Bad Reviews

[Jennifer2623]

My husband and I are new to hosting and we've had all 5 star reviews. But I think our last two guest may give us bad reviews and I'm unsure how to handle it. So here's some back story. Our last guest stayed one night and I reminded them the next morning of the 11 am check out. Everything was going well it seemed. I hadn't heard anything from them the whole time. I go to work and see the septic company parked in the driveway of our rental. I called my husband and he said that the company decided to do their monthly inspection without calling us but waited to call once they got there to let us know they were done. I immediately let the guest know what was going on and that we were sorry that we had no idea they were going to be showing today. They didn't have any contact with the guest just checked the outside tank. So an hour later the guest responded that they were outside on the back deck and had to go inside due to the smell from the open tank while the company checked it. I was beyond apologetic to the guest and have told the company that it was unacceptable what they did but again they just showed up without us knowing. The guest then tells me they loved the place and had a good time other than septic thing then says they couldn't watch a movie the night before due to wifi problems. I checked it after they left and it worked fine when I was there. They never contacted us even though I told them to contact us with any questions they may have or if they needed anything.

The guest before this one stayed for 3 days. We unfortunately ran out of propane while they were there. They called and said they had no hot water. My husband immediately checked on it and found the fuel had ran out even though we are on a delivery system. The fuel company forgot us on their route. We explained the situation to the guest and  told them that it would be between 1 to 2 hours before the company could get to us. So from 11:30 to 1:30 they had no hot water. We apologize profusely. The guest called at 1:30 and they had hot water. We never heard a peep out of them again. I messaged to reminded them of the 11am check out on the morning of their last day and at 11 they tell me they are leaving. They said they had a great time and loved the place even left a nice little letter in our book saying how great it was there. They then sent me a message and asked for the full amount for the "day" they lost since they didn't have hot water for 2 hrs. We refused to do that but we did give them a refund of a little over half of that days money back. They seemed ok with that but you just never know. 

I don't know what kind of review we are going to get from these guest and how to respond if they do leave a bad review. Or how I should even respond in my own reviews. Any thoughts or help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Colleen253]

@Jennifer2623  When responding to complaints in a guest review, always keep in mind that your audience is future guests. Choose your words carefully, to reassure those guests they are making the right choice in choosing to book with you. 

Re a possible poor review, there’s just no point worrying about it as you have no control over it. You can, if you choose, wait until the last possible moment to leave your review of the guest. This will keep their review from showing up on your listing for two weeks. In the meantime, you hopefully will get a few more good ones, which will help bury that poor one. 

[Jennifer2623]

@Colleen253 Your reply was my intial thought of what I should do and that was to keep doing what I have been doing. I have reviewed every guest so far and replied to every one of their reviews also since I read that it helps keep the focus off any bad review that you may get so as not to highlight them by being the only ones you reply to in the first place. Thanks so much for the advice and I think you're right. Hopefully I'll get the hang of it all. I'm really glad that they have this forum it's been very helpful to me. I'll think now I'll just keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best! 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Jennifer2623 It is incredibly annoying when suppliers let you down. We got only our second 4 star review when the broadband infrastructure company in the UK screwed up our phone line and caused a loss of service.

In your case review as normal and hope the guests reviews are not too damaging. There is usually good advice on response wording if you post their review here.

[Jennifer2623]

@Mike-And-Jane0 Yes absolutely it is. I'm finding that out more and more as we go along. I think I need to realize that you can't think of everything that may happen and that the biggest thing is you can't please everybody. Thanks so much for your reply! I greatly appreciate it!

[Emilia42]

@Jennifer2623 Please be factual in your reviews of them. I, for one, would not want to host a guest who asks for a refund because they lost hot water for two hours. Especially, when the host (yourself) acknowledges the error and fixed it immediately. Most hotels would not give a refund.

"XX stayed in good communication and notified me when we unexpectedly lost hot water for 2 hours of their 3-day stay. After checkout, they asked for a night's refund. We were both able to agree on a reasonable amount." 

[Jennifer2623]

@Emilia42 We thought about for a bit then just decided to go ahead and refund them. She wanted the whole day refunded but I definitely wasn't gonna do that. I'm hoping that since they left a nice letter in our book that they'll review good but they haven't done one yet. I'm waiting. I really like your suggestion on what to say in my review on them. Our last guest just left their review so I'll respond to that one soon but I haven't yet. I've got guest staying now and so far things are going well. We have another guest coming when they leave so hopefully I can do a mass of reviews at one time and it won't be so bad or more than likely I'm worrying for nothing. 🙏🤞

[Sarah977]

Something to keep in mind for the future- "We apologize profusely"- when something happens during a guest's stay that impacts them but isn't a result of your negligence, of course you should express empathy for the situation. But there's no need to be super apologetic- psychologically, the more you make it seem like some huge deal that has inconvenienced them in some major way, the more the guest will tend to look on it the same way.

Being without hot water for a couple of hours in the middle of the day isn't a terrible situation, nor was having the septic guy show up unannounced, and neither of those things were your fault. A simple, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I'll be right over to check what's going on" and " Dang, the propane tank's empty- I called the supplier and he said the driver somehow forgot to stop at our place on his usual rounds, but he's coming now, so you should have hot water again within the hour" is really sufficient in such a case. No need to go overboard with apologies. 

And if you feel that an inconvenience deserves some discount (I prefer to think of it and call it a discount rather than a refund), it's best to offer it rather than wait for a guest to ask for it. That way, instead of a guest asking for a full day refund for something that really wasn't a huge deal, and you agreeing to less, making them possibly feel that you're not being adequately sympathetic, they might be more inclined to see you as being fair and responsible, and feel like jerks if they asked for more.

@Jennifer2623

[Jennifer2623]

@Sarah977 Thanks so much for the advice. I'll definitely take it into consideration when I do my reviews. I greatly appreciate it!