What is the Point of Rating if we Learn Nothing from it?

[BenkaandKeith0]

Please help us understand Airbnb Rating System and purpose.

1. The guest leaves happy (we meed them all in person, so after thousands of guests we have a pretty good feel for happy vs. unhappy ones).
2. The guest reviews us: "The perfect relaxing getaway! The tipi is very cool and they have everything you could possibly want for your stay. The tipi has electricity, heated blankets and a fireplace to make s’mores on. We will be back for sure!"


HOW CAN I IMPROVE AFTER THIS?
WHY THE OVERALL RATING HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE RATINGS OF OUR WORK?
Why we don't have in place better evaluation system? If there is any rating less then 5 stars the system/program should stop the reviewer and ask about the explanation. A hint. Idea. Anything. Or is useless if give us zero chance to learn, improve and serve the community better in the future.

[Laura2592]

@BenkaandKeith0the rating system is absurd and broken.

How can a host improve a location? Totally beyond a hosts control and a GUEST chooses where they stay. Inaccuracies (a train runs through the property every 15 mins, not disclosed) would be rated under "accuracy."

How can a host improve what the guest feels they should pay for a space? Value is useless. Wouldn't everyone just pay as little as possible if they could? Wouldn't we all rather stay places for free?

Overall satisfaction-- everything was a 5 but you get a 4. Huh? We have had guests do this because their expectation and mental fantasy of our space was different. One guest said "well, we stayed in a cottage that was in the middle of a farm field and we liked that better, so we gave you a 4. But everything was perfect otherwise." Okay. I never claimed my cottage was in the middle of a farm field.  I try to explain and show a LOT of pictures. This guest's mental image of their former stay somehow knocked mine down. There is nothing whatsoever to learn there except that people are mercurial, unpredictable and have expectations no host can possibly know or satisfy.

So the only solution, save fixing the rating system (which I don't think will happen anytime soon) is just to shrug off these crazy outliers and move on. I stopped looking after each review and stopped digging into what category each guest left what in. I do my absolute best and do not vary my protocol for any stay. At least I have a control, me, and the experimental group is really these random people who book. Maintaining a high score over time is my goal. Trying for 5s in each category every time is no longer something I waste energy on.

[Colleen253]

@Laura2592  "I stopped looking after each review and stopped digging into what category each guest left what in. I do my absolute best and do not vary my protocol for any stay. At least I have a control, me, and the experimental group is really these random people who book. Maintaining a high score over time is my goal. Trying for 5s in each category every time is no longer something I waste energy on."

Amen to that. I used to think the least Airbnb could do is require guests to leave written feedback to go along with anything less than 4 stars in any category, because rarely do guests do this on their own (if we are meant to improve, how are we to do that without feedback?) But then again, the times I have gotten feedback, it's been less than helpful. "Oh, we gave you 4 stars for 'check in' because we thought your check out  time was too early" (it's 11 by the way). That guest helped themselves to an extra hour at check out. 

[Dale711]

@BenkaandKeith0 

I totally agree with @Laura2592 

“ So the only solution, save fixing the rating systems” 

I hope the HAB members can look in to its and help us out.

 @Anna1403 , @Bez8,  @Antonella78, @Susan208, @Till-and-Jutta0,  @Nutth0, @Norma17, @Peter1, @Merrydith0, @Pascale144, @Omar202, @Pooja30, @Tiffany204, @Vinícius0, @Shinya0, @Ningyi0, @Samuel604 

Happy Hosting 

[BenkaandKeith0]

@Dale711 THANK YOU! We should've tagged, thanks for fixing it for us and for the rest of the community. We read all the responses, making us realize the situation is alarming. We've been hosting for over 7 years and no, we shouldn't just go along, quit monitoring ratings and passively hope for the better. Reading everything screams for the  company's immediate involvement and fixing the evaluation system in place.

1. Hosts used to have available excellent tools for monitoring the reviews and ratings with only 1 click (including one enabling us to predict the trend of rating in the future, based on ratings received.). Now we have to dig deep to find them. WHY? We would prefer spending more time caring for our guests instead of searching in bad tools provided to reach the vital info. WE NEED MONITORING TOOLS BEING USEFUL, EASILY ACCESSIBLE & MORE ADVANCED. Hence, those from 7 years would be perfect replacement of the current ones in use.

2. Our family had, as thousand of others, a problem with the "location" rating. We brought it to Airbnb's attention. They reworded their question and fixed the suffering of many hosts right away. In addition we included an aerial photo in our listing and fixed the problem for good. Our Location ratings improved dramatically but it took us 7 years to fix 4.9 rating into 5. WE DESERVE BETTER ALGORITHMS THAT WILL DO A BETTER JOB REFLECTING HOST'S EFFORTS.  Airbnb has no problem reducing Superhost standards and demands (overall use to be 5, then 4.9, now we are at 4.8, which we're certain will change again as soon as they're not happy with the number of Superhosts).  So when the look of the company is in question, they react fast. When we, little hosts try to look good, they are not that concerned...

3. OVERALL RATING SHOULD REFLECT AN AVERAGE OF THE RATINGS OF LOCATION, VALUE, ETC... Anything else does not make sense. Airbnb acknowledges the need to eliminate one-off reviews, but fails to fix the problem at large (article: Making reviews more fair for hosts, posted By Airbnb on Mar 7, 2019 and Updated Mar 5, 2020).

We're sure those are not the only changes needed, but would be fantastic seeing anything done to limit the frustration obviously affecting hosts who truly and deeply care.

[Sarah977]

@BenkaandKeith0  You can't learn anything from senseless things like Airbnb's rating system. 

Obviously if a host gets consistently low cleanliness ratings and reviews which mention the place wasn't clean, they need to learn from that and step up their cleaning regieme.

But the kind of thing you're talking about, as Laura says, try not to waste any time or brain cells on. People are fickle and they all have different standards and expectations. Plenty don't even understand how to rate properly. Hosts have had guests who said they loved the place and thoroughly enjoyed their stay leave a low accuracy rating, and when the host was shocked and dismayed and questioned the guest as to how it wasn't accurately described, the guest said it was much nicer than they expected from the photos!!!

You just can't fix stupid.

[Robin4]

@BenkaandKeith0 

Just part of dealing with Airbnb I am afraid Benka and Keith, it happens to all of us. There isn't a way to rationalise the Airbnb rating system, it defies logic!

Of my 485 reviews, 14 of them have been just like yours. These are just a few of those 14.....

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There is absolutely nothing I can learn from any of these reviews, there was nothing I did wrong, there is nothing I can improve on.  The guest gave me no hint of what to do better.....except that to infer, what is 5 star when broken into categories does not necessarily mean it was 5 star....... nothing is perfect!

I have always contended throughout my life that I have learned by my mistakes,  but Airbnb have turned that upside down. Since being with them I have discovered, doing everything as best I could and to the guests complete satisfaction was not good enough and I still have to learn something from it.

Cheers........Rob

[Sarah977]

@BenkaandKeith0  Another thing to be aware of is that while rating and reviewing a guest is a simple process- three things to rate them on, would you recommend, and the written review, the guest review form is pages long- by the time they get to the end of it, their attention span may be waning and they aren't paying close attention.

There are pages of questions for guests, with bizarrely worded questions like "Were you provided with 1 towel?" So if the guest got 3 towels, they are likely to mark that question No. Then Airbnb contacts the host accusing them of listing towels in the amenities when they don't provide any.

Guests have also fat fingered the star ratings, easy to do accidentally on a phone screen, without realizing, hitting a 4 or even lower, when they intended to hit 5.

Even if the guest calls CS, explaining the error, Airbnb won't change the rating.

It's madness.

[Lorna170]

@Sarah977   Is there a way to get a copy of the Guest Review Form you referred to?  I have not stayed as an AirBnB guest so I have no idea what the review is from the guest perspective. 

I got dropped a star on the overall rating because "the beds are old-fashioned"  which I took to mean that the guest did not like the brass or wooden headboards pictured on the listing, not that the beds were uncomfortable, lumpy or had scratchy sheets.

[Sarah977]

@Lorna170  I've never been a guest before, either. I'm just aware if it because another host who does travel as a guest posted about it and maybe even posted screenshots- maybe you can find it with a search here.

And I was staying with a friend who also hosts, after she had finished a stay as a guest. She called me over to look at her computer screen while she was filling out the review form, as she thought it ridiculous they had made it so long and asked so many questions that seemed designed to lead guests to criticize or tattletale.

[Robin4]

@Lorna170 

Here are the steps the guest has to go through during the review process.

This first screenshot is the first 6 page/steps of the review and is the part of the review the host is rated on.....

The blue boxes I have included to show how the guest becomes confused! They may initially be inclined in step one to give a high star rating but, step three tells them a 3 star is fine, it means the stay met their expectations! Airbnb will say that it is just coincidence, but guests don't see it that way and when it is pointed out to them some are genuinely surprised!

Once that part of the review has been completed the guest is hit with another 6 steps...

But you aren't allowed to escape at that point!

Step 13 is for Airbnb to tempt us to drum up some more business. The wording seems simple and straightforward  enough but, many posts here over the years have complained that no matter how well the procedure was followed, the rewards were unavailable because the criteria were not met in some way!

So Lorna this is what the guest has to go through to submit a review. It is simply 4 steps for the host........ but it is 12 steps for the guest. The host is not asked for any information about the guest, IE:

Did the guest communicate in a timely manner?

Did the guest respect the house rules?

Did the guest try to bring unregistered guests?

Did the guest damage anything?

Did the guest leave the property in a satisfactory state?

No Airbnb do not want to know a solitary thing about the guest, but they leave no stone un-turned when it comes to what the guest thought of the host......Why is that? 

Cheers........Rob

[Beth80]

@Robin4 @    I had no idea it was this involved!  I haven't been a guest in years. Makes you really appreciate the guests that do all this and leave a nice review and personal note.

[BenkaandKeith0]

Thank you @Robin4  for this insightful information. It makes me nauseous. Jet another proof how Airbnb is loosing it's scope and mainly WILLINGNESS to fix the problems. Looking how many IDENTICAL problems we are facing, how many hosts engaged into reading this post, still no solutions. Not even any attempts 😞

[BenkaandKeith0]

@Sarah977  We pointed out to Airbnb this problem after hearing complains from our guests. SLIDING scale over the stars, apparently what many rating guests have problems with. Hard to believe AIrbnb does not know about it but jet again, turning a blind eye to the problem for way too long 😞

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@BenkaandKeith0 The first guest in our second listing gave us 4 stars alongside a glowing review. Then covid struck and our average for that apartment is still low. I think some people, on principle, never give the highest rating possible which is somewhat annoying but not something to stress over.