Reviews

[Sheila22]

The problem with Airbnb is you don't get to easily see all the past reviews that guests have left.  This should be on a guest's profile but it is not!  You only see reviews left for them -- which is not as helpful actually.  As a host I give guests 5 start reviews easily -- I do not judge harshly if they are a little messy or if they are unfriendly/uncommunicative or if they ask lots of questions (people are all different and I'm open to any kind of guest -- I assume no one is trying to be a bad guest) -- I have to clean throughly between guests anyway so a little messy doesn't matter -- they should feel as at home as if in a hotel.  So, I try to be professional and fair-minded in how I leave reviews, but guests on the other hand can just be complainy people and for no good reason leave a terrible review -- I had one person give a 4/5 overall review state that everything was great but write "hosts should leave water bottles in the apartment" -- even though this is a major city with a ton of stores 2 blocks away (what do hotels leave for guests?) .  I've taken it upon myself to look up the past reviews that guests have left for hosts in order to protect myself from that type of guest.  This is not an easy task.  You need to look in the guest's profile at all reviews that were left for them, then click into the host's profile and then scroll through all the host's reviews until you find the one left by that guest.  You have to do this for every host they stayed with.  This process is a pain.  It's also not fool-proof because I have had guests who leave perfect written reviews but give only 4 stars, as though somehow their thought process is "I should only give 5 stars to the very best apartment in the entire city" -- I guess this is their phiolosphy, as since it wasn't a penthouse on Park Ave then it can't get 5 stars.  But this is a math issue that they are not grasping -- 4/5 stars is an 80% which is like getting a C on a test when you got everything correct.  So, if you are leaving a 4/5, there should be a real reason -- it shouldn't be 4/5 along with a glowing written review.  Anyway, I digress.  It would be very helpful if hosts can see the past reviews that a guest has left ON the guest's actual profile, NOT just the one's received by the guest.  I don't understand why Airbnb doesn't do this.  Airbnb is actually more guest-centric I think.  Oh, and the other annoying thing is this -- and Airbnb should do something about this as well.  If the guest had some kind of problem but did not ask the host about it during the stay and only voiced it after the stay,  this is completely inappropriate too.  Airbnb should probably not allow bad reviews if the person did not voice a concern during their stay.  This should give reason to strip the review from the host's status if you ask me.  I would handle anything for the guest (and there are many things Airbnb would hande too) if the guest communicated appropriately during their stay.  For example, if the internet is weak during the stay (not even host's fault usually), as  the host I would call the ISP and take care of it.  Don't neglect to say this in your stay and only say it in a review after you've checked-out!  Airbnb should have a policy "if you didn't tell Airbnb or the guest about a problem during the stay, the review does not stand" -- this would be fair!

[Roger17]

Hello Shelia - I agree with your idea that Airbnb should not post anything in guest's reviews concerning an issue that hosts were not made aware of during the actual stay.  Now if the shower doesn't have hot water or if a train runs past the bedroom 10 times a night and this is not called out in the listing, that's another issue.  Hosts should be given the opportunity to address any problems that happen during the visit.  Best regards

[Mary-Ann0]

Hi @Sheila22

I completely agree with everything you said, and I believe that Airbnb is totally guest-centric.

The review/star system is terribly unfair to hosts and we are at guest's mercy as to whether or not our endeavor with Airbnb will succeed or not.

Airbnb  assumes every guest in this world are reliable, stable, and fair minded people; and although most are like that, there are some who are not and even some who are downright mean.  It only takes one of these types to wreak havoc to your Airbnb host / review section and could annihilate all your hard work for months / years to come.

It is upsetting to me that Airbnb is so naïve about some of these types of guests and it is not such a rare occurrence either, I see this as a topic here all the time.  So in my opinion they are either ridiculously naïve about this, or they just don’t care about us hosts.

[Andrée2]

You might be overthinking this. A 4 star review is good. A 5 star is excellent. We are people, we don't have to be excellent all the time. My guests that do their own dishes, pull the sheets off the bed and generally tidy up after themselves are my 5 star guests. My guests that move my furniture around, leave the dishes wherever they may land or sticky spills on the floor are my 3- 4 star guests. You know it's your choice if you want to give most everyone a 5 star review although that does not go far to help out those of us that have to host your guests after you. Aren't you being "guest-centric" as opposed to "host-centric"? 

Besides, as you said yourself, everyone is different.

P.S. When I arrived in Paris it was quite late and I had been on two planes, a train and the Metro. The biggest blessing was that my host had left me a chilled bottle of water.

[Cynthia43]

For guest reviews ONLY the text section that hosts write is published. The thumbs up/down and star ratings are NOT used anywhere for ANYTHING, according to Airbnb phone support people. They told me that those sections of the guest review were simply created from day one to match the host reviews. I told them that they have been in business long enough now to change that because they don't use it, and it creates an UNBALANCED community when guests can do a full review, but the full host reviews are NOT also published. Airbnb definitely leans towards guests, but without hosts--there would be NO guests! I asked them to either start USING hosts' full reviews of guests, or to REMOVE those sections from the guest reviews. Support claimed that hosts can skip past the thumbs and star ratings and still write/submit the text review, but I haven't tried this yet. The ability to also see reviews guests have previously written about other hosts would be very telling and useful in deciding on whether to book them. So, now I ALWAYS check in with guests during their stay to create a record of "no complaints" in case I need to file a dispute after they check out, having experienced how Airbnb believes guests over hosts. I'm going to also write Support an email on this andt I encourage ALL hosts to contact them too. I don't believe that Airbnb staff read these Community posts.

[Bob-and-Kwan0]

I too have a guest  who has left a highly inaccurate review which I believe to be malicious. The review alleges there were german cockroaches in the cabin. this is simply not true (in Australia german cockroaches travel via urban sewerage systems - we are not on any urban system), was not mentioned to us at the time, and no other guest before or since has ever mentioned to us or in reviews about cockroaches.  the cabin is cleaned thoroughly between guests and I have never seen any cockroaches or other pests in the cabin ever. this guest - who was himself german - tried to haggle about the price and get a rebate immediately on arriving and was unhappy when I told him he would have to go back through airbnb if he had any pricing issues. His parents, who were travelling with him had limited english but were very complimentary about the premises as they were leavingand certainly did not mention anyconcerns. any suggestions on how do I deal with this review?

[Raffaele-and-Astrid0]

I agree that, If the Host can see the review from the guest to another host more easily, that could be a good help to understand the guest in advance.

but for all other matters, for me make no sense...

for example:
we always put a bottle of water on the room, and we make sure that is cold enough and refreshing.
we also put a cup full with candy and mini snacks, (like mars, snickers, ect)... and some many other little details around the house that make the guest confortable.

all this little things are the difference between 4 and 5 star experience, not matters where you are, but matters how you are prepared for them, especially for the arrival! 

I suggest to you all to listen a little bit more to the complaint and try to fix them for the next one, not always the guests are wrong or frustated.
note: not always means: that sometimes some of them are crazy enough, but not everyone. 😉

cheers Raf

[Elizabeth115]

Completely agree with you. I have just finished my second booking & my guest has left 4 star with a very positive comment... I think that new people may not understand how important a 5 star rating is to hosts. There are many different ratings scales used for many different things & there are some people who will often choose the top ranking (confident) but equally some people who will always opt for a mid-range ranking (non-commital). I would say that I am often one of the non-commital type of people when it comes to customer service type reviews but when it comes to reviewing a person/specific service I am more likely to use the top rating of any scale.

[Tim26]

I leave a pile of paper for my guests - stuff around the apartment etc.  On there, I also put a passage about how much different a 5 star rating is to a 4 star one.  It essentially (along with a slight apology for mentioning it!) asks them to leave me 5 unless there was something actually wrong, whereby lower than 5 is understandable.  I also leave copious contact details on there so that they have no real excuse to leave me anything less than 5 star if I wasnt expecting it!

I know it's cheeky, but until my Airbnb time, I was the guy who left 4 if everything was okay, 5 if it was outstanding.  Now I (and I encourage my guests to do the same) leave 5 unless there was anything bad to note.

[Aleksandra10]

Great tip! I will use it, thank you:-)

I think that it's so easy to give 4 stars when it was very good,

so explaining that a 5-star review is so different than 4 starts

is great:-)!

[Cynthia43]

When we text guests on check out day, we tell them to "let the communnity know they enjoyed their stay, and we appreciate 5 star reviews. 🙂 " We've found this to be pretty effective. I don't think it's typical for people (myself included) to give 5/5 ratings, but if you ask, it puts the idea in their heads.

[Alex115]

I really agree you should be able to easily see the reviews guests leave. I tend to always leave a positive review for guests even if they leave things a bit messy i let it slide and write a nice review. But what really gets to me is when i have a guests who really take many liberties and then turn around and leave me a 1 star review poor review. It makes me feel i wish i could have edited the review i left for them, which i assume isnt at all possible even if you contact airbnb directly.

But at least if future hosts could see the reviews guests do leave it would give a guide into their attitudes and they could see the host responses too.

Having hosted over 100 guests i find i get picky older guests who the slightest thing makes them very bitchy, but yet while they stay with me they never mention anything and seem to give me the impression they enjoyed their stay, however much i ask if everything is ok, they never tell me anything so i could improve it while they were here.

Sigh.

[Barbara170]

HI all,

I think we are all making great commentary. I had been receiving rave reviews for the most part from my guests...and I didn't notice until I was in another screen that some guests had given me 4 stars on cleanliness, accuracy and value.  Because I don't know who gave me these 4 stars...and I know it seems funny to complain about it...but it changes the statistics and can give others pause....plus I don't know the details of the issues they had to address them. I know one person said my unit was not close to Boston at all and i have never said it was close to Boston.  If that is the one that post a 4 star for accuracy....I don't think it's fair...but at least I know who it was.  I am curious too about the cleanliness 4 stars as I clean it from top to bottom between every guest so I don't know what they are seeing that perhaps I overlooked...but now people who want to book it can have this quesition. I am like others in this thread that give the guest the benefit of the doubt. I had a very needy guest and I in no way pointed that out in the review. They did leave the place tidy and clean---and I checked their reviews...one person had mentioned that they were untidy and maybe that's why they are tidier now?  Though I also noticed that most of the reviews of this one guest were very short and that actually said a lot to me too.  I think if a person does give 4 stars on an item...they should then have a small space where they address what they thought was the untidiness or the inaccuracy...that way it can be addressed....if it needs to be.  Otherwise I am left in the dark and spending too much time thinking about it!

[John213]

I have recently had two guests I did not much like for a number of reasons and I felt they were unhappy too. I have decided not to review them. However if they review me, does what they say appear publically although I will not review them. 

Thank you for your help.

John

[Ana7]

Yes, their review will be displayed publicly after 14 days even if you don't review them.