I am both an Airbnb host, and guest. I have written in the Community Forum about my frustration with the lack of clarity and direction provided by Airbnb to both hosts and guests in regards to the Airbnb review system. I just hosted another Airbnb host in my place, and we were discussing the issues we are coming up against. From talking to other hosts, and participating in and reading the Community Center Forum, it seems that a large number of hosts are having the same problems.
First of all is the issue of the refusal by Airbnb to remove or modify negative reviews by disgruntled guests who have broken the host's house rules, or who have caused property damage. If an extremely bad review is a complete anomaly for a host Airbnb should review the situation and contact the guest to clarify what their issues were. It is completely unfair for Airbnb to allow "trolls" to affect a host's overall ratings when previous reviews are good.
Secondly, when a guest gives less than a 5 stars in any of specific areas of their review (cleanliness, check-in, etc.) they have the option of leaving a comment as to why they chose to give that review. If Airbnb does in fact want to improve the "experience" for both hosts, and guests, a comment on a less than 5 star review should be obligatory. The host needs to know specifically what this guest found lacking in order to improve the situation for future guests. As it is, we are left in a vacuum of not knowing why we were rated down in a particular area. This would be extremely simple to do...if Airbnb has algorithms to continually modify our listing pages with statistics such as the percent of "recent" guests who gave 5 stars for cleanliness, they can certainly modify the guest review page to include obligatory comments.
Which brings up the issue of the stats that are now showing up on our listing pages now, and how are they generated? There was absolutely no notice from Airbnb that they were modifying my listing page with this information. What do they mean by "recent" guests? They provide no information to define who "recent" guests were. In general I get good reviews, but I had one guest who for some reason gave me 4 stars on check-in (it was a totally normal as usual check-in). No other guests in my 6 years of hosting have given me 4 stars for check-in. Yet, now it appears on my listing page that 90% of my "recent" guests thought check-in was good. Come on Airbnb...play fair...
Finally, Why doesn't Airbnb provide hosts with the names of all of the guests who will be staying. It is uncomfortable for both the guests and the hosts for the host to have to ask each additional guest their name when they are checking-in. If Airbnb wants to make the guest-host experience "great" (as they like to say), why are they not transparent in providing the host with the names all of the guests?
I really don't understand why Airbnb seems to be working against us hosts instead of with us. I thought the point was to provide a great experience for BOTH the guests and the hosts.