"New to aribnb" guests leaving poor star ratings and what to do about it...

[Michael144]

Hi All,

I have not tried posting here, so I am going to and see if I can get some feedback and figure out what to do and if my ideas are good.

For context:

We are relatively new to hosting, though we have now gotten a superhost status, and I have 14 reviews and 18 completed trips (probably will be 17 reviews by the time they time out, seems almost everyone leaves a review).  We do not list our place all the time, and when we do we have almost always had bookings come in.

We have almost all 5 star reviews for everything.  The only reviews we seem to get that are not 5 stars across the board are from people who are new to airbnb, and leave positive comments, and seemed to be completely happy with the place, but decide to leave 4 star or 3 star reviews appearing to believe that is a positive review.

I do not know how airbnb explains the rating system to guests, I was a guest before I was a host and the thought of giving the host less than 5 stars did not cross my mind as the place was as I expected it to be.  I have started with my last few "new to airbnb" guests, sending the below message.  I am posting here to see what other hosts and guests might think?  I am not sure about this, but I thought at least a guest should know if they are going to rate us poorly with 3 or 4 stars that it is a problem for us and negative since they cannot change it after.  What do you think?

Hi (guest name),

I wanted to thank you for staying with us and tell you I hoped everything was great in your stay. I wanted to ask if you could leave us 5 stars for a general review, and to leave us 5 stars on each of the sub sections. If you do decide to give us any negative reviews (less than 5 stars) I hope you can tell us what we can do better and I promise we will make adjustments based on your feedback. You can leave us 5 stars and still tell us what we can do better and we will certainly take your advice, but leaving us less than 5 stars is encouraging people to avoid staying with us

I am asking because I noticed you are new to Airbnb and I wanted to tell you that on Airbnb anything below 5 stars is a negative review. I have not left you a review yet, and when I do I will give you 5 stars on everything because you were a great guest (anything less than 5 stars would be telling other hosts not to have you stay with them). You can change your review until I leave you one, so I wanted to give you a chance to update your review if you wanted to. Any section with 4 stars tells people you would not recommend staying with us, and a 3 star review is equal to warning people to stay away. I hope you are able to give us all 5 stars, it would be greatly appreciated. In general on Airbnb giving no review is the way to say things were less than perfect, but giving 4 stars is very negative and lets people know they should not stay with us.

I hope that helps, I am only sending this because we have had a few people new to airbnb leave us a 4 star review and later not understand that was a very negative rating. We have reached Super Host status on Airbnb, and for reference we would lose that rating if 2 of 10 people gave us a rating of anything less than 5 stars. We hate to have to ask and explain in regard to reviews, but every negative review we have gotten has been from someone who told us they loved staying with us and would recommend us, but still gave us 4 stars because they thought that was a positive review and this has hurt our ability to rent our place.

I hope you had a great stay and a great trip home! Please let us know if you would like to stay in Santa Monica again!

Thanks,

Michael ***

I am interested if anyone has any ideas or thoughts about this.  I am thinking of just starting to refuse bookings from new members, but I actually want to allow new members a chance to stay at a nice place if they seem reasonable, though I am thinking it might just not be worth it.  We have never gotten anything but 5 stars across the board from people with any previous experience and ratings.

I think many people who are new to airbnb think my home is a hotel, and when it is not they think that is some kind of failing even though it was exactly as described and is well taken care of etc.

I had responded to some guests in the review response the past, but I think that is probably not as helpful as I wish it would be, because future hosts do not see that unless they do some research.  I have taken to clicking on the hosts who have reviewed people before I approve a booking so I can read any responses the previous host has left to the guest review.  I am not sure how many people do this, but I think we should since we cannot know what a guest has said until we leave a review, and anything that has to do with the review process will not be visible other than in the response from the host.   Of course, for new people who have no reviews, this is not helpful at all.

I recently had one guest, that though he left me a good review and a good star rating seemed offended by the fact I sent him the message asking for the 5 stars and explaining what I think the reviews actually describe to the community.  I would rather have positive reviews and a negative private message, but honestly I am thinking maybe just refusing bookings from new members might be the way to go.

Do experienced hosts with nice places eventually just start refusing bookings from new members to avoid this drama?

Thanks for any comments or experience!

[Roz4]

The "no children" one gets me too. My place is not child friendly and the space is for max 2, but with the silly "kids under 2 stay free" deal people can instant book my place with a baby. I have gone to the effort of talking them out of it and getting airbnb to cancel in the past, but next week someone is coming and it's a slow time of year, so I'm running wth it. 

[Danlynn0]

hi Michael, I had same thing happen to me, I decide to be streamly careful about New airbnb user with no reviews.  I will Explain how the rating system works when you check them in,and let them know as a good host, we are driving to provide 5 star staying experience ,please let us know if you have any conern or suggestions that could help us to provide you 5 star staying experience.

[Shannon0]

Check out the new review questions for guests.

Here you will find your answer.

The questions are something like this:

Was the listing what you expected? 3 Stars

Was it a bit more than expected? 4 Stars

Was it much more than expected? 5 Stars

The questions are longer, it takes the guests longer

and the Airbnb review questions are leading our guests to think giving us 3 stars is good.

If they get what they paid for 3 stars.

Sigh

I have received fewer and fewer reviews under this new system.

Thank God.

The reviews I have received have been 3 stars from the new guests

and 5 from the seasoned travelers.

It seems up to us to educate guests that 3 stars is burning our businesses down.

I spoke with Air and the gent on the phone was shocked.

He suggested that if all hosts called and complained about how their "changes"

are effecting our businesses to our detriment, they would eventually change.

So, tweet, call, write do what you have to do if 3 Stars is not great for you.

I give 5 Stars if I get what I paid for

4 Stars if I get a bit less than I paid for

and 3 Stars if I was given much less than I thought I was paying for.

Perhaps someone got it backwards in translation?

[Cormac0]

@Michael144

I think it will depend on the person, some people may not take to kindly to being ask to give a favourable review or a lecture on how the star rating system works.

At this point, I take a laissez-faire view and don't interfere with the review process and let the guest do as they will, although Not leaving a review should not be allowed or a least it should be programmed out with a default setting as I out lined in a previous post.

Regards

Cormac

The Explorer's Club Krakow III

The Explorer's Club Krakow VIII

[Kate157]

For me personally, I have in the past when I first started politely asked guests as they ere leaving to leave me a review. I no longer find his necessary. I would never ask a guest to leave a five star review. I feel that is kind of weird. If I were a guest, I would resent getting such a message, as if I were not capable of judging the space on my own and needed instructions. Even first time guests are capable of reviewing a place fairly. Pandering for 5 star reviews would not be my method.

[Awin0]

The same thing has happened to me today.  I fully expected to get a 5* review from my last guests but received a 4.  My property was their first review.  It was such a dissapointment after they said they had a wonderful time. 

[Lara16]

I had the same experience from a first-time Airbnb guest who left tremendous comments, but gave me a 4.  It is the only 4 star review I have out of my total 11 reviews (I just listed rooms two months ago).

I had another first-time Airbnb guest this past week who said, after I wrote to provide thanks again and to ask how everything went, responded "it wasn't what I expected but it turned out ok in the end" included an emoji of a non smiling face.  So, I'm anticipating a 2-3 star review at best.

It is quite demoralizing, particularly after working so hard to provide 5-star service and accommodation.

[Penny156]

Don't leave a review and you wont suffer the indignity of receiving a bad one.

[Helen3]

Sorry @Penny156 that's not great advice.

As an established superhost you will know that guests can leave a review, whether you review them or not.

And they can give you a bad review whether you review them or not.

[Red5]

I haven't read all of the responses so apologize for any redundancy.

-It's way too long and it's unclear exactly what you're saying. You might be asking me for a 5 star and thats a red flag.

-It's condescending

Your idea seems good. Pretend I am your guest?

Don't rant at me. Don't tell me what I should or should not do. Do me a favor and explain to me how the rating works because I've never done this before. You are doing me a service by giving me some guidelines for an awkward thing. For extra credit, make me feel like I am now officially part of the community or something. 

 Good Luck!

[Dylan32]

@Michael144 A few notes to consider...

1. Length.

The guy who told you to write less was right. It's basic copywriting 101 that people are not going to read a wall of text unless it has some value for THEM, not you. Keep it super simple. (I know you like to read a lot, so I indulged myself here.)

2. Asking for 5s.

Asking people for a high rating is bad form in any customer service situation. You're supposed to promote unbiased feedback and welcome all kinds. You did a good job with your commitment to improve based on negative feedback, but you undermine the sentiment when, in the same breath, you're basically saying "if you don't give me a 5 then you're a hateful ingrate who doesn't understand how ratings work."

3. The perception that a 4 is bad.

Obviously, if people are leaving you 4s because they generally liked the service, it is not the case that everyone thinks 4 means you did a bad job. I think you need to get over this idea.

That said, there is a huge range of AirBnB experiences, and maybe your service really is a 3 or 4 because the people setting a bar for 5 are really kicking ass. I have had hosts greet me at the door with a bottle of wine and a QR code to a Google Maps itinerary of all the cool stuff in the area. That is the new 5 star check-in. I recently stayed in a place where I had to find the key taped to the back of a dirty door. This little surprise treasure hunt was a 2-star checkin. Someone doing the normal protocal is probably about a 3 or 4, and I am an AirBnB veteran.

PS: AirBnB does guide people in their rating system with a shifting verbiage field that assigns a "3" the rating "Okay." If your service is OK, not "good" or "great," that's what AirBnB recommends.

4. People who think an AirBnB should provide hotel-like services are delusional or somehow out of tune with the "spirit" of AirBnB.

AirBnB is the Uber of accommodations, and just like Uber, it is being held to a lot of the same standards because a) it's in the same commercial space and b) it has forced a lot of hotels to compete in price, and being competitive means they are your competition. People are entitled to look at what you provide vs a hotel and ask themselves if it's worth the money.

And AirBnB hosts have also profited from this, with AirBnBs that used to be $30-40 CAD now costing upwards of $70-80 CAD a night outside many downtown cores and more like $120-$150 downtown (higher if there is a festival or some other major attraction). Stop trying to act like you're not serving the same clients as the hotel crowd. AirBnB even has a business travel section, for Christ's sake.

[Ken119]

if your rating is bellow 4.0 stars airbnb deletes your account. So its very bad. 

[Rene-and-Zac0]

@The QR code is truly ‘Next Level’ thank you for helping me up my hosting to the next level. This is everything you need in an electronic guest book customized with relevant points and navigation. Love it!

 This is like spears and gunpowder difference. Thank you @Dylan37 

[Shannon0]

 @Rene-and-Zac0 @Dylan11I am very interested in the next level. Care to share about the QR code?

[Rene-and-Zac0]

@Shannon0  Imagine having the ability to direct your guest to virtual content you have about your listing? Send them to a webpage about your listing or video of the neighborhood.

Your cell phone scanner is a powerful tool that can read QR codes.

Say starting the BBQ is a bit of a task, make a Ytube video of the process and post the video to YouTube. It doesn't matter that it has no relevance to anyone but your guest.

Now you generate a QR code for this how to start the BBQ video.

You place the QR code in your guest book or right on the BBQ grill. When the guest scans the QR code, they are taken directly to your video of how to start the BBQ.

The QR code is like a bar code but it stores information or provides an internet link from scanning the QR code.

You have the QR code connect to your YouTube video on how to start the BBQ. 

Create a QR code with a link to local taxi service or restaurants or how to start the hot tub.

Have your internet password stored there or directions for starting the wood stove. A link to the satellite tv stations. Get the picture?

Make a virtual welcome video of your listing and when your guest scans the QR code at the front door, they get linked to your welcome video and instructions on how to unlock the door.

A QR code can also be used to identify a certain person or business.

So by loading up the QR code with info and links, then you can use the QR code to market your listing from a static flyer or post card.

You put the QR code on your flyers and then you don’t have to put the details like your phone number or address on the flyer itself.

The guest scans the QR code and gets the information or they get taken right to your booking page.

So now the post card mailer you send out at Christmas has a QR code link that is a walk thru video of your place. Much more powerful if done the video is done correctly. 

All of this information in a QR code just scanned by your guest’s phone and completely controlled by you. The guest just zaps all these codes for information.

You can generate content or use existing content, very powerful.

The best part about a QR code is it’s free. 

Good luck! 

‘You know it’s hard ou5 here for a Host’