Hello everyone. Firstly, sorry for being away from the community for so long (due to a number of reasons). I wanted to share my recent experience and ask for your opinions. Apologies if it's a bit long...
I have been a Superhost for the majority of the time I have hosted in my current home. I have three guest rooms which were pretty much fully booked pre-pandemic and, since then, I've managed to keep things going with bookings on and off. Things were finally starting to pick up again in the latter months of this year. I've maintained my Superhost status every quarter for the past five years and have been at a 5.0 rating for about two (prior to that, mostly fluctuating between 4.9 and 5.0 as you know how long it can take to recover from the occasional 4 stars).
My dilemma is this. I recently had a guest who unexpectedly left me a 3 star overall rating (and 3 or 4 stars in every category bar location). She never complained while she was here and seemed to enjoy her stay. Although her English was limited so something may have been lost in translation, she left me a positive review and a nice private note and there is absolutely no negative feedback explaining the low ratings. I also feel that I went above and beyond for this guest in many ways, so it's pretty confusing.
Anyway, as a result of this, my rating has gone from 5.0 to 4.3 and I will definitely lose my Superhost status at the next assessment. Even if all remaining guests leave 5 stars, that only brings me up to 4.66, not the 4.8 required. I have even already received a warning email from Airbnb that my listing may be suspended. It will be a long time before I can significantly bring it back up.
I already called Airbnb about this but, as expected, the CS rep said there was nothing he could do about it, especially as the guest had not mentioned anything negative in the review that I could contest. His only advice was to keep up the good work.
I know that a lot of hosts feels that being a Superhost makes no difference. However, I would say in my experience that it does. When I first started hosting, most of my guests had no idea what a Superhost even was. In recent years (since Airbnb started promoting the scheme a bit more), I have found that many guests mention they booked with me because of it. Once guests are aware of it, they often specifically search for Superhosts. Even if you forget about that, my rating for that listing has dropped to 4.0. and I know I wouldn't book an Airbnb with that rating!
My questions are these:
1. I would like to message the guest asking for feedback. Perhaps she did not understand that her ratings were actually very low, rather than 'good' or 'very good'/'as expected' or 'better than expected' as it is sometimes represented by Airbnb. Or, perhaps she was too shy to tell me that there was a problem and it would be helpful to know what that was, regardless of whether Superhost status matters or not. How best to phrase this message without seeming like I am harassing her?
2. This guest instant booked. I only turned on IB because I felt I must (once Airbnb really started to push it, my fully booked listings dropped to the bottom of the search results, which is disastrous in London where there are so many Airbnbs, and only recovered when I turned it on). If this had been a booking request, I would not have accepted it without the guest answering all of the pre-booking questions, which she hadn't. So, should I turn it off and risk my listings disappearing again? I'm tempted, but not sure that's the best idea given that her rating may already have an impact on bookings? A very low percentage of long-term guests IB, but the rest might not even see my listing if I turn it off, so I am not sure that would be to my advantage.
