All About Reviews! FAQs

[Laura2592]

There are SO many threads from hosts and guests who misunderstand reviews-- who can see them and when, when to leave one, if they should leave an honest one etc. Hope this clears up some misconceptions. Feel free to add your own FAQs!

1. When should I leave a review? Both guests and hosts have 14 days from check out to leave a review.

2. When does my review go public? Reviews are posted when BOTH are left (guest and host) or after 14 days if only one person leaves a review. 

3. Can someone see the review I wrote for them before they leave one? No. Again, both reviews have to be left before they are visible to the other party. Or 14 days must have elapsed from check out. 

4. If I leave a bad review, will the person see it and retaliate with their review? No, they can't see what you left before they write theirs or 14 days go by.

5. What happens if someone leaves me a bad review? You have the ability to respond to a review as a guest or a host. You can explain your side of the story. The best way to do this is to be calm, factual and brief. Your response is for your next guest or host so you want to appear as reasonable as possible. Sometimes its just not a great fit, so you can address whatever happened in your response. 

6. Will Airbnb remove a bad review? Probably not. It has to violate their policy (profanity, racial language, not relevant to the actual stay etc.) You can ask but removals are rare. 

7. What do the stars mean for guests? Guests are rated in 3 areas-- cleanliness, following rules and communication. There is a "star" score for each. Only hosts with Instant Book selected can see these-- guests and non-IB hosts cannot. These are private ratings left by hosts to score in those areas. They may help give you insight into the quality of the guest.

8. What does it mean when a guest has a great written review but low star scores? It probably means the host had some issues with the guest but didn't want to call them out publicly. 

9. What does it mean when I say I would not host again? What happens? Nothing immediately. The guest is not notified. But if the guest gets enough of these, it may block them from Instant Book and they have to send a request to a host, even if they have IB turned on. The rumor is that if you rate under 3s in all categories and select "would not host again" your listing no longer appears in that guest's search, but I do not know 100% if that is true. 

10. What is a good star score for a guest? Is it the same as for a host? There is no "superguest" program so there is no rating hierarchy for the top tier guests versus the poorer ones. Most hosts have a hard time leaving poor reviews or star scores, so it may be telling if a guest has a 4 or below in any category. A poor forward facing written review is rarer than a poor star score. So is one more accurate? No one knows!

11. I had a bad experience with a guest. Should I leave a bad review? You should leave an honest review, always. It doesn't have to be scathing (and its better if its not emotional) but the community works best if reviews are honest. You can choose to leave private feedback instead of public and a neutral review, low star scores and a non-committal review, etc. It really depends on the situation. Leaving good reviews for bad stays helps no one. And future hosts make decisions on whether or not to accept a guest based on reviews. 

[Helen427]

Excellent contribution and topic once again Thanks@Laura2592 for raising this positively, I'm sure it will assist many who pop in her looking for pointers.

@Sandra126 @Laurelle3 @Beth80 @Lutfi3 @Huma0 

[Lucy786]

Thank you @Laura2592  for the template and everyone else who contributed to the thread.  Incredibly helpful!  I've already adjusted my Guest Review Template and Scheduled Messages based on this thread content.  

[Badmoon0]

Hello!

My husband and I are new to hosting. We've had our 1st reservation and have 2 more in the up coming months. I was wondering about the star reviews. I was told we as hosts should try to get 5 start reviews. But in this thread it's referring to the guests getting stars. 

Do the guests give the host a star review?

And if so where can I see the star review? All I've seen is the comment they made but no star review

[Huma0]

@Badmoon0 

Although they are both based on a 1-5* system, guest ratings and host ratings are different.

Hosts can rate guests in three categories: cleanliness, observance of house rules and communication. Guests do not get to see the ratings and they do not show up on their profile but, when they book or request to book with a host etc. the host can see them.

Guests can rate hosts in five categories: cleanliness, communication, check in, accuracy, location and value. The average scores for these will show up on your listing.

They also give an overall score. This is what is considered for Superhost status. You need to consistently maintain a score of 4.8* or above over the past year to achieve Superhost. In theory, you need a 4.7* average or above as a minimum requirement, but there are plenty of listings on Airbnb that have lower scores than that. 

To see what stars the guest left you, you need to select 'insights' from the top menu on your hosting dashboard, then 'overall quality' on the left hand side menu. Here you will see the overall score the guest has left. Click on 'read more' and you'll see the breakdown of category ratings too.

The layout does seem to vary a bit sometimes depending on which country you are based in though, so it might not be 100% as I've described above.

[Jayes10]

Thanks @Laura2592 for the answers to all those FAQs!

One more I am unsure of please. 
If we as a host respond to the negative public review a guest left on our listing  (telling our side of the story) do they also have another chance to respond to our message publicly?
Rather not get into a back and forth with them but feel like we need to assure future guests.
Or it just us who have one chance to respond to him and then case closed?

[Huma0]

@Jayes10 

No, there is no back and forth. You get one response to the guest's review and they get one response to yours and then that's it.

[Jayes10]

Perfect. Thanks for the help!