Review Process as a Guest - as of March 2021‌‌

[Emilia42]

For those who have never stayed as a guest, here is a snapshot of the review process when completed in March 2021. I completed this review on a laptop and accessed the review from the e-mail prompt that Airbnb sent after my stay.

E-mail from Airbnb asking to review. Note: if you click on a star with your curser, that will populate the star rating on the first step of the review, but it can be changed. 

 

First step - Choose an overall star rating:

 

If giving a 3 star or below a "Report unsafe behavior" link will appear:

 

If giving a 4 or 5 star, the next step will be to choose 'compliments.' This step is optional and can be skipped. If giving a 3 star or below, this step is not an option.

 

The next step is to describe your trip: 

Then choose a star rating for the 5 subcategories. Cleanliness, Accuracy, Check-in, Communication, Location, and Value. 

Note: If you choose a star rating of 4 or below for any subcategories it will ask you to choose from a list of possible reasons and add detail. Examples:

 

If you give a 5-star overall rating but a 4 star in any of the subcategories, you will get this message. You have the option to change the overall rating or ignore it.

Next is the private note to the host: 

Next, the public review:

 

 

This concludes the review.

[Sarah977]

@Emilia42  Thank you for sharing this. It does seem like an improvement, except for this:

If you give a 5-star overall rating but a 4 star in any of the subcategories, you will get this message. You have the option to change the overall rating or ignore it.

🤔

It should worded the exact opposite- "If you gave a 5 star rating in the subcategories and a less than 5 star rating in the Overall rating....." because that is the most common thing that happens and that hosts find bamboozling and distressing, since only the Overall rating seriously matters.

[Emilia42]

@Sarah977 That is actually my wording. The Airbnb text says "Is this right? You rated your overall stay lower than you rated it in at least one subcategory. Do you want to change your overall rating?"

I strongly believe that many stays can be 4 stars overall while still excelling in cleanliness, accuracy, value, communication, and location. But I do bet that since Airbnb added this option/prompt there have been many fewer hosts who have experienced the dreaded 4 stars overall. I have certainly seen less talk about it here on the forum in the last few months. 

[Sarah977]

@Emilia42 Reread the section I quoted. How it reads to me is that it is encouraging a guest to revisit the 5* Overall rating they left if any of the subcategories were marked less than 5*s.

[Emilia42]

@Sarah977 Oh right right, my miswording, thanks. Too late to edit now 😐

[Ann72]

But the illustration was clear @Sarah977 @Emilia42 and I understood what was going on.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

After hundreds of bad updates, this is finally the good one. Is it a glitch? 😄

[Colleen253]

@Emilia42 Thanks for posting this. Is it required to enter feedback when assigning lower than 5 stars in a category, or can guests still continue on without doing that? I wish they would make it a requirement for moving to the next step. 

[Emilia42]

@Colleen253 No, it is not required. You can still move onto the next page without indicating feedback. You cannot move onto the next page if you leave any star rating blank.

I agree, feedback is always nice. However, I will admit that when previously completing a review in the past, I had originally selected a 4 star for one category. But when the feedback section appeared I changed the score to 5 stars because I didn't want to be bothered or insulting to the host with my reasoning. So from a psychological perspective, I think it is once again encouraging 5-star reviews. 

[Debra300]

@Emilia42,

Thanks for sharing.  I have an upcoming stay scheduled in a couple of weeks, and also will get to see the new review questions.  I think the reason why there is no questions regarding the "safety practices" is because the questions are not tailed for any specific type of property or stay, and there isn't an option of N/A as a response.  If a guest stayed at an entire place, and the host were not on site, a No answer could be the right selection, but it wouldn't be appropriate.  Also, there wouldn't be any point of intervention by Airbnb if the breach had occurred since the stay had already been completed.  I think that Airbnb believes that guests will contact them before a stay is finished if there is a safety violation.  I won't even go down the rabbit hole about verification of the incident.

[Emilia42]

@Debra300 Very true. The same reasoning probably as to why there aren't questions about privacy. It is so beneficial for hosts to stay as guests every once in awhile. Airbnb should really do more encouraging of this with more vouchers, etc. It helps to improve the guest's stay when you know the process. I would love to hear your take on the current review setup after you complete your stay! 

[Colleen253]

@Emilia42 Even though most feedback actually ends up being pretty useless, I feel the guest should be required to provide some comment, to show the reasoning for the lower score, and also, as you said, a guest may think twice at that point and just put a 5 instead. That would take care of problems like the guest who marked me down for check in because he didn't like my check out time. I'd like that person to have to actually write that. Because he certainly wasn't about to offer it up voluntarily. I had to ask him, since I knew check in was perfectly smooth. He may have thought twice if he'd had to write that in. It's easier to just carelessly toss out something lower with no accompanying comment.

[Ann72]

Overall I think the flow of the review process is much improved.  Thanks for posting, @Emilia42!

[Ann72]

Hold the phone, I just noticed something!!!  @Emilia42 did you say you stayed in a TENT??? 

You are such a badass.

[Emilia42]

@Ann72 Ha, yes I did! It was "glamping." But still, pouring rain and 38 degrees. 

[Sarah977]

@Emilia42  You're one tough chick. 🙂 I'm impressed.