No reviews for guests who cancel..

[Juan63]

Today we got a new situation. We had a guest who after receiving our checkin instructions which remind him we are a shoeless house and a few other reminders about not using the side door to exit(because guests always leave it unlocked) he canceled because he felt unwelcome. He also commented that the fact that I asked him to confirm the total number of guests(another big problem we have, either sneaking in guests or just not putting the correct number of guests when booking) was another reason he felt unwelcome.

My problem is his ability to leave a review and a bigger problem he’s able to give me a star rating. I did nothing wrong, he agreed to all my rules prior to booking and he didn’t even raise any concern. We can at least respond to reviews but not to star ratings.

When it’s not the host’s fault, a guest, at the very least, should not be able to give a star review. We can respond to unfair written reviews but not to star ratings. This should go for guests who break rules too. Not to mention we have stellar reviews and over 1000 guests to date and a 5 star rating overall.  Thoughts?

[Karen1027]

Hi Juan 

We are experiencing exactly the same problem with bookingdotcom where the guests are able to rate only stars, to which we are unable to respond, I and are only able to respond if they leave a written review with their ratings. In fact the guests are able to apply their own percentage to the overall rating in other words the overall is not calculated by bookingdotcom according to the star ratings. To top it all, bookingdotcom guests are even permitted to rate annonymously which is crazy as this prevents transparency, not what the hospitality industry needs. 

I must admit that Airbnb's review criteria is actually way better than bookingdotcom. However, this review scenario is a difficult one, and the best we as hosts can do is to repeatedly forward them feedback with this information so that hopefully they can listen to us and improve on it. 

Hope this helps.

Kind regards

Karen 

[Juan63]

I think it would be a good compromise not to allow guests to leave a star rating if they don't actually stay. They can still raise hell on a written review but as I said above we could at least respond. Maybe adding a question like why they didn't stay and they can choose a number of pre-existing answers would be better than irrelevant star ratings since they didn't actual stay would be more fair. For example, one time we booked a stay for my girlfriend and at 9pm when she arrived the host said they didn't have a confirmed reservation which was wrong, no mention of this for a week mind you. Airbnb confirmed the reservation existed but the host still denied it. In this type of situation I'd like to be able select the reason we didn't stay. I wouldn't want anyone else waiting at night in the middle of nowhere and there be a safety issue.

[Kathy842]

Did the guest that canceled get a refund? 

[Juan63]

@Kathy842 No, I have a strict cancelation policy. He canceled the day of.

[Carolyn141]

I had a guest you gave us 5 star rating on all the categories but "3" overall. How can they do that?

Also, does anyone know if we respond with a "will not host again" does that block our property from that guest?

[Colleen253]

@Carolyn141  It happens unfortunately. The overall is a separate category. Sometimes it's a mistake on the guest's part, but not always. It's mystifying otherwise. You can always ask them for feedback though.

The do not recommend button prevents a guest from being able to Instant Book a listing where the host has set the requirement 'recommendations from other hosts'. The most important thing with a problem guest is to write a clear, honest, to the point review of them, so that ALL future hosts are aware of any potential for problems, and which problems they can anticipate.

To block a guest, see this thread:

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/HOW-TO-BLOCK/m-p/976977

[Ange2]

@Juan63    I would contact Airbnb and ask them to block reviews/ratings for that stay. A few weeks ago it did say that guests who do not stay cannot leave a review.  https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Airbnb-Updates/Making-reviews-more-relevant-and-useful-for-our-c...

But in the same breathe Airbnb render it next to impossible for a review/rating to be removed by saying but " isn’t useful to future guests.", this covers a multitude of sins because anything can be considered useful to guests who do not read descriptions and amenities and take everything as a personal affront.

I had a few guests like that who were upset by rules they had agreed to and were dishonest in their review because they thought I should have allowed them to break all my rules because they were 'nice' people (their words not mine). Apparently Airbnb consider dishonesty to be "useful to future guests".

Good luck!