I respond to all inquires immediately. Why I am at a 98% response rate?

[Maia29]

I respond to every request i get in less than 24 hours. My response rate is 98%. Why? My response rate should be 100%. I respond to everyone. 

I was under the impression that as long as you respond to everyone within a specific time frame, your response rate should be 100%. 

What gives?

[Sarah977]

@Maia29  If you failed to either accept or decline a booking request within the 24 hours, even if you messaged the guest back, that would lower your response rate. Is it possible that that happened at some point?

I know I went from 100% to 98% a couple years ago because Airbnb stopped sending me my text notifications- I missed a request, and even though I messaged the guest back in 25 hours, apologizing and explaining what had happened and she still went on to book, Airbnb dropped my response rate. Pointing out to them that it only happened because of their notification glitch did no good, surprise, surprise.

In any case, 98% is still well above the threshhold, so I wouldn't concern myself with it.

[Maia29]

@Sarah977  I don't like to decline because I thought that I would be docked for declining. Is that not true? That's why I just always at least respond to guest inquiries.

[Sarah977]

@Maia29  If it's an Inquiry, all you have to do is respond, you don't have to either pre-approve or decline, so not declining those is easy. But a Booking Request requires you to either Accept or Decline (or convince the guest to withdraw the request) within 24 hours or you'll get dinged on response rate. And Response rate is counted towards Superhost, whereas Acceptance rate isn't, so it's much better to decline (unless you decline a lot, which Airbnb will send you nasty warnings about) than to simply not click on anything.