How to deal with a bad or unfair review

[Neil408]

Hi guys, I'm not new to Airbnb but on the (very rare) occasion that I get a bad review I often feel a little stumped on  how to deal with it.

I have two close friends who do Airbnb and they (like everyone else from time to time) get the occasional negative, unfair or unreasonable bad review.

One of them said 'don't reply to a bad review because it makes you look defensive' and the other said 'always reply to a bad review, especially it's unfair'. I personally side with replying politely and factually.

For my smallest room - I recently had a negative review from a guest who said something along the lines of 'Can't say this place is terrible but could be cleaner' etc etc. I've not been letting that room long and have around 10 reviews for it. Of the 10 reviews I've had eight 5* reviews, one 4* review and finally last night's poor review - but 9 of the 10 have given me 5* for cleanliness, apart from last night's guest that gave me 3*. 

When the guest checked in he seemed a nice guy, he used the bathroom, showered and afterwards sat in the lounge for a bit, I made him a cup of tea and had a brief chat with him before we both went off to our rooms just after 11pm.

This morning I had a chat with him when he was making breakfast - it was his first ever time using Airbnb and I asked him if he'd had a good sleep, if everythign was to his satisfaction and he said it was great and had had a good time. 

To then leave me a bad review totally mystified and confused me - I totally didn't see that coming at all. He had ample time to say 'I have a problem with x' or 'I was unhappy with such and such' but nothing.

After reading his review I messaged him politely and said 'can you elaborate on what was wrong or what you were unhappy about?' He did reply but could not nail it down to anything specific that he was actually unhappy about. 

The most annoying thing however is that only having 10 reviews for that room it brings down the average quite a bit - it had previously been 4.9 something.

I guess it's one of those experiences where you say 'that's life'.

If you were looking at my room and saw nine great reviews and one bad one - would the one bad review put you off or not? How much allowance do you make for things like that when booking? I'm always curious as to how people consider such things when booking.

[Robin4]

@Anonymous 

Look it may have been coincidence Andrew but I did have a greater than usual number of 4's around the time this new review format was introduced. For a start I put it down to having a higher percentage of older guests who do, as you know, tend to be more critical in the way they review, and I would not have thought any more about it. But as I said I do get to talk about these things with guests and It worried me to the point where a few others here on the CC made mention of the change in guests ranking trends, and one of our local hosts here in OZ, Kath from Albany had taken the bull by the horns and made up an explanation page which I seized on and adapted to my listing......

I put this page inside the front cover of my house rules folder and that is principally what stimulated guest/host conversation. 

It has had a positive effect Andrew. You made an extremely good comment the other day about potential guests having to settle for second best with the current restrictions that COVID-19 is putting on travel. Many travelling guests are now having to settle for second best which theoretically would have an impact on the review rating they would give.

But my last 49 reviews spread across a couple of platforms have been 5 star, and I do feel the inclusion of this explanation is having a lot to do with that. I don't think I am a better host Andrew, I think the guest leaves a bit better informed and a bit more aware! 

Take care mate!

Cheers.......Rob

[Neil408]

That's a really good thing to do! I like what you've written there.

[Neil408]

So true Rob! Thanks for the advice. 

Would probably have been better off writing it today, 24 hours later as I feel much calmer about the annoying review now. 

[Anna9170]

@Neil408   The system of reviews is not correct in principle, because most guests have an association with stars in the hotel rating, and this is a completely different matter. Many people have the idea that 5* is Four Seasons or Hyatt, and of course this psychologically affects the assessment of our housing. Booking com has a more reasonable rating system, there is just a scale from 1 to 10 for different points, and it works correctly.

[Neil408]

Interesting. I also list my place on booking dot com and have a 9.8 out of 10. 

On Airbnb I have 4.77/5 on average or 9.54/10 if we look at it that way.

On the whole - (whilst I like Airbnb) - booking dot com seems to attract more reasonable guests imho.

[Robin4]

@Neil408 

And I rate better with Stayz (VRBO)...... my guests from that site are simply asked what I did well, not what I did wrong Neil!

I do consider Booking.com has the best presented and most informed search page structure, and I used their site as an example when I was asked to put forward proposals as part of the global development team.......

The problem with Airbnb research is, they give a list of pre-prepared options they would like adjudicated by the team. They don't ask what the user wants.....they ask what the user would be prepared to accept! 

Cheers........Rob 

[Sarah977]

@Robin4  "The problem with Airbnb research is, they give a list of pre-prepared options they would like adjudicated by the team. They don't ask what the user wants.....they ask what the user would be prepared to accept! "

This highlights the general attitude of Airbnb that really needs to change. It's an arrogance, which runs throughout the company policies and the way CS deals with things, that the ideas and policies they come up with are the only options possible, and that they are willing to accept, rather than be truly interested and caring about what users tell them would work well.

One reason Amazon is so successful and Bezos is the richest dude in the world is that Amazon actively solicits feedback from their customers and acts on it. And it's no problem reaching their customer service dept. and if a customer has a complaint or needs to return something, they don't argue or brush you off or have a list of placating empty words to throw at you- they treat their customers with respect and deal efficiently with the issue.

[Dave52]

@Neil408  One bad review out of 50, probably won't matter much, 1 out of 10 might damage a listing.  In my opinion, you should reply and deal only with the facts point by point and how you are addressing their complaints.  For example, if they complain about something being broken, apologize and reply by saying it is now fixed but so sorry it was broken during their stay.  Or if not really broken, but they were not able to make it work for some reason, apologize that your directions were not better, and you are improving your directions to help future guests, or apologize that they did not message you about it (!)......  Seriously, it never helps to blame the guest in a review response.  And future guests will see you are always working to improve.

[Sarah977]

@Dave52  I am still going to say here that apologizing for something a host hasn't done wrong isn't the correct thing to do. In English, "I'm sorry" has two different meanings. It can mean that you feel responsible for something and are apologizing, or it can mean that you are simply empathizing with what a person has experienced.

So if a guest complains about something that the host bears no responsibility for, rather than say "I apologize for you finding your room not adequately cleaned", which future guests could easily interpret to mean the host doesn't bother to clean well, a host is better off to say  "I'm sorry this guest had complaints with the cleanliness of the space, which wasn't mentioned during the stay, in spite of me asking if everything was okay. I can assure that all is thoroughly cleaned between each guest booking, and that if a guest finds something amiss I would like to be informed of it as soon as it is noticed, so I can address the issue right away."

[Dave52]

@Sarah977  The empathy way of apologizing.   When written correctly, future prospective guests will interpret it this way and view it as a positive reply to a bad or unfair review.  

[Sarah977]

@Dave52  Right. What I'm saying is that using the phrase " I apologize" rather than "I'm sorry that..." makes a difference. One expresses responsibility, one expresses empathy.

"I apologize for the mattress being uncomfortable" is quite different from "I'm sorry you didn't find the mattress comfortable".

[Sarah977]

@Neil408  In the future, I think it's a good tactic, rather than simply asking a guest if everything is okay, to say something like "Please don't be at all shy about letting me know if you find something amiss at any time during your stay. Hosts appreciate being given the opportunity to correct issues right away, rather than have guests complain in the review about something that could have been dealt with in the moment."

[Elisabeth40]

I am sorry you got a bad review. It feels not good, I know out of personal experience. Sometimes I think it's odd that people can give someone reviews on personal life style, it means as much, you can never have a bad day or a personal problem and a just don't do dishes or forget to flush or snore loud or have a personal  life. Well, we are all not perfect and pleasing everyone is almost impossible. People have different expectations and some guests just like the fact to safe money but forget that hotels have high pricing for a 24/7 door man and service stuff. And sometimes people just don't like each other for no reasons. That's life and it is what it is. I feel sometimes even not comfortable to talk to my guests because I don't want to be misunderstood. If I feel too much pressure, I just don't read my reviews for couple weeks, until I can handle it. Sometimes I had a feeling that bad reviews even help me, because they keep away guests who think the same way, so only guests would come who are not bothered by review.

[Fred13]

@Sarah977 Just about every time my guests leave I ask them - 'Ok guys, what can we improve, what did we miss?'; they always make albeit small, but great suggestions. And we implement them. Once they tell us, they tend to never put it in a review, since what are they going to say then - "We thought 'X' could be 'Y', which we already told the host but repeating it here for the benefit of the world at large"?

In general, as to approach on public response I tend say (if it merits being addressed in the first place) - "Happy to report that we changed 'X' already, per your suggestion". I don't think I have ever used the word 'Sorry', not because I am not, but because I am more excited about an improvement than apologizing for something that it is now history.

If it is something outright silly, I put it in the 'circular file' (aka trash bin) where it belongs and ignore it outright.

[Sarah977]

@Fred13  I do agree that soliciting feedback from guests during their stay or just before they leave can really help as far as them complaining in a review. And the way you say you ask your guests for suggestions is different psychologically from simply saying "Please let us know if you find anything amiss during your stay."

Hosts like you and I are the position of being able to do this easily, as we have face-to-face interaction with our guests and I do think that makes a difference. Harder to criticize someone publicly when you've had friendly, personal interaction with them or sat around having a beer. You also have the time when you are boating folks out to put this out and everyone is likely in a pretty good mood. I have much the same, as I normally drive my guests to the bus stop, a 5 minute journey.