@Huaai0 @Robin
This thread touches on a topic near and dear to my heart: the half-assed review system set up by AirBnB. But just, you should remember, no one reads reviews at AirBnB: there is no room full of dedicated people pouring over each and every one of your reviews, hosts or guests in a quest for fairness or even improving the quality of the experience – it’s all run by artificial intelligence (AI) and it’s called artificial intelligence for a reason, aye, therein lies the rub. No person at AirBnB reads a review unless there is a complaint.
What I enjoy about this thread is reading the discourse between the original poster, Huaai, and Robin. That is some **bleep** good discourse. Hats off to youse
While I don’t have a home sharing business (mine is a stand-alone unit), I would think that cleanliness would be the most important factor in hosting, either way. I offer a spotlessly clean unit for my accommodation, and I believe that approach is responsible so far for my success, the little success I’ve experienced.
My AirBnB is much cleaner than my own home: I love a mess. But travelers value a place that feels safe and comfortable, and nothing conveys that feeling like cleanliness.
The paragraph I quote below to me illustrates the problem described by Huaai
"While my place is immacurately clean, one guest would give the cleanliness 4 stars only because another guest did not keep the bathroom clean after use. I have announced in my House Mannual that I do clean the guest bathroom on a daily basis, but I'm UNABLE to clean it after everyone, so I would ask all guests to maintain the cleanliness. Most of my guests would clean the bathroom after their use, but one or two have been really really inconsiderate and untidy, leaving stains, water and fallen head and body hair everywhere. This has affected others' stay. It turns out that two previous guests leave feedback (one made it public and one in private) about the problematic cleanliness of the guest bathroom caused by his/her fellow guest."
Excuse me, but I think that a host offering accomadations of any kind has an obligation to insure the cleanlness of their accomadations. Anything short of that invites problems.
But what's that got to do with the half-assed AirBnB review system -- nothing!
My pet peeve on reviews is "LOCATION & VALUE." So subjective.
My AirBnB has been in it's location since about the 1880's. It's a **bleep** good location. I've been dinged a star because a guest may see a black person walking down the street, most likely a grad-student, and some people who aren't familiar with urban life, not used to seeing people of races different from their own see that as a negative. What that has to do with location is a stretch when you really think about it.
Another guest dinged me a star because she came to Rhode Island for the beaches: problem is there are no beaches in the city of Providence -- she had to drive 30 minutes to a beach every day. Bad location!
How can AirBnB control for that? Eliminate the category. Or rephrase the question into "Is the location where it was advertised to be? Was the map accurate? For LOCATION, it should be "buyer beware" because the location is fully disclosed by the adress and the map right after booking.
As for VALUE, a couple with a dog can stay at my 2 bed, 1000 sq ft, Frazier House, fully furnished and stocked with food, for about $150 per night. If you could find a hotel suite like that , how much would it cost per night? It's not even a feasible question for no hotel accomdations, similiar, outside of major world cities, exist.
The value of an AirBnB should be compared to the comparable available accommodations in the local motel/hotel industry.
After a guest leaves my AirBnB I send them a SAVED MESSAGE called, My AirBnB Review Primer from a Hosts Perspective.
In my primer I explain how the reviews are run by algorithmn and not read by people and how misleading the AirBnB guideines are for guests; for instance, implying that 4 Stars means GOOD, when AirBnB requires 4.8 stars for Super Host status.
Here's a sample of my primer:
Dear Guests,
We hope you enjoyed your stay at the Frazier House, and we wish you happy and safe travels where-ever your road may lead.
If you wish to leave a review of our accommodations, we encourage you to leave a fair review with AirBnb and we will in return leave you a fair review. We usually wait until notification that the guest has written a review before we write our review. If you do not wish to leave a review that is alright too. We usually write one anyway for good guests..
The review period lasts 14 days: after 14 days neither party can write a review. If only one party writes a review that review goes live after 14 days.
But before you decide on leaving a review or not, please read the brief primer I wrote explaining the review process from the host's perspective. And thanks for reading,
Well, it goes on from there in great detail on the review process and specifically covers my pet -peeves, Location and Value. It is not all that brief. But guests seem to enjoy reading it and taking it into consideration.
I find this approach to be most effective.
If anyone is interested in reading the entire lengthy primer, and adapting it to their own use, I'd be glad to share it. Simply pm me and I will send it to you in it's entirety for you to edit to your own personal specs.