1 star revenge review

[Dora31]

Hi

I had a guest recently who left a 1 star review after I messaged him about his stay and asked for £15 for extra services. 

I rent a room with the use of bathroom. Other areas such as kitchen is not part of the listing. 

The cleaner arrived after 30 mins of the check-out and the guest was still there sleeping. She tried to wake him up, not successfully. Then my cleaner said that the guest left a big mess in the kitchen, in the area that he was not supposed to use. She made a video. 

My cleaner waited until the guest left and cleaned the whole property. Apparently the guest also smoked in the room but no sign of cigarettes just the smell. 

When i mentioned this to the guest he said that we (cleaner and i) lie then he left a one star review. 

Anyway i can get this removed? I guess no, but wondering if anyone had similar experience. 

[Renee291]

You cannot get it removed, but you can respond to his review. Keep the response simple and factual. That review should get lost in other reviews pretty quickly and hopefully you have enough reviews it doesn't drag your overall score down too much. Did you provide an honest review of him as a guest?

[Anonymous]

@Dora31   The review I guess you're referring to contains only two words:  "Overly strict."

I don't really see a good argument that this violates the Review Policy, which would be the only grounds for having it censored. Despite the lack of detail, those two words do express an opinion that's relevant to the guest's experience. In light of all your other reviews, I don't think this one is likely to impact your bookings, but it might actually have the positive effect of getting prospective guests to take a closer look at your House Rules before making their decision. It's quite a long and unconventional list of rules, a lot of things that would be off-putting to the average guest (e.g. 8 AM check-out, and no access to the living room even though it's shown in the photos) so you definitely shouldn't try to accommodate people who can't handle strictness.

Negative reviews are, of course, a very predictable consequence of demanding extra money at the end of the stay. £15 seems like a terribly small amount to be worth the drama in the grand scheme of things - does it even buy a cheeseburger in London these days?

[Fred13]

As a host whatever you do, do not put yourself in a position to have to play the heavy like a traffic cop by virtue of how you choose to manage your listing.  Work backwards, remove or change any feature or rule that give rise to otherwise unnecessary confrontations with guests or cause Airbnb have to get involved at all in these affairs. 

[Robin4]

@Dora31 

Dora you have 6 years of hosting experience, you have almost 300 reviews and you are a Superhost, hasn't this background taught you anything?

When you ask a guest for additional money that will put the kiss of death on any review......happens every time. You have to asses what battles are worth fighting and what you should just put down to being an STR host. If you are going to make an issue over a £15 bit of additional cleaning you stand the risk of making yourself look a 'prickly' host!

Sorry about the lecture but Dora that needed to be said, now look at the other side of the coin....

You have this wealth of experience, look at your other reviews, as far down as I scroll all I see is complimentary reviews. 

I would not be too concerned about this one poor review Dora, it says more about the guest than it says about you. Just one thing, you need to be a bit more subtle in your review response, you are going to be seen as a more conciliatory host if you say something like......

"Sorry if I missed the mark with this guest, I always try my best for my guests, I wish him well for the future but would decline the opportunity to host him again". That says all you need to say!

That way you haven't got into a verbal fistfight with the guest, you have made him look a bit of a fool, and your review of him said everything that needed to be said.

Try and learn from this one Dora, it will be no time at all and this one will slip into obscurity, let all those good reviews of yours do the talking for you....we are not fools, we can sort out the wheat from the chaff!

Cheers........Rob

[Richard531]

The review is there to stay.  So sorry about this. . .

I took a look at your listing.  For $50/night, you appear to provide a no frills, local, safe accommodation.   Your listing actually made me reminisce a little bit about the CouchSurfing days of yesteryear. 

Anywho, my immediate advice: let a co-worker from your Investment Bank who speaks English as their fist language go through your listing end-to-end.  Have him/her clean up grammar, redundancy, sentence structure, and misspellings.  This needs to happen right away.  

You also received some great advice from @Anonymous  related to your borderline laughable checkout time and the decision to showcase spaces in your home that are not meant to be used by guests.  Fix this.  

Like @Robin4 indicated, I'm kinda surprised that having hosted probably around 500 guests in your day that you didn't realize that making a request for money might put you in a tough spot.  The good news is that you'll never make that mistake again.  @Robin4 also gave you a PEFECT response to his review (if you elected to leave a response, which I would could go either way on whether to should or not).  

I repeat: have someone that you trust spend 15 mins on each of your listings.  The copywrite is absolutely abysmal and that is being kind.  

[Dora31]

I honestly found this comment a bit offensive rather than helpful. 

The guests see all house rules before they book the room, so having an earlier check-out us visible prior to the booking. Most of the times i am flexible but it depends on my cleaner's availability who does night-shift and comes immediately after her shift to make the room ready. 

The apartment is very close to the central, so would not say local. I agree that i do not provide luxury services but given the location the price is sort of average in this area and the room is fully booked each month

I never had to raise a claim request, never had issues with any of my guests. 

Back to the comment. Now the guest is threatening me, using inappropriate language but that is a separate airbnb support case now. 

[Anonymous]

@Dora31   You can report the guest for harassment and also block him from further contact following these instructions: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2020/how-do-i-report-a-message-or-block-someone-on-airbnb