the rewiews, they see the scores for the 6 categories, although displayed as rounded up/down to one decimal point: Check in 5.0, Cleanliness 5.0, Accuracy 4.9, Communication 5.0, Location 4.9, Value 4.8. The total is then 29.6 which divided by 6 is again an average rating of 4.93.
It's great that AirBnB give guests the opportunity to score the 6 categories plus an overall score, but disappointing that the overall is the only one that really matters towards the star rating that is primarily shown on the listing (unless guests click through and check the 6 category breakdown themselves).
I think we have all had guest where in spite of scoring 5 stars on more than 3 of the 6 categories still give an overall of 4, which you could argue then doesn't reflect their opinion of the stay, seeing as it's not an average of the 7 scores they can give.
It may seem petty that I wish my 4.90 rating was 4.93, as it would be if only the 6 categories were counted. In fact, AirBnB did tell me once, upon querying this with them, that 4.9 was still a good score and I should be happy with that.
However, I, as I'm sure many hosts will agree with, work very hard and am very proud of each 0.1 point I can get. It really matters in a competitive market, and it's hard to feel like you cannot climb in the rankings even with a lot of hard work and 5 star overalls earned, while a single 4 star review will cut you down immediately.
As an example the way things are calculated right now, at 81 reviews and a 4.90 score, I would need another 8 5 star reviews to climb 0.1 points to get an average of 4.91. But it would only take one 4 star rewiew to knock me down 0.1 points to 4.89. I experienced this effect recently when I was stuck at 4.91 for the longest time in spite of getting 5 star after 5 star review, but when I suddenly had one 4 star review, I immediately dropped to 4.90 where I am now.
It seems unreasonable that it should be so hard to gain while so easy to lose. Why AirBnB have bothered with the 6 categories when only the overall seems to matter is nonsensical to me. The majority of guest only look at the score immediately obvious on a listing. Either use all 7 scores to calculate the average, or drop the overall completely.
I'd encourage other hosts to do the same calculations on their listings, to see if you too aren't getting less than you deserve.
AirBnB, it would be great if you could review your calculation policies and see if there isn't a way to consider all the feedback from the guests to calculate an accurate score for the hosts.
