why are we not getting reviews?

[Emma149]

Hi, I wondered if anyone could help please? We have been signed up with airbnb since January 2017 and have had many bookings now. We have a long term 5* rating on other sites with many customer comments yet despite bookings on airbnb we have had no reviews yet on here making us look really odd! Why would this happen? All guests have been really happy with us and some have booked again so we know we are ok. A few have even left us comments in our on site guest book. We always leave reviews for guests.
Frustratingly as we are new this year I am worried it may cause a loss in future bookings if we are unverified. What can we do?

[Linda108]

@Emma149  Air BNB has many email prompts for a guest to provide a review.  However, you can send a quick note through the Air BNB message system saying something like:  "I look forward to seeing your review of your experience at my place.  Your opinion is valued by me"  Many guests can forget that part of the bargain in using a shared home system.  They think it is like Yelp for a restaurant.  Your prompt would be helpful.   Also, if you see the guests before check-out, you can also mention how much it means to you that they would take time to leave a review.  Of course, it goes without saying that you are leaving honest reviews of your guests.

[Emma149]

Thankyou for replying, much appreciated. We have sent direct messages to a few too. This is why it is really disheartening! Is this common on airbnb for guests not to bother with reviews? We check with guests during their stay that all is ok and all have been happy. We leave positive reviews for them as we havent yet had a bad experience with any of the airbnb guests. You cant make people leave reviews and our trip advisor guests do leave them so we know we are doing ok.  The feedback is actually really important to us generally too 🙂 . 

[Linda108]

@Emma149  Most of the guests will leave reviews.  It will be interesting to see if your message to the guests result in reviews.  Of course the reviews must be posted within 14 days of check out.  I only remember one guest not leaving a review and when I was in contact with the guest she stated that since I had so many positive reviews she didn't think I needed another one.  My point is that guests have many different reasons to not leaving reviews.