How to broach subject of 4 stars for value for long term repeat guest with 20% discount?!

[Alex1477]

We are always top three superhosts in our area for our type of offer - top quality private room in v large family house with access all areas, and exclusive use of upstairs study with TV and downstairs lounge - three weeks ago took a long term Monday to Friday booking (8 weeks) for an out of town IT contractor - we offer a 10% weekly discount and 20% monthly discount. Discussed the situation in depth before offering a special offer of 20% discount on the nightly to secure a solid 2 month booking. All is well with the guest, she likes it here, we like her. First week review is fine, 5 stars all round as usual, 2nd week's review 4 stars for value!!? We are very well priced with our normal fee, but 20% discount deemed not 5* value?! Normal price is £30 per night, we settled on £26 a night. There is no other alternative equivalent accommodation in town at this price point.

Could be a typo (doubt it as airbnb seems to have tightened up on this kind of thing), but if she maintains this and we continue to get 4* for value each week (why would she change her mind from one week to the next?) for the next 5 weeks, our score is going to nose dive.

We need to speak to her about it obviously - how on earth do we bring this up in conversation without causing tension? Her third week commences tomorrow.

Help!

[Maia29]

Yikes!  I understand this issue and I go through this all of the time. 

Its especially rude for her to not give you a 5 for value especially after you gave her a significant special discount. 

I have had guests give me 3s and 4s for value for an entire, private  two bedroom apartment for $70-80 per night. It’s rude. 

[Sarah977]

@Alex1477  You say the guest likes your place and you like her. Do you have much interaction with her or do you just see each other in passing and she sticks pretty much to herself? As a home-share host myself, I have a fair amount of interaction with most of my guests- we'll chat over coffee or a bottle of wine in the evening and end up talking about all manner of things. So I can usually find a chance to mention reviews, if I feel it's necessary, without it seeming like a pointed topic. (I know there are hosts who feels it's a no-no to even mention reviews to guests, but I've done it often and never had a bad result) If you do hang out with her a bit, I'd just bring it up casually in the course of conversation. I explain that Airbnb doesn't apply the star ratings to hosts the way they explain them to guests- that you know that Airbnb tells guests that 4*s is a good rating, but that if you get too many 4*s, Airbnb sends hosts warning messages about pulling up your socks, that they unreasonably expect hosts to be 5*s all the way. In my experience, guests know nothing about this, and just believe what Airbnb tells them- that 4*s is good. I'm sure your guest has no intention of tanking your ratings if she keeps booking with you. She just doesn't realize that it can hurt you.

Simply explaining to guests the disconnect between what Airbnb leads guests to think is a good rating and how they actually apply the ratings to hosts, if you can find a way to mention it in a casual way, isn't the same, psychologically, as prodding guests to give you a 5* review, which could be seen as pushy and totally backfire. I always present it as an Airbnb faulty review system, say I think star rating systems are a bad idea in general (which I do) because what might seem like a good location to one person might not be to another, so how do you know why it got a 3* for location?, not as the guest being in the wrong or me thinking my place is so great it should always get 5* ratings.

[Alex1477]

Thanks, some interesting suggestions!

[Anonymous]

@Alex1477 I do think in this case you should have a dialogue with your guest, but if I were in your situation my main concern would be the discrepancy between week 1 and week 2: does the guest feel that something in the quality of her stay has declined? 

How to best approach it really depends on what you want the result to be. Do you want the guest to be convinced that you're just in need of feedback to make sure her stay is going well? Or rather, do you want the guest to suspect that if she isn't committed to giving you perfect scores every time, she's no longer welcome and should cancel her remaining bookings? The latter sounds inhospitable, but Airbnb deserves most of the blame for that. Ask yourself honestly, would you be willing to continue to host this person if you knew doing so would lower your rating scores?