Feedback on Superhost criteria

[Lizzie]

Hello everyone,

As you know I share a lot of your feedback with Airbnb teams.

The Superhost team is currently evaluating the Superhost criteria. They’ve been hearing a lot of feedback from hosts both here in the Community Center and during research sessions. Here are some of the things they’re considering:

1. Number of trips: 10 trips OR 150 nights in the past 365 days, instead of 10 trips currently
2. Number of cancellations: 0 cancellations in the past 25 reservations (with a max of 1 cancellation per year), instead of 0 cancellations in the past 365 days currently
3. Average overall rating: Exclude one outlier low-review in the past 365 days from the evaluation

They would like to hear directly from you on these potential changes:

• What do you think about these changes?
• Are these changes easy to understand?
• Do these changes seem more fair to you as a host?
• Do they motivate you to continue to work to become or remain a Superhost?

I will share the feedback you submit on THIS topic specifically with the Superhost team. These are not the only things the team is currently looking into, but they wanted to run these ideas by you first.

Thank you so much and I look forward to hearing from you.

Lizzie

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[Mark116]

At the very least, there needs to be a guide for the star ratings that is reflective of how airbnb uses them:

5 stars:  good

4 stars: average 

3 stars: fair

2 stars: poor

1 star:  terrible

[Evelyn27]

I appreciate that there's an attempt to build in some flexibilty.  I had to cancel on a guest last year when my dad became palliative within 5 weeks of a cancer diagnosis.  I should have called and worked with the team to address the issue but my little airbnb business was not top of mind as I simply called guests and tried to rebook and work around what became a tough few weeks.  Is there any way to build an algorithm that offers a bit of 'host forgiveness' when personal crisis arise.  

Also I find that the review system is generally helpful but would be improved if there was a method to have guests offer what they liked best about a listing and then the host could flag a few of their favorite pieces of feedback somewhere on our listing as a preferred piece of information to share?  

[J-Renato0]

Hi @Lizzie 

1-First of all I think all the "texts about changes" are easy to understand.
2-Yes, it is an improvement in terms of requirements to evaluate the Superhost. If implemented it certainly would be all good measures. Anyway, I think this kind of improvement could be still better. I have some suggestions below.
3-Yes, it would reduce the stress and fear of losing the superhost status for receiving some stupid and unfair review or because one of the listings are more suitable for mid and long term, what would cause less number of reviews.

Below my feedback given by individual items (changes):

>>>1-Number of trips: 10 trips OR 150 nights in the past 365 days, instead of 10 trips currently
Of course I have to agree!
I have suggested something very similar in this discussion, on the second post of the page you reach by going to the following link.
https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Long-Term-Rentals-Penalize-Superhosts/td-p/836827/page/2

>>>2- Number of cancellations: 0 cancellations in the past 25 reservations (with a max of 1 cancellation per year), instead of 0 cancellations in the past 365 days currently
It think is fine ! 

>>>3- Average overall rating: Exclude one outlier low-review in the past 365 days from the evaluation
I also have suggested something similar twice or more times in this community.

I think this change can be bettered.
As far as I can find one of the links, my suggestion is writen in the following page of this community .
https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Show-Our-Overall-Rating-To-The-Hundredth-Percent/m-p/666...
IMHO, I think what I have said before in the aforementioned link should be considered (between quotes):
"I think that the assessment system should have a way to disconsider automatically 5% of the worst reviews, and to balance it, it would be necessary to disconsider also 5% of the best reviews. It would avoid huge discrepancies. This kind of "methode" to correct discrepancies is used in stastics and also in some types of "olympics games" to prevent that one member of the jury produce a completely wrong outcome in terms of general avaliation."
In addition, I think that, this method should be used to evalute each listing that a host/superhot have. For example, if the host has 3 listing, on each listing, 5% of the reviews should be disconsidered. The reviews should NOT be erased, should be only disconsider during the evalution process.

Thanks for taking our opinion into consideration! 🙂

[Sandra126]

And it would be super nice is if the annual bonus was cumulative, like long service leave!

[Lizzie]

I like this idea too @Sandra126! 🙂

[Linda108]

Lizzie, 

Long term hosting is very different from short term hosting.  Long term hosts are landlords and the guests are tenants.  In the US and other countries, the rights of tenants and regulations for landlords are not the same as the short term business. Air BNB also has cancellation and payout policies that are different.  Perhaps in recognition of this, the assessment period could be 2 years instead of 1 year.

[Delphine-And-Michael0]

Removing one review may help most superhosts from losing their status in reality though you can still get more then one review where the reviewer lies to discredit your listing.  We recently had one review that dropped us from 4.9 to 4.7 we are only now back to 4.8 after having all but two reviews (the false review and a 4 star review)  5 stars over the last year.  The current policy for the platform is that is ok for either party to lie, how does that make sense why allow false reviews that are shown to be false?

Hosts and Guests both  should be allowed to have  reviews removed when the review contains provable lies.  Lies that can confirmed through messenging should be removed for example.

Lies do not equate to a hosts/guest’s experience by definition it is something manufactured with only one purpose to discredit the other party.

Mark’s Star explanation I would say is more close to accurate, 5 stars is good  to excellent hard to say where 5 stars lies given the system, anything below 5 is terrible on this platform.  I am not aware of any other 5 star rating system where someone can’t say 4 stars and be proud of it.

the comparison between short and long term rentals is difficult, one is transient the other you are a landlord the two really are not equivalent.  Maybe for long term rentals if they are  monthly it’s ok to calculate 50 percent occupancy if the stays are much longer then 30 days then it is something very different you are really rating a landlord at that point.  

[Antoinette63]

Hi i agree it needs to chg. I had a cancellation my very first month as a new host. None since but do not qualify for superhost w 50+ bookings and above top ratings.  😕

[Lizzie]

Hello @Antoinette63, thanks for your comment here. 

So to summarise your point here, you would be pleased to see the introduction of one cancellation to the criteria? 

[Obinna0]

Location, Location, Location! I get it, location is very important to all parties involved with airbnb. I have very much noticed that, location being part of the review process, is just another way to downgrade hosts possible 5-star reviews. In most cases, many guests have acknowledged a wonderful stay in their reviews but location as a problem when the said guest doesn’t like the area. Hosts do not have control of their location and should not be penalized for their location. I’d like to suggest to airbnb to find a way to:

1. If a guests decides a location was a problem for them in their review, they should go in detail what that problem was and how it affected their stay. Often times, guests rate locations from a bias standpoint.

2. Location, being part of the review process, should not carry too much weight in the overall experience review. That aspect should be noted in the review, but if a guest’s overall experience is 5 star but decides that how they feel about the location is 1 star, the overall review takes a major dip. Not fair to hosts at all, especially superhosts.

3. Separate location criteria from the overall review process into it’s own standalone review. Yes guests should review the location for future guests to see, but it should be it own thing. 

[Lizzie]

Hello @Obinna0,

Lovely to meet you and for sharing your ideas here.

Aw the 'location' rating, this is something that is a popular topic here in the Community Center. I know you mention being penalised for getting a low 'location' rating, we know this is something out of your control and this rating doesn’t say anything about the quality of your hosting or your listing and so it does not affect your search ranking, overall experience rating, or eligibility for special programs like Superhost or Plus.  So I hope this comes as a relief to hear. 

I know though it can still be a frustrating rating and you might like to take a look at this recent topic, there are some great community ideas on how to improve this, like this one. 

In addition to this, I wonder in the original topic here whether you had any thoughts on the suggestions the Superhost Team are currently considering?  

Thank you and I hope to speak with you again.

Lizzie

[Antoinette63]

Hi. Thanks. No.  I was thinking of the point to allowing the host being reconsidered in a period much less 365 days. With 5 star for over 6 months for example.

[Ange2]

@Lizzie  

People with one nighter's would pass 25 reservations in less than a month, and those with multiple listings could do so in less than a day,  and for those who do  long term it may take years for them to get past 25 reservations.  I think a time frame would be better.

I also think other factors could play a part such as:  is the  guest is agreeable to their reservation being cancelled; how far in advance is the reservation.

btw:  Is there an Airbnb support line to help cancelled guests find a similar alternative? Are notifications sent to hosts that may be able to take them last minute – it could help, hosts could sign up for it if interested.  I saw something similar on another booking site years back.

[Christine615]

I like that Airbnb is listening to host concerns. Right now I'm not inclined to join VRBO or Homeaway and am comfortable on a single platform.

I like the idea of allowing one cancellation per year (for cause). Life happens and I don't think that a good prolific host should be penalized "IF" there is a good reason for a cancellation. It's hosts with multiple cancellations that should be a a concern.

btw - cancellations where the host can't verify identity (I know from calling, that Airbnb has refused to tell me how they know if a person is real) is still a problem and those "Instant Book" declines should not be included (for the record, none of this applies to me, I haven never cancelled,not even when a family member was sick).

I love the idea of eliminating one outlier a year. Especially when it is clear that it doesn't match other guest experiences.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Lizzie

I agree with a lot of what has already been covered by other hosts. As I've mentioned many times I host longer-term guests for 1~4 months, usually about 3~4 guests per year with an 80+% occupancy rate.

Regarding SH criteria, personally I think that any host with less than 1 year hosting experience OR less than a total of 7 bookings in their entire hosting history OR less than a total of 150 nights in the past 365 days should not even be eligible. Hosting 10 bookings, each 1~2 night stays within a month and hosting 1 booking for 6 months is so different and no matter how good a job both hosts did I honestly do not think this level of experience would qualify either to be what people would consider a SH.

For cancellations, I think the 0 cancellations within the past 365 days is okay. What needs to be fixed is the definition of what is considered a CANCELATION. The "Guest requests that you cancel" option  has seriously got to go and there needs to be a clear distinction between "CANCEL" and "DECLINE (to host this guest because the guest has expressed their intention of breaking a house rule or it is clear they did not read the description)" and also cancelling IBs should not even be called or considered a 'cancel' but rather a 'decline'.

Instead of eliminating the outlier, the scores for "basic requirement(4.7)" and "SH requirement (4.8)" need to be adjusted (it's a 0.1 point difference !!!!!) along with how each star rating is defined. Right now only a 5 star review can be good. 4 stars or less is ALL very very BAD because it will pull our rating down below the 4.7 basic requirement. All things considered I think the basic requirement should be something like 4.0 and SH requirement 4.5.

This is all I can think of now...... off the top of my head 🙂