Star level ratings no longer showing on reviews

[Ryan2352]

Hey all,

Anyone else seeing this?  When an inquiry comes in for a booking it no longer shows the star rating of the potential guest's reviews.  Just "X Reviews" and when you click on that it brings up the review wording, but no rating.

Why is making it even harder for us to pre-screen guests?

Ryan

[Ryan2352]

My professional field used to be data security/anti-hacking.  If there's an account, there's a place to sell it.  No idea how prevalent it is though.  Most of the profiles I've seen have seldom had the user's picture.  It's mostly dogs, people in full snow gear, movie scenes (John Cusack holding the boom box overhead was one of my favorites) and landscapes.

[Sarah977]

@Ryan2352  "See, I've always had the benefit of the star rating during inquiry and booking requests.  That is the first factor I use in judging a potential guest. "

To each his own, but even if I could see guest star ratings, I would barely take them into consideration, if at all.

I've mentioned this before in other threads, but I follow another hosting forum where a host once posted describing the guest's behavior and how they left the place, asking for feedback in how to rate the guest. 

The answers, all by highly experienced and successful hands-on hosts, ranged from "Ugh, what a nightmare. I'd never want a guest like this- 2*s." to  "Sounds normal to me, I  don't see what the guest did wrong- 5*s."

So I don't see the value in ratings- they are far too subjective and what might be a 5* guest to you might be a 3* guest to me or vice versa. Just because someone is a host doesn't mean they have the same expectations or rating criteria you would.

There are also many property managers with scores of listings whose ratings would skew the numbers, as they seem to rate all guests 5* and leave useless, uninformative "Nice guests" or Great guests!" written reviews.

[Ryan2352]

Fair enough.  I'm one of those people who look at the star ratings and reviews of products on Amazon, Yelp reviews, Google reviews, etc. too, so I'm used to it and the subjective nature of reviews.

[Christine615]

I think that is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS. There are corporate hosts and there are individual hosts. Although I'm on Instant Book now, I've considered taking myself off as the quality of inquiries other hosts are reporting is decreasing.

But why would Airbnb create an environment where we can rate guests and then future hosts can't see the rating until after the guest is approved. It's more awkward to have to cancel after the fact than tell a guest they aren't a good fit and you're not comfortable. And that's stressful for a guest (or dangerous if they want to retaliate). It's why I don't have a photo of the front of my house in my photo lineup.

I wish Airbnb would create a platform that was responsive to host needs and not some constant changing knee-jerk cow-towing to the imaginary discrimination issues. Deal with bad hosts and bad guests and allow the rest of us to interact like grown-ups with real access to information before we put a stranger in our homes.

Sigh.

[Ryan2352]

Amen!

[Susan990]

@Ryan2352  The first thing that  comes to mind is the growing use by Hosts of Guest Profile & Reviews to make booking decisions. And the desire by ABB to retain  Guests  with bad reviews as ABB customers no matter how bad their reviews or what harm they have done to the Host. 

  This built in feature of the ABB platform runs counter to the operating protocols used by Hotel, Resorts, Vacation Homes, etc. which utilize the services of data providers which screen for bad guests/renters.  And subscribers to these services  exercise their right to deny entry based on that data.  So quickly those individuals who cannot get into regular STRs can still  get into an ABB.  Maybe not every one but someone, especially a newby Hosts, become targets for these people. 

  I had hoped that when ABB went public that it would set up to the plate of a truly professional booking agency in all areas of the business.