How to review this guest?

[Yannis37]

Dear fellow hosts,

I urgently need your help. I am a super host with 5 star reviews almost every single time for the past 4 years. My total rating is 4.96.

Today was the first day of a new booking. The guest before sending the request informed me that she was on another listing but she will leave as there was noise from the street. She repeatedly asked me about the state of my flat regarding noise and all the available air-conditions in the flat. I was always getting back to her with the exact information about the flat.

Her initial request was for one week, but she asked me to let her know in case i receive any booking requests  as she would have liked to extend her stay - something that i did when i  received another request.  She then extended her reservation to two weeks. Due to Covid, I'm mostly using self check in. When she found out about it, she wasn't happy and requested an in person check in. Which i also arranged for her.

Today she checked in the flat and she requested to change her reservation to one week as she thinks the building and the flat are in bad condition and she will try and find something else. She is constantly sending me messages about every single detail in the flat. I have of course accepted her booking alteration request. I am a bit shocked to be honest and worried that there is a pattern with this guest. 

The flat and building are in excellent condition and never had such a comment before. Now, I am really worried about my status as a super host and how the guest's review will impact my profile. Any advice from you will be much appreciated. I have tried to accommodate her needs as much as possible but she will still find things to message me about and complain. 

I would hope you could give me your advice on how to review her and what to write. Also, if I do get a bad review/score (almost certain at this point) will it be visible if I don't review her. 

Thank you so much for your time and help!

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Yannis37 you and the guests reviews are both blind. You/they will not see either until they are published. Reviews will publish 14 days after the stay OR when both guest have host have reviewed whichever is the sooner. This means if the guest reviews and you don't their review will publish after 14 days.

[Sarah977]

@Yannis37  Stop trying to accommodate her demands. People like this can never be satisfied- the more you cater to them, the more  they ask for. And if you think catering to her will lead to a good review, that's highly doubtful. These types always leave complaining reviews.

[Yannis37]

Thank you both @Mike-And-Jane0 and @Sarah977 for the advise. I'm afraid Sarah you are right. Since my initial post about 5 hours ago she has come up with a non-existent issue (no hot water, totally false) and has sent me 50 messages or so.

As I host remotely I had to arrange with someone to go see the issue. It was a matter of turning a switch on. The person wanted to stay there to test everything is fine but she basically threw them out before they had a chance. She has since then stop responding to any of my messages. 

This is her first day and there are 6 more to go. I'm really not sure I can handle all this as I fear this will be ongoing. Could you please advise on my options? 

I do appreciate your time and effort here. 

[Helen3]

In your situation I would contact Airbnb and ask them to cancel the booking now so you don't have to put up with the guest.

tell them you feel uncomfortable with the guest as she has multiple complaints which are not valid in terms of your listing 

she's likely to leave a bad review anyway 

personally I wouldn't have accepted her booking or agreed to an in person check in . Ah threw up all sorts of red flags even before she booked @Yannis37 

[Yannis37]

@Helen3 Thanks a lot Helen. As i never had a bad experience with a guest before, I'm unfortunately learning this the hard way now. I value very much your feedback on this and the rest of the hosts who have offered their knowledge and advice. She will definitely leave a bad review and i am still worried as this will be my first one. I will try and become more observant of any red flags from now on.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Yannis37 You have no option other than to go with the flow and hope it all works out. If she asks to shorten her stay then perhaps do so just to get rid of her. @Sarah977 may disagree but if you do she MIGHT at least do the decent thing and not leave a bad/unfair review.

At the end of the day you have many good reviews - She will be an outlier if she is unfair to you

[Lisa723]

@Yannis37 in your shoes I would send this impossible guest something like the following:

"I'm sorry to see that it seems my place is not meeting your expectations in several respects.  I want all of my guests to enjoy their stays, so if you prefer to cancel your stay now I will be happy to refund your unused nights."

She will either leave, in which case good riddance, or stay, in which case she should stop complaining, and at least if she does leave an unfair review you can (briefly, professionally) respond to it with the fact that you offered a free cancellation and she did not take it so clearly she found the accommodations acceptable.

Regarding how to review her, just the facts. "X had many questions and special requirements before and throughout her stay. I would not host her again."

[Yannis37]

@Lisa723 Thank you so much. That is absolutely helpful and i will definitely follow this advice. In case she contacts me again with another imaginary issue, i will respond to her with what you have proposed.   @Mike-And-Jane0  Thank you for your advice. I never had a bad experience with a guest before so I'm still a bit shocked to be honest. 

[Cave0]

@Yannis37 

It's a fact of life that at some point, someone will book your place and, for whatever reason, they won't like you, your place or the location.  

You can do nothing about this some of it is human nature, unfortunately, they can make a review based upon their experience and perception and there's not much you can do about it.

It can be very disheartening when you have done everything possible to satisfy the guest, sometimes you just have to accept that you can't win every time.

It is my experience that when guests do not seem to want to commit to a reservation or wish to have the host keep options open for them then their behaviour during a stay is likely to be erratic too.  Best avoid them and do everything you can to get out of this type of booking, sometimes being inflexible is enough to put them off.

[Yannis37]

@Cave0  That is so true. Thank you very much for your input. I guess it is what it is and there is not much I can do about it. I will have to accept this and hopefully next time I will be more careful with my bookings.

[Charles1167]

I had a lady asked:  my husband and I are writers so we need complete silence and no barking dogs or heavy trucks,  later she msgd back do you have water on property- pool or river?  After several of these msgs I told her we could not fulfill her demands and were removing her from the listing. Surely she would’ve been a nightmare client.

[Yannis37]

@Charles1167  Thank you 🙏🏼 . She sounds exactly like my current guest, as she was also looking for complete silence. I will try and stay away from this type of guests from now on. Too much stress…