Bad rating no reasons

[Alain311]

Hi everyone,  

I wanted to share with you my experience with one of my last guest, as I am so so so frustrated. She didn’t do anything bad but it's more her rating that came at a shock for me. I know there's nothing we can do about bad reviews but accept them and eventually leave a response. Although I wonder if responding might be more damaging or make a bad review more visible, whereas it could just disappear among others. 

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before that 1 night guest stay, I had these ratings (with 82 reviews) 

overall: 4.9* - cleanliness: 5* – accuracy:5* – communication:5* –check in: 5* - location: 4.8* - value 4.9* 

On overall, I had 80% of 5* and 20% of 4*(most 4 are when I started, I improved every details) (my worst was a 3* on communication and I take blame for it since it took me some time to reply to a previous guest). 

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The guest in question left me overall: 2* - cleanliness: 2* – accuracy:3* – communication:3* –check in: 3* - location: 4* - value 3* 

Not a huge drop since I only drop to 4.9 on all items except location wich remain at 4.8. All in all, I'm still with a high rating, but because it's my first 2* and because I just can't have explained it, it's beyond frustration. 

The review she left only mentioned "ok place for the price" and she didn’t describe the reason of her low rating next to the *. 

It's also very frustrating because the persons who stayed the night before and after left amazing reviews with 5* on all items. So I really can't understand what went wrong. 

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Between each guest, I deep clean, the bedroom, bathroom, shower, kitchen and living room, provide soft fresh and clean towels/bedlinens and I double check if everything is alright. Although I'm not a cleaning maniac I have high hygiene standards and because I also travel on airbnb I make sure my listing is how I would like to find one. 2 weeks ago, I made my spring cleaning, (as my mom was visiting from switzerland = high pressure) My place was spotless, the walls were even cleaned. She left the bedroom clean, didn’t use the rest of the apartment but the sink in the bathroom was left dirty with black make up.( not the end of the world to me, I can clan that) 

For accuracy my listing describes all the details and there are recent pictures of everything. I used everyone feedback to make it the most accurate possible. 

Commuinication, I replied to all her messages within the hour when it wasn't live answering. I even sent her a message with the exact address and details on how to find us, the website of a parking where she can leave her car and screen shots on how to access it. 

I asked her several time her estimate arrival time. For security reasons I don’t install a code or Bluetooth key, but I welcome my guest from 2pm, as I work from home I can. But I just need to know a 1 hour frame estimate arrival time, so I can do other things than just waiting. At 2.30 pm on check in day she finally said she would arrive within the hour. She arrived 2 hours after...but who's counting. 

At the moment of her arrival, I felt a bad vide coming from her, she was polite yet unfriendly and couldn't send a worse energy. As I believe anyone could have had a bad day or being tired of travelling, I welcomed her the same way as I welcome anyone, offered her a drink which she declined, showed her bedroom and left her space without insisting on human contact. 

She asked me about the street regulation for her car, I politely informed her that only local resident are allowed and she might receive a fine...gave her again the name of the cheap public parking where she can safely park, (as mentioned in a previous message and in my listing description), the bitc** face she gave me so ridiculous... Then she came back asking for an iron, my listing description doesn’t mention this as available but I happened to have just bought one that doesn’t work. So I said mine was broken. Her face was sooo decomposed... for an iron I never pretended to have or offer... (I will seriously buy another one fast to avoid this kind of faces) 

Then she complained that it was raining outside and she was "forced" to buy an umbrella in order to avoid becoming sick... She could have asked me one because that’s something I had... She was super pissed and I had no idea what to say so I just told her that the next day forecasts were better. I have teas available but I wasn’t feeling like offering it to someone treating me like a dog. I just stayed polite and left. Also, the weather is not really something I control, it's not raining inside and before traveling (by car) she has the right to check the weather forecasts.  

So, she was just staying one night and my next guest arrived the next morning at 9.30 just to leave her luggage before check-in. The current guest was awake,  I was able to hear her listing to loud videos. My next guest asked to quickly use the bathroom, when the current one tried to go, (using the bathrobe I provided). When I said it was busy she gave me again that bit*** look. 

At this moment I was just so happy that she would leave within a few hours and I could have then a wonderful and friendly guest. 

Later I asked her if she slept well, she just nodded a yes and didn’t even care talking, she left later not touching the breakfast I prepared for her. Gave me a cold "thanks for your hospitality" and left. 

I knew the review wouldn't be a 5*, so I decided to wait a few days before posting mine and receiving another better review (which was wonderful and 5*) 

I didn’t left a review saying how high maintenance she was, I just mentioned she left the bedroom clean, (but to me when I don’t say I recommend guest , it's my nice way to mean that I don't) 

And then I discovered the 2 stars! Yayyy 

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Writing this I realize my story might sound silly comparing to some nightmares people have experienced, I'm still a 4.9 but writing it helps getting over the frustration and I would still love your feedback with what I should or could do. i/m writing a lot for something very little in the end. I just need to vent a little 🙂

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I wanted to message her to ask what went wrong, what was not up to her standard, and what not clean, what was not communicated properly and what was not accurate in order to make a better experience for my next guests. 

I believe she rated me badly because she couldn’t park in the street, couldn't use an iron, ... the rain and an arriving guest used the (shared) bathroom of the apartment. Probably she didn’t like me for some reasons...which has never happened yet but there's a first to everything, I also wondered if it's because my husband and I are a same sex couple, or maybe because he's originally from a muslim country. I noticed she was coming from a very catholic and poor country, so I thought maybe she's not comfortable with that... but again our profile describes it.. This said I can't say if this is the reason I wont make any presumption... I just can't find any valid reasons...but it's clear that she didn’t read the listing description, maybe she didn't understood it was a single bedroom inside my apartment and not a private one. (I only have 1 airbnb guest room in my apartment btw) 

I also wrote airbnb to tell them how surprised I was with that rating and asked them if they would get in touch with her to ask directly what went wrong. Maybe it's better if it comes from a neutral person than me. I haven't received a response yet from airbnb support. 

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I still don’t know if I should leave a response to her review, it’s a very short one, besides the stars not the worst and it should disappear among the next ones. 

I will include in my welcome message something like " if anything is not up to your standards, not working or if you need anything please let me know and I'll be happy to help" (any suggestions guys?should I also say it when I meet the guests?) 

I also wonder if airbnb should not make it mandatory to explain in details what went wrong when leaving a rating bellow 4 (or even 5?) guests and hosts both have the possibility to do that, but its only optional, I'm wondering if a bad rating (both for hosts and guests) should maybe be motivated with a detailed explanation to be completed. What do you think? 

And lastly, should I leave a bad review, just because I have a bad vibe with a guest, even if nothing really bad happens during the stay? In her case when I was writing my review I still wondered if she might have just had a bad day for external cause than my place. I left 1* for communication, but the rest was 4 to 5, but I still clicked no on the would you recommend this guest question. I just recommended her to communicate earlier her ETA on the private box. But now I wonder if I should not just drop everything I can think off on the public reviews if I have someone similar. 

[Sarah977]

I do always look at reviews before accepting a booking, wouldn't accept someone with bad reviews, and see someone who has been an airbnb user for a year or two, but with no reviews, to be a red flag. But I also want to say that some of my most charming, respectful and appreciative guests have been totally new to airbnb and I think we should give them a chance. I don't use instant book, so always exchange a message or two with a guest prior to accepting, and get a read on them that way.

And with a new user, unless they were what you'd consider bad guests, if they just were messy or didn't understand that communicating responsibly about check-in time was important, in other words, something that's not a great big deal, I wouldn't give them a bad review, I'd try to educate a bit. So I might say "XXX was a non-demanding guest who followed house rules and was a very positive person with a great sense of humor. As she is new to airbnb, she may not realize what is expected in terms of cleaning up after herself in a shared listing. With a little more attention to cleanliness, XXX would be a guest I'd welcome back".  This gives a new user who falls down a bit an opportunity to improve without making her sound like someone no one would like to host.

[Brian-and-Heather0]

We completely understand your situation. We just got our first bad rating. The guest didn't communicate any of her frustrations. She and her husband even burnt toast in the house a couple times. Yet we got a 1 star rating for a messy house, bad communication, bad location (not sure what that's about since we are very clear that we are a good in-between place), and really bad everything. We've had a 4 star here or there, but we've always tried to be considerate and work with our guests, yet this, to use a kinder word, turd, left us a crappy review. I found out from one of our other guests that they also left a literal turd in the toilet that the other guest cleaned up. Frustrating because I left the review before the other guest told me and I was very kind in my review. 

[Stephane239]

Nha, some people are beyond toxic in their ratings and Airbnb is not doing anything remotely helpful to help hosts. My best advice would be to relist your things and hope for entirely new ratings. The problem really is with Airbnb. A good website, hopefully, the next one to compete against Airbnb, like Homeaway will have a measure to evaluate troll ratings and delete them.