Connection bewteen 'Overall rating' and individual ratings?

[Chris1492]

Just recently I got an 'Overall rating' of 3 stars (my first ever). Given that the guests had nothing but praise for the venue, I'm a bit put out - but that's not the issue. The guests gave the following ratings for the individual areas (in addition to positive public comments and zero private feedback):

2 stars - value

5 stars - accuracy

5 stars - check-in

5 stars - cleanliness

5 stars - communication

5 stars - location

Based on this, I think 3 stars overall is somewhat mean. Here're my questions:

1) Do guests get to select the 'overall rating' in addition to the individual areas? (Or, is the 'overall rating' calculated directly from the individual scores and not under the control of the reviewer?)

I have 74 reviews in total: this single 3-star review, four 4-star reviews and the remaining 69 are 5-star reviews. Two of the 4-star reviews and this recent 3-star review fall within a month of one another (approximately). My 'headline' overall rating has dropped from 5-stars to 4.9. I'm not unduly worried - however it got me thinking...

2)  How does Airbnb calculate the headline 'overall rating'? Does it come just from the 'overall ratings' of indiviual bookings, or do they go deeper than that?

It's a bit curious, isn't it? Would it be possible to cause havoc by leaving a 1-star review overall, but with a string of 5-stars for the individual areas? See my point?

With regards to this particular case, should I bother doing anything, or just roll with the punches and carry on with life?

Thanks for you thoughts, as ever, Chris  

[Elaine701]

@Sarah977 @Chris1492 

Funny you should mention that. My current guest falls in that category (sort of). Obviously affluent, everything is beneath her. Including any kind of communication with commoners like me. Not a peep in 12 nights.

But after 12 nights, it's apparently all become intolerable, so she's just dumped her list of grievances on me. About 10% of it has some merit, although greatly exaggerated. The rest is pure poppycock. But even worse, she's furious that nothing has been done about it yet. 

Right, then. 🙄

She hasn't demanded a refund yet. But there's still a few days left. 

😳

[Christopher1257]

Hi Chris,

You will find another thread of some 1266 posts if you search under "making reviews more fair for hosts" including my own contribution about the statistically unsupportable methodology employed over such that the overall rating from the guest appears to outweigh the stars earned on the other 6 criteria for which a guest can award stars. Go to page 85 to see the letter I sent to the feedback platform and a number of posts from highly annoyed hosts.

Regards

Chris

[Chris1492]

Many thanks for the reference @Christopher1257 

[Richard531]

I'm one of those types that obsesses about perfect ratings (and my wife does too).  We actually devote a full page in our welcome guide to reviews as well as reiterate it to our guests as they check out on the instructions. 

Now, our listings are a little over the top and have a lot of amenities.  So maybe we score well for those reasons?  And we are hyper responsive so I know that helps. 

But on the flip side, our listings usually go for $300-$500 a night and often over $1K a night. 

We leave the following salutation at 2PM right around the time that the "leave a review" auto-reminder comes in from Airbnb to each guest.  If we know a guest is awful, we will disable the automatic trigger of this message.  

The message is a little manipulative as it also addresses the "value" discussion by offering them a FUTURE discount.  Interested to see what you guys think.

_________________________________________

It was such a pleasure hosting you! You are welcome back anytime. We’ll be sure to leave you a well-deserved 5-star review. 🤩

If you have a chance to leave us a review, it would mean a lot to us. Please remember that anything less than a 5-star review is a failing grade. ✔️

As a small token of appreciation, we’d love to offer a 5% discount on any future stay. If you decide to return, our listing will be here waiting for you!💰

Travel safe!

__________________________________________

Thoughts?

[Sarah977]

@Richard531  Personally, I would find it a turn-off. Telling a guest you are going to leave them a 5 star review is basically shilling for one in return. And defeats the whole point of reviews being blind. Reviews are meant to be honest, not you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

If it's working for you, fine- to each his own, but you asked for opinions, so that's mine.

[Kia272]

@Richard531  I'm sorry, but I find that a real turnoff. It's completely manipulative and skews the entire review system. 

You have to remember that there are hosts out there who do not deliver what they've promised, and that's why there's room in the AirBnB review system for "less than perfect."

I'm not saying that the review system is fair- far from it- but I strongly believe that if you deliver what you've promised, you'll get fairly rated. 

There will always be exceptions to that because there are those who are never satisfied, but we can't change those people, we can only hope that they don't stay at our properties. Opinions are subjective, and we can't control that either. 

When you say, "Please remember that anything less than a 5-star review is a failing grade", that's just not true. Sometimes we do fail, in small and large ways, and we should be rated appropriately. 

You also promise them a "well deserved" 5 star review. Some guests are not problem guests but they're also not 5 star guests. 

If I stayed with you and got that message, I'd be really annoyed and might consider lowering my rating as a result. Just sayin. 

[Sarah977]

@Kia272  "When you say, "Please remember that anything less than a 5-star review is a failing grade", that's just not true."

It's true in the sense that a host can lose their Superhost status just because one bad complainer guest decided to rate 1 or 2*s, or if a host is so bound up in thinking they always deserve 5*s, and resent a guest leaving 4.

I think it's pretty difficult to word review explanations if you have an entire place listing. 

As a home-share host, I've had in-person discussions with my guests about how Airbnb reviews work, but it's in the course of other conversation, often a chat about the guest's other Airbnb experiences, or if they ask me questions about  hosting, etc. 

I don't think there's anything wrong with letting guests know that Airbnb considers anything less than 4.8 to be grounds for loss of Superhost, or 4.7 to be the goalpost for non-Superhosts. Because Airbnb tells guests that 4*s means good, and plenty of guests think they are giving a nice rating to a host and place they liked and where they would happily book again.

When I had had this discussion, my guests have been shocked- they said they had no idea, would feel terrible to know they had lost a great host their Superhost status.

But when talking about all this, I never present it as shilling for 5*s- it's about how Airbnb isn't clear with guests about the impact their ratings have and I say that of course a guest should be free to leave whatever rating they feel a place deserves, just not to be under the false impression that 4*s is a rating a host will be really pleased with.

It's more the misleading and lack of explanation on reviews by Airbnb that irks me- I'm not attached to being "perfect" or the Superhost  carrot.

[Kia272]

@Sarah977  The guest is supposed to rate their experience honestly. Their main concern should not be that the host keep his or her Superhost status. The whole point of Superhost is that the standard is high. If hosts are shilling for 5* reviews simply to keep their Superhost status, then when they possibly fall short of Superhost hospitality standards, the whole thing falls apart. 

There are listings that do fall short, and guests should rating and reviewing those honestly. 

I think that one of the problems is that we are working with whole numbers. If AirBnB could at least allow .5, then we'd have the opportunity for more accurate reviews. 

Right now, you're either 100%, or falling short of that in 20% increments, which may be a big drop for a small shortcoming. 

I'm not saying the system is fair, but hosts are playing into this flawed system by doing things like that. 

[Sarah977]

@Kia272I think you  misunderstood me-  I'm certainly not saying that guests should not leave honest reviews because they somehow feel pressured not to jeopardize a host's standing.

What I am talking about is the disconnect between how Airbnb presents things to guests and how they apply them to hosts. 

From my own experience  in chatting with my guests, several have said, more or less, "OMG, I've been leaving 4* reviews for my hosts, when I was totally pleased with the place, the host was lovely, and I would definitely stay there again. I thought 5*s should only be for something really fancy and that my hosts would be happy with a 4* review . Why does Airbnb tell guests that 4*s means good if they turn around and consider it not good enough in terms of being a great host?".

In other words, they had zero complaints or suggestions as to how the host could improve, they just didn't understand how hosts are affected by the ratings or that an Airbnb you really enjoy your stay at and don't find anything you think the host could do better, should be rated 5*s. 

[Brian2036]

@Richard531 @Chris1492 

I don't see anything wrong with it. Nothing there would offend me in the least.

But then I went to law school twenty years ago and I welcome anyone to try to offend me. I'm pretty sure I'm immune.

I think Chris's listing is priced at an excellent value for the location. Maybe if people whine about the price he should refer them to Richard.  😉

The whole "value" thing confounds me. Would I rate a new Maserati an excellent value? No way Jose. A $10,000 designer purse? You must be joking.

Yet people buy these things. Perhaps because the price is far in excess of actual value and everyone knows it. It's just conspicuous consumption.

[Cave0]

It might be slightly off topic, however I had a guest stay a couple of years ago, he'd booked through what was then Homeaway.

He and his family were most pleasant and seemed to have enjoyed their stay.  A very complimentary review was left, albeit with a 1 star rating.

I'd not normally follow up with a guest about their review, their opinon is just that after all and they are entitled to it, however, in this case the star rating was wildly at odds with the review narrative, not to mention the interaction with the guest during his stay.

To cut a long story short, the guest was horrified and insisted that there must be some mistake, he'd intended to leave a 5 star rating.  He emailed Homeaway and the outcome was that Homeaway refused to correct what he confirmed as genuine mistake, the only action that Homeaway was prepared to take was deletion of the review once the guest had agreed to this.

It's not only Airbnb that has a problem in this area it seems.

[Sarah977]

@Cave0  I can understand the reasoning behind not letting users change their ratings or reviews, instead only allowing them to be removed entirely, if requested.

If it were open to changing, while someone could have simply made an error, asking for a rating to be changed could leave the process open to abuse. Like the host rated the guest poorly, the guest rated the host poorly, but there is a phone or text exchange which Airbnb can't see where one party tells the other they'll change the rating they gave if the other does the same.

[Brian2036]

@Chris1492 @Laura2592 

This is my first draft of a possible addendum to our House Manual.

Yes, I know it could be construed as manipulative, and I also know that it's excessively long-winded, but then so am I.

We want to encourage a certain type of guest who is impressed with the property for all the right reasons, does not look for reasons to take offense, and is not going to wail because Dora forgot to clean the lint-catcher on the dryer. (Again.)

A FINAL WORD: THE AIRBNB REVIEW SYSTEM

We have found that most guests do not understand the Airbnb review system and do not know that a single negative review can result in the host's property being delisted and closed down. Some hosts have encountered guests who think 3 stars is average and lost their businesses because of it.

In fact, the AirBnb platform consists almost entirely of a gigantic, complicated computer program. It doesn't care about you, it doesn't care about us, it only cares about what it thinks will increase profits for AirBnb.

Soon after you check out you will receive a message from the Computer asking you to write a review. The instructions are confusing.

First you will be asked to rate a list of categories, such as cleanliness, accuracy, location, value etc. These ratings DO NOT affect your overall rating. Rate honestly.

Your overall rating is the critical one that may ruin the host. The Computer suggests that 5 stars is for properties that are "Exceptional; Exceeds Expectations."

Four stars is "Good. Would stay again."

That's nice. But when it comes to the host, an average of less than 
4.3 stars means: "You're out of business!"

Guests should think very carefully before awarding less than five stars. Many hosts will not accept guests who have a record of doing this because they just can't afford it.

If you have complaints about a host or the property, it is best to state them privately or in your written review if you think other guests should know about it.

Remember: You are not rating your vacation, which may have been unpleasant for various reasons, such as bad weather, personal problems, etc. You are rating the host who has almost certainly done everything possible to make your stay enjoyable.

If you would like to return, but think our prices are too high, please take a business card when you leave and contact us directly to discuss future stays.

Other hosts who have been unjustly punished because of well-intentioned guests who "never leave five star reviews" or thought "Only five-star hotels deserve five star ratings" put this humorous little guide together:

[Chris1492]

Very good @Brian2036 . I think I might make it a bit shorter and phase things a little differently for this side of the Atlantic. That said, I enjoyed reading it and it taught me a few points, so thank you.

[Jenny349]

Personally, I love it @Brian2036 !! Not sure I would dare use it myself, but I admire your efforts in putting this together and would love to hear how guests react if you do add it to your House Manual! Go for it! Tell it like it is  - as some guests are so fond of saying! 😉