Our first nightmare which Airbnb could have solved

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Maani-And-Azi0
Level 2
Arizona, United States

Our first nightmare which Airbnb could have solved

If you find yourself in a situation where your guest won't follow any rules, put your house in danger, make a mess with your neighbor and react to your polite requests with arrogance and offensive manner what is your first step as a superhost after 6 years working hard? It is to notify Airbnb for the first time in your six years experience and ask for a help. Right?
That's what we did and asked for help. We had to make our most difficult decision for our safety to ask a guest with her partner to check out two nights earlier since she didn't follow most of our house rules and couldn't get a simple thing about the electricity rule. We had to reset circuit breaker 3-4 times during her stay and it was going to explode after all. We asked her politely every time, sent her pictures and instructions several times but she was just disrespectful, discourteous and humiliated us and our house.

We have put our best effort on our property and every single thing is even above the standards, beautiful and cozy with a very special taste that she loved everything at first, But when you feel uncomfortable and unsafe letting a guest stay at your home, they’re starting to cause a scene.
Airbnb helped her to get another place and she got to leave but she had a right to write a very biased, untrue and irrelevant review.
The nightmare is just started here since the judgment of one of the Airbnb ambassadors was really surprising and unbelievable!
I need to ask you the same question: How do you judge this review: "Awful. This woman is awful. I can’t even be bothered writing anything else but that about her."
Is it like expressing an opinion? Is it relevant? Does it seem her honest and impartial review? Who can say it's fair and true and not hatred after being told she would be asked to leave?
Airbnb ambassador (who didn't even show any sympathetic and understanding) wasn't convinced to remove this review and made us disappointed and unmotivated. We were told that, it didn't violate Airbnb's policies and they are unable to remove the review. 

What would we get from this reaction? We felt that Airbnb's sending this message that you shouldn't have asked her out and you must always be nice even with a nightmare guest at your own risk. We got this feeling that they could remove that kind of review if only we moved over the situation and didn't involved Airbnb.
We have every kind of documents, facts, messages, pictures that this guest made a mess from the second she stepped in the house until check out and put us in a really dangerous situation, but it seems no one wants these facts, doesn't care about our history or our stars, rating and efforts which was ruined after this simple sentences as a review.
What would we do now? Should we close our listing with the only one star and untrue review after six years trying to be the best in the area? Are we going to trust Airbnb's judgment next time or we should trust our feeling about how they would think of their business, not hosts? 

 

 

1 Best Answer

@Maani-And-Azi0  Sorry, I didn't look to see if you had written a response before posting that. Yes, I can see your response. And sorry you had such a PITA guest.

 

Regarding that response, while I understand you were quite upset about that review and the guest, that is really not how a response should  be written. It isn't a place to speak to the guest, it's a place to clarify and correct false accusations for the benefit of future guests. Future guests don't give a hoot what particular bad behavior a host had to put up with from another guest and writing the type of response you did can do you more harm than good.

 

A simple "This review is in retaliation for this guest being asked to leave, due to the guest ignoring house rules and instructions, even after repeatedly being reminded of them. Please refer to our other reviews for an accurate portrayal of our hosting and our listing" is all that you needed to write. Try to refrain from using the response to essentially review the guest or speak to them directly, unless it's a great review from good guests who you are just thanking for booking with you and being great guests.

 

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11 Replies 11
Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Maani-And-Azi0 My sympathy is limited by the fact that you didn't review this guest hence other hosts will host her unaware as to how she behaves.

With respect to what you should do I would ignore this outlier review and carry on. Perhaps update the listing to say guests have to be careful not to overload the electrical system as it is fragile.

You're right. We should have written a review for her, but thought Airbnb would say now that both sides wrote their "opinions" they are not able to remove it! We were absolutely sure that she was going to write very untrue and dishonest review and waited for a fair judgment from Airbnb, before writing anything about her! That was our bad... We should have tried our best to warn other hosts. We updated our listing about the electricity, though. It was updated even before her reservation but she didn't care! Thanks.

Helen3
Level 10
Bristol, United Kingdom

Hello @Maani-And-Azi0 

 

I'm surprised as a highly experienced host you accepted this guest in the first place seeing her two negative previous reviews and that sadly you didn't bother to leave her an honest review to warn your fellow hosts. Nor did you respond to her review of your listing.

 

It sounds rather overdramatic to consider closing down your hosting business because of one negative review which won't affect your SH status on one platform. Just provide a short factual response in terms of what happened and to reassure your guests about your electrical system.

 

I agree do note any issues to do with your electric system in your listing.

 

You can try appealing against Airbnb's decision by demonstrating how it doesn't meet their review policy.

 

 

We couldn't believe it either! That day we declined 2 requests and she was the third one at a very last minute. We were super busy and one of us just had a very quick background check. When she checked in and the scenario started, we saw both negative reviews about her and got so upset. We didn't write a review for her to see if the Airbnb could take a serious action! We already reported her to Airbnb and warned them about having such a strange guest, but no one cares and the Airbnb ambassador said indirectly that she doesn't mind what happened between us !
We also responded to her review and wrote the whole story about the tragedy she made, but do you think the response would make it clear for people to book us anymore? Will you book a place that some one wrote; This woman is awful?
We didn't get any request since her review was published. We always were fully booked on March this time! Thanks.
We have small notes everywhere about the electricity and have it on our house rules and send it including a welcome message to the guests as well. We never had this problem with anyone! She was the only one who made this story. We were kind of hopeful that Airbnb would care about a host who had never a bad review, not a guest with 2 bad reviews and strange history! 

 

@Maani-And-Azi0  You would close your listing down over one bad review when it has hundreds of great ones? I don't follow your logic.

 

Yes, Airbnb allows reviews even when a stay was terminated early. After 6 years of hosting I'm sure you already knew that. It also allows you to decline guests who are poorly reviewed by multiple other hosts - and had you done so in this case, you might have been spared the drama.

 

It was rude of the guest to call you an awful person, but that reflects more poorly on her than on you. It might deter people who are easily annoyed by electricity limitations from booking, but is that such a bad thing?

 

Andrew, 
The problem is that we haven't got any reservation since her review was published! It made us really unmotivated. Do you think that this is logic that, Airbnb allows reviews even when a stay was terminated early? When it happens it shows that something is wrong and rarely does anyone write the whole truth. It might help hosts to decline guest but what about hosts who got such a unfair review? This would be the host who lost the business, not a guest!
You're absolutely right that "It might deter people who are easily annoyed by electricity limitations" but we think other people won't have time neighther to check the whole story and see what's our rating and read other positive reviews. In this case, our place might not be their first choice and may seem kind of time consuming! 

Thanks. 

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Maani-And-Azi0  I can pretty safely say that no host thinks that guests who have to be evicted due to bad behavior thinks the guest should be allowed to leave a review. It's one important change hosts are wanting Airbnb to make.

 

You really should have left a review, and even maybe more importantly, a response to her review, as the response shows up on your review page for future guests to see.

 

If guests aren't booking with you since that review, in spite of all your good reviews, that seems odd. Most guests can see when a review is an outlier, if the host has tons of great reviews, and will dismiss as such.

 

Your lack of bookings may be completely unrelated to the review, having more to do with COVID, or seasonal fluctuations. The month or two after big holiday seasons, like Christmas/New Years, summer vacation, and spring break tend to be slow for lots of hosts.

 

Sarah, 
We didn't leave a review for her because we thought Airbnb might take it as response and won't remove hers. But You're right. We should have wrote and warned other hosts about a trouble making guest. We wrote a response to her review with the whole story and details. Are you sure that you can't see the response? If so, then something's really happening!  

Thanks

@Maani-And-Azi0  Sorry, I didn't look to see if you had written a response before posting that. Yes, I can see your response. And sorry you had such a PITA guest.

 

Regarding that response, while I understand you were quite upset about that review and the guest, that is really not how a response should  be written. It isn't a place to speak to the guest, it's a place to clarify and correct false accusations for the benefit of future guests. Future guests don't give a hoot what particular bad behavior a host had to put up with from another guest and writing the type of response you did can do you more harm than good.

 

A simple "This review is in retaliation for this guest being asked to leave, due to the guest ignoring house rules and instructions, even after repeatedly being reminded of them. Please refer to our other reviews for an accurate portrayal of our hosting and our listing" is all that you needed to write. Try to refrain from using the response to essentially review the guest or speak to them directly, unless it's a great review from good guests who you are just thanking for booking with you and being great guests.

 

Sarah,
You're right! That would have been our best response. We didn't have this kind of experience to know how to reply. Thanks for your comments. 

@Maani-And-Azi0  I know how frustrating it can feel to get feedback that feels motivated more by vengefulness than honesty. But everyone who offers a service or product to the public is exposed to the risk of negative public feedback. I see no reason that Airbnb should be an exception to that. 

 

In all likelihood, you made the right decision to cut the booking short when the guest wasn't following your rules or treating your home with respect. There are always trade-offs in every decision - you accept the risk of an unflattering review when the consequences of inaction are possibly worse. 

 

If you can't stomach the idea of getting disappointing reviews from people who weren't a good fit for your home, you have to aggressively screen your guests with thorough communication and attention to their profiles before confirming a booking. Otherwise, try to keep a thick skin about criticism from people who would have been happier somewhere else. You may feel that you've done everything perfectly, but that's subjective - when a guest disagrees, they're entitled to their opinion too.