Currently the review system is subject to abuse by guests. Airbnb has partially addressed the issue by permitting the removal of negative reviews that are a result of a guests’ anger with being held accountable for violating the no-party policy.
However, something needs to be done about guests leaving untruthful and/or bad reviews for unreasonable reasons. There are some people whom you just cannot please. I had a guest who was angry because I could not accommodate her early check-in request and so she proceeded to leave me a 1-star review for that…yes, in the review she complained about not being able to check in early.
She went looking for things to complain about and left a 1 star review claiming I was not accommodating and the place was not clean after I had nothing but 5 stars for cleanliness. She mentioned popcorn and candy under a couch which was untrue and said that under the kitchen sink cabinet where cleaning products are stored - it was unclean.
Now everyone knows that under a kitchen sink where trash bags, and cleaning supplies are stored is not where you apply the white glove standard, but even if you want to complain about that, is that a 1-star offense? As far as popcorn and candy under the couch – 1 is was not true, but – 2 with the type of couch that I have she would have had to either taken the time and effort to move the couch or she would have had to have gotten down on her knees and put her face just about flush to the floor to see it. So essentially, she was trying her best to find something wrong – all because I informed her that we would not be able to allow her to check-in early – and she showed up early anyway before we could put the finishing touches on the house! She didn’t say the bathroom was dirty or the kitchen or any of the bedrooms – but under the kitchen sink where trash bags and cleaning supplies are stored, and under a couch…c’mon!
She wrote this 1-star review after I had asked her on the day of check-in if there were any issues with the house and she did not respond with any. She also complained about the grass being cut while she was there. I mean really?!? Had I not had the grass cut she would have complained about the grass being too high! The grass is cut on a schedule by my lawn maintenance person. Any reasonable person could clearly see that the guest was abusing the review system.
This business is not like the big hotels who host thousands of guests per year. A 1-star review from one customer doesn't have the potential to sink such a big business. However, most Airbnb hosting is done as part of a small business and so 1 bad review could sink an Airbnb business - particularly a new one.
Airbnb does not do anything to protect the hosts from untruthful reviews or reviews that are a result of guests' unreasonableness. We should be able to appeal reviews especially when they are so far out of alignment with typical reviews for a given host. I’d had a ton of 5 star reviews for various listings. I am a Superhost, which is kind of hard to maintain. The listing I am referencing in this case only had a few reviews, but they were all 5 star reviews. However, when you only have a handful of reviews on a listing and then someone writes you a 1 star review across the board well then you are then at a 4 star rating for your listing and it will take you a while to recover from that.
Given how sensitive this business is to reviews, good and bad reviews need to be legitimate and Airbnb is not doing enough to make sure that they are. Regarding truthfulness of reviews Airbnb’s policy simply says that we are on the honor system pretty much. They say they expect guests to stand by the truthfulness of their review. Well there are a ton of dishonest people out there.
I think that certain criteria need to be met to warrant a 1- or 2-star review such as issues with safety and health hazards.
I think that any rating below 3 stars should require evidence just like hosts have to provide evidence when we claim damage. A 1- or 2-star rating should not be purely an emotional response. It takes a long time to recover from a 1- or 2-star review. Also, Airbnb needs a mechanism to address complaints that are clearly unreasonable. Yes, every situation in determining what is reasonable will be a judgement call, but Airbnb could start with some criteria to go by and at least have the mechanism in place to make that judgment call – and it should not be purely left to some formula – there should be room for not only a formula based on certain criteria, but for also human discernment.
AirBnb needs to fix this.
