Passive aggressive negative review

[Donald225]

Our first five bookings gave us overwhelmingly good reviews with 5 stars across the board.  A friend of my wife who is also a host smiled and told her "Just wait". It wasn't long.  

Late on day 11 of their 13-day stay guest texts to tell me she found "another" bug.  I was horrified and offered to have a pest service over the next day.  Said no, she didn't want to make a big deal of it, just letting me know for future guests.  I apologized profusely and said I wished she had let me know sooner.  

She leaves a two-word review: "nice place" and gives us 3 or 4 stars in every category, destroying our 5.0 rating.

Value: 3 stars - This is high season, but we felt bad for her predicament and gave her a discount.  She shows up in a Porsche. 

Location: 3 stars - The property is in an affluent, quiet residential area on a very nice, tree lined street.  There are million-dollar properties up and down the street. She lives in the area and knows the location.

Accuracy: 4 stars - Our listing is 100% accurate. No professionally staged photos or anything like that.

Communications: 4 stars - I had sent her two "is everything to your satisfaction" texts over the course of their stay.  Positive response each time. Responded to her queries within minutes. 

Cleanliness: 4 stars - AFTER telling me about the bugs, she said "it's a great clean house"

I am furious that she destroyed our 5.0 rating.

They showed up with a dog that wasn't on the booking.  There are two cups and spoons missing.  I gave her a positive review, don't want to sweat the small stuff.

I know nothing can be done about it but I'm torn whether I should reply to the review or not.   

[Ann72]

I ask too @Gillian166 so I can try to get a broken thing replaced before the next guest.  They don't always tell me because I'm sure they're afraid I'll charge them for it.   I hate uneven sets the way Mommy Dearest hated wire hangers  😂

[Sarah977]

@Donald225  Yes, there are legitimate reasons why a local would want to book an Airbnb. It's a matter of making sure the guest is being honest  about their reasons. A guest could be having renos done on their own house that make it uninhabitable for a time, waiting for a house sale to close, as with your guest, perhaps wanting to stay with family or friends who are coming from out of town, but the guest's own living situation is too small to accommodate everyone, they have roommates, etc.

But warnings against hosting locals are because hosts have had bookings from drug dealers, partiers, sexworkers, homeless, etc, with bookings from locals. So just be cautious.

No, I wouldn't call out guests for a missing cup. Things getting broken occasionally are part and parcel of hosting. Few of us can say we haven't accidentally broken a dish at some point. But two missing cups and 2 missing spoons (spoons don't break) sounds to me like the guests walked off with their morning coffee in your cups or something like that. Of course that's just speculation, so you can't write it in a review. 

What I would have mentioned in the review is the guest's complaints about things which are part of the natural environment in your area, without specifically mentioning bugs.

As far as mentioning that insects are endemic to your area in your listing info turning potential guests off, that is actually what you want to do- you don't want guests to book who are insect-phobes who will freak out, complain, demand refunds, and mark you down because they saw an ant, a spider, or a palmetto bug.

I live in the tropics- lots of bugs. When guests check in, I mention it casually, while orienting them as to where the light switches are, that it takes a minute for the hot water to work its way through the pipes to the shower, etc. "So as this is the tropics, there are lots of insects. I thoroughly vacuum the guest space and it is certainly insect-free now, but they can find their way in the smallest opening, so make sure not to leave food or food wrappings around, shake out your shoes and clothing before you get dressed." 

Pretty much any listing has what some guests might consider "cons", whether that's traffic noise, insects, noisy neighbors, whatever. It's best to make those things known so you ward off guests who might lodge complaints about those things. 

[Gillian166]

this is great advice, I will find a way to insert some wording about farm life into my listing, thank you.

[Ann72]

@Donald225  There is one thing you can do, which is to request that your review of the guest be taken down.  I've given positive reviews to guests I've regretted, and Airbnb has taken them down at my request.  

[Donald225]

My review was honest though.  As mentioned, we do allow dogs and I can't say that it wasn't an oversight that they didn't mention it.  Perhaps I should have mentioned the cups, and I didn't know about the spoons until after I posted it.  I thought that wasn't important enough to mention, but perhaps in the future I should be totally factual regardless of how minor I think the issue is. 

[Ann72]

I was under the impression you regretted leaving a positive review, but if you gave the guy a deservingly honest review, go ahead and leave it @Donald225 

[Donald225]

No, my review was honest and I really don't have any regrets.  I don't have any evidence that not mentioning the dog or the cups was anything more than an oversight, vs an intention to deceive. My wife on the other hand says her woman's intuition tells her otherwise. I'll refrain from using the actual word my wife used, but I don't want to post anything that isn't factual in a review. 

But I can respond to her "nice place" review.  Given that we got 3 or 4 stars in every category, I'm not sure if "nice place" wasn't meant to be sarcastic.  Regardless, she killed our 5.0 rating and I don't know if I should call her out on it or not.  Not because I care about that guest, only because people who look at our place and see the glowing reviews but less than 5.0 rating might wonder what's going on.  

[Huma0]

@Donald225 

No, don't mention anything negative in your response. The guest hasn't said anything negative in her review, even if it is a bit brief. Leaving a response with details of complaints will unnecessarily draw attention to those complaints.

Remember, the response to the review will show up on your profile, not hers. She may not even read the response. When you respond to any review, always target it to the audience, which is actually potential future guests. 

Don't bring up anything that is only mentioned in private messages or feedback. You only need to respond to negative things mentioned in the public review.

[Ann72]

@Donald225  Your original post above said “I gave her a positive review, don't want to sweat the small stuff.”  Nothing about an honest review there, but it’s good to know you did in fact leave an honest review.

I understand your wish to respond, but it’s hard to come across as anything but hurt and defensive when you respond to a two-word review.

These kinds of reviews definitely sting, but they’ll quickly be swept away by good ones.  Best not to dwell and overthink - and to archive the message thread so you’re not reminded of the experience.  Given she was local, maybe she was simply envious.  Most guests will not be like her, especially if you stick to your pricing guns and don’t feel desperate to fill the calendar.

[Angi646]

I think you should just let it go and move on for your own sake actually. There are people out there that deliberately like to find fault no matter what you provide. When I first started hosting I was so focused on keeping our 5 stars it really wasn't healthy. And then we had a couple of guests who suddenly marked us down to 4 stars for location and value. Their reviews were amazing so I just couldn't understand it. I did ask why to one of our guests and the explanation for it was to do with cycling and they thought the roads were busy!

And then you just get people who are negative and are looking for reasons to mark you down, just because they can!  In my opinion, any property above 4.5 stars is doing remarkably well. 

When I've asked guests why they booked with us, most of them say they liked the pictures! I don't think reviews carry too much weight in my opinion. You're doing a really good job so you should pat yourself on the back and stop thinking about it 🙂 x

[Sarah977]

@Angi646  Almost all my guests mention that they were impressed by my reviews, so guests do read them. It's the ratings that I think hosts are far too concerned about, and which I think guests aren't. Most guests don't care if a place has a 4.5 rating or a 4.8 rating. So hosts should stop sweating the ratings. As long as the written review is positive, that's what most guests are looking at. (Ratings give no real information, written reviews do)

[Laura2592]

@Sarah977 right. If I was not a host I would not think anything was really different between a 4.7 cleanliness rating and a 4.9. They are all high 4s right? They would all round to 5. People can be really picky about cleanliness and some might rate lower just because they found dust somewhere obscure. We had an early guest who told us she did a "white glove test" wherever she stayed. Those people exist.

I give much more weight to the written review. If I see a few people saying "super clean and tidy" versus a few saying "a deep clean would help" I don't even care about what the number is as a guest. As a host we have been conditioned to think anything less than 5 is awful. Because that is what ABB has set up. But again it has no real meaning on any kind of actual rating scale. A restaurant that is a 4.7 overall on Yelp is still likely a great restaurant.

[Ross648]

You have had good advice here, especially from Laura and Sarah.    The only problem you have, really, is to care about a perfect "5" rating.   Keeping that rating is possible, I think, only if you are willing to enslave yourselves to your guests, sacrifice your first-born child,  insist that you pay them for the pleasure of their company.  And even then..... 

[Donald225]

Thank you all for your responses and advice.  Yes, upon reflection I agree I'm probably overly concerned about the numerical rating.  We worked really hard (and spent a lot of money) to put together a nice place and to provide the best service to our guests that we could, but we were also concerned that as newbies we would make mistakes at first.  We were overjoyed that our first five guests gave us 5.0 ratings, and a bit devastated that one person could wreck that in an instant. But I agree that written reviews likely carry much more weight than a number. 

Best to let it go, and learn from the experience. 

[Mark116]

@Donald225 If you want to know why the guest left such low stars, you should feel fine to ask, she may never respond, but she might. 

If  you do contact her I would say as politely and professionally as possible that in the Airbnb review system, 4's are considered bad and 3's are terrible, that the superhost rating must be 4.8, to give her some perspective.  Many guests, because Airbnb doesn't educate them, are rating listings against their idea of a 5 star hotel.  She may not have meant any harm, or she may be a a passive aggressive jerk.