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@Tiffany539 Two consecutive reviews both marking low on cleaning suggests the cleaning needs improving. The review system is far from perfect but it does seem to be serving a purpose warning potential guests about one of your properties.
My post has been totally misunderstood. It is not about me personally, or my guests. It is a general plea to the powers that be at Airbnb to perhaps reconsider the way they allow subjective opinions of guests to affect the rankings of a listing.
I recently had a guest who gave 5 stars for every single category and stated she had a great stay and would return...but gave an overall rating of 3 stars. I knew this lady as had met her on check in so I called her out of curiosity and all she said was that they loved the house and their stay but they never give more than 3 stars for anything. She was horrified to hear that I was issued a warning from Airbnb stating that a 3 star review left me at risk of that particular listing being suspended. That was so far from her intention and she wanted to change it....but Airbnb would not allow her to as it had already been published.
This was my point.
It was not a rant by any means.
I manage multiple properties and have done so for 12 years and have come across so many guests all with their own opinions and you can never please all of the people all of the time....but hopefully we please most of the people most of the time.
I wasn't actually asking a question 🙂
I was posting a well thought out article wondering if other hosts and management companies had experienced the same frustration with people not understanding the overall star rankings they give to properties and the domino effect it can have on small businesses.
@Tiffany539 Your novella length responses to anything critical in a review does you more harm than some low ratings. They come across as defensive, attacking rants by a host who can't handle any critcism whatsoever. You have several reviews which speak to the uncleanliness encountered by guests and instead of taking this seriously, apologizing and dealing with cleaners who aren't doing their job, you attack the guest for not letting you know during their stay.
Yes, guests should give hosts the opportunity to correct things during the stay, but guest after guest having to contact you to ask for the cleaners to come back and do a proper job isn't normal. When a guest checks in to find the place dirty, that sets a bad initial impression that colors their whole stay.
Berating the guests in your responses for the star ratings they left is also highly unprofessional.
Personally, I would never book with a host who left review responses like yours.
My post has been totally misunderstood. It is not about me personally, or my guests. It is a general plea to the powers that be at Airbnb to perhaps reconsider the way they allow subjective opinions of guests to affect the rankings of a listing.
I recently had a guest who gave 5 stars for every single category and stated she had a great stay and would return...but gave an overall rating of 3 stars. I knew this lady as had met her on check in so I called her out of curiosity and all she said was that they loved the house and their stay but they never give more than 3 stars for anything. She was horrified to hear that I was issued a warning from Airbnb stating that a 3 star review left me at risk of that particular listing being suspended. That was so far from her intention and she wanted to change it....but Airbnb would not allow her to as it had already been published.
This was my point.
It was not a rant by any means.
I manage multiple properties and have done so for 12 years and have come across so many guests all with their own opinions and you can never please all of the people all of the time....but hopefully we please most of the people most of the time.
I wasn't actually asking a question
I was posting a well thought out article wondering if other hosts and management companies had experienced the same frustration with people not understanding the overall star rankings they give to properties and the domino effect it can have on small businesses.
@Tiffany539 If you had done a search on this forum, you would find thousands of posts about the faulty rating system. Hosts have been railing about it for years but Airbnb obviously doesn't care. As you found out from your guest, Airbnb leads guests to think that they are leaving a good rating if they rate 4*s and "as expected" if they leave 3.
In the real world, there is nothing wrong with "Good" or even "as expected".
It is Airbnb's intention to keep hosts stressed out about their ratings and reviews, so they will let guests get away with all sorts of bad behavior.
I wish they would do away with the ratings entirely, as they are totally subjective, and only have written reviews, which at least give information. No one has any idea why a host would rate a guest 3*s, or a guest rate a host 3*s, because there is no explanation attached to it. One guest might rate a place that's a 20 minute walk to the beach 5*s, because they like to walk and consider it good daily exercise. Another might rate it 2*s because they aren't used to walking anywhere and consider it inconvenient. So ratings have very little, if any, value, IMO.
As a home-share host, I have interaction with my guests during their stay and often educate them a bit about Airbnb's rating system. They are shocked to hear that Airbnb considers 4*s to be a fail for hosts. Most guests have no intention of tanking a host's business.
Some hosts put a short explanation for guests in the unit if they host entire places. It's just important not to word it as if you are asking the guest to rate you 5*s, which can totally backfire.
Yes...this is exactly what I meant 🙂 I agree...you can't ask for a good review as that can be seen as bribery...or gives guests a reason to demand extras in return for a good review, and I've also experienced the guests who are loving the property and their stay who then do the wrong thing and have a loud party disturbing neighbours and breaking our rules they'd agreed to...who when I politely ask them to please stop the noise...turn nasty and give 1 star out of spite.
I agree the ratings have little value and I agree that guests often have no idea that their well intentioned 3 or 4 stars is actually a really bad rating....this is why I wish Airbnb would change their system....but probably won't happen!! Wishful thinking 🙂
@Tiffany539 You might be interested in perusing this thread, which is from 2019, with 84 pages of host responses.
As you can see, nothing has changed despite Airbnb's PR.
https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Airbnb-Updates/Making-reviews-more-fair-for-hosts/td-p/958608
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