Call for more attention to composing guest reviews!!!

[Huaai0]

Hi all,

Although I have seen posts providing tips about composing and evaluating guest reviews here and there on the forum, I still would like to start a thread to call for more attention to composing guest reviews!

The reason is because I have seen too many positive guest reviews, some of which may not truthfully reflect the guest's personlaity, lifestyle, manners and behaviours. General and vague reviews may mislead other hosts, let alone inaccurate reviews.

- Everyone has an issue in some sense. Instead of saying he or she is a joy to host, you should identify what strikes you most about this guest's personality, lifestyle, manners and behaviours. For example, if this guest is super friendly, clean and tidy, but tends to take over your kitchen by cooking too much, this can be a non- issue to some hosts, but can be an issue to some others. So, it would be great if you could state it in your review for the sake of other hosts. 

- If the guest is not terrible and not wonderful either, it is more important to be as descriptive as possible, because we want to know who is going to enter our open house! Many guests I guess would fall into this category and we gotta be more careful about what we put in the review. 

- Be specific in your review so we can determine if we can handle this guest's issue or not. For example, I see that one of my guests' revious review indicates this group is "diasppointing." How? In what areas? As a matter of fact, when I'm hosting him, he IS disappointing! I only regret 1) that I did not track his previous reviews further 2) did not ask the previous host to elaborate what about his guest disappointed him. 

Truly important.

[Huaai0]

@Huma0

Thanks, fashion is not my cup of tea lol, though sometimes I have pick a home decor mag to get some ideas. You could be an interior designer, not just a fashion mag editor 🙂

[Huma0]

@Huaai0 to be honest, I more often read interiors magazines in my spare time than fashion magazines, but who wants to spend their free time doing what they already do at work anyway? Also, sometimes I do the sets for my own shoots as well.

[Huma0]

@Huaai0 PS this is sometimes what I feel like when I am getting the rooms ready for guests. I kept the feather duster from that shoot and have used it a lot in the house!

[Huaai0]

@Huma0

Good idea. I do have a duster but I use Dyson only. Sometimes duster works better than Dyson.

[Huaai0]

@Huma0

Huma,

Since both you and I host multiple guests, I want to share this with you--

I just came back home from a dinner where I met a guy who had been hosting for a couple of years. He has a monster house with 9 rooms for guests, and it seems he has lots of negative experiences. The good thing is, with his rates and the 9 rooms, he earns more than $30K/month, but his life has been ruined by all those terrible guests. He says that it is not a good idea to host multiple guests for the following reasons--

1) The more you host, the more bad guests you will encounter. He has encountered quite a few weirdos, including one self-claimed "musician" who disassembled his funiture, then assembled them, and then disassembled them again, and then assemble them again... He had no idea of what he wanted until he talked to him and found out he was mentally challenged. He was not short of terrible stories, which just made me drop my jaw.

2) One bad guest may ruin your whole business. He told me that some guests checked in very late, like after midnight, and when they rang the door bell, all the other guests were disturbed. Some guests were not happy about it and left him a negative review.

3) Sometimes a guest may sneak into another guest's room to steal their belongings. He said this had happened a couple of times and he had to call the police. He also added that the presence of police offers in his premises was not good, it largely ruined his reputation to his guests. Guests may think, oh my God, the cops are here, what kind of place is it? Is it safe at all?

I think that though the capacity of my house can accomodate up to 4 guests, I will keep it to a maximum of 2. I don't want to see what this guy describes happing in my house. Terrible. 

[Huaai0]

@Huma0

Oh you have Home Sense in London? Cool. i will be in London in December. is you place close to the British Museum?

[Huma0]

@Huaai0 yes we do, but not anywhere central. We have a couple of branches out in the suburbs of North West London. It's a bit of a trek, but a pilgrimage I do with my mum from time to time! We always end up buying a bunch of stuff we don't need.

No, my place is not especially close to the British Museum, alhtough many of my guests visit it. I'm pretty conveniently located though for getting around by underground quickly and easily to most central places/major tourist attractions.

[Huaai0]

@Huma0

Cool, my friend and I will be having our 17 hour layover in London. We wonder how to spend those hours. By the way, do you have two twin beds in your room? Or one king/queen sized bed? thanks

[Huma0]

@Huaai0 sorry I just saw your post. No, I'm afraid I don't have twin beds in any of my rooms. I have a double bed in one and a king size bed in another. I've taken the third room off for now as I have a long term housemate in there now, but that also has a double bed.

[Huma0]

@Huaai0 we also have TK Maxx in many places in London, which is owned by the same company. I'm guessing you have that too? There is one close to me, but because I'm quite central, it's a small one. Also, it doesn't have a very big homeware department but focues more on fashion. I prefer Homesense because I like to spend money on lots of useless but decorative clobber for my house!

[Huaai0]

@Huma0

I used to buy lots of useless things till one day I saw a cremation, right in front of me. and I realized no matter how many things you buy, you own, they won't go with you to the after life. 

[Kiersi0]

I have been reading all of the replies to this thread hoping to find some good tips, and I think 'reading between the lines' is a really key one.

Recently we had a very odd guest, who was interviewing at the same company that my husband works for. He shared a very niche hobby with us, and so when he found out about it (we were downstairs in our hobby room, where "downstairs" is pretty much our private area, and I had been showing him where the laundry room was) he came into our hobby room and talked nonstop to us. He seemed almost obsessed with my husband as they are both ex-military and share this hobby.

This wouldn't have been terrible as I know a lot of lonely, socially awkward people, and I don't mind being social... except he also would say the strangest things that I hesitate to call 'racist,' but are definitely bordering it. e.g. "Immigrants are terrible drivers," that kind of thing. He clearly respected my husband a lot more than me, and would glaze out or ignore me when I spoke. It was just the weirdest interaction because it wasn't something you could call out or put your finger on. Something I wouldn't know how to summarize in a review--and how do you say something to someone INTERVIEWING for a job at your husband's company? Who he may have to work with in the future?

I remembered reading this man's reviews from other hosts and realized I had completely missed the "between the lines" text from other hosts. Things that were like... "so-and-so and his friends were cleanly." The only nice thing they could say was that he was cleanly. And being ex-military, of course he was cleanly.

I had no idea how to write my review so I did more or less the same thing--guest communicated well (see: TALKATIVE), guest was clean (see: makes weird and uncomfortable remarks about other people)... It was a very complicated situation that I don't want to relive. My husband was happy when he was gone.

[Huaai0]

@Kiersi0

Airbnb admin should have a better idea. We need to bring this to their attention!

[Zed0]

Airbnb need to let us all see the star ratings for a start!
Also, Hosts should be able to read other Host reviews of ALL their guests, so we can compare and see what they normally put.  Like with mine;  If I don't use the words "recommend to other hosts", then it means it was not perfect.

[Huaai0]

@Zed0

Exactly! Some hosts call all guests "wonderful." For me, a guest has to be real wonderful for me to call wonderful. I feel a little guilty that I called one of my previous guests, who was wonderful to many hosts, "above-average." For me, the term "above average" means better than at least 50% of the population, and it is a generous term. But for many others who say "wonderful" so easily and so lightly, it could mean "not so good."

The same goes with teachers. I don't give A's easily, because to get an A, the student has to be real outstanding, but some teachers just give everyone an A. In the educational system, British teachers (esp Scottish ones) usually give less A's than their American counterparts.