Discouragement

[Cadeara0]

Hi all,

I am a newer host and am getting really discouraged with it. I have tried making changes to the listing and home based off of each guests responses. I still can't seem to make people happy which is really discouraging to me as I'm trying to please guests and provide them with a comfortable place with everything they need and want. Their reviews are negatively affecting my listing and it will be 'blocked' by AirBnB soon as it is only getting 4 stars. I am getting really upset with people telling me how great it was to my face but then leaving a 2 star review. I am also upset with people stealing my things (little things) and then lying about it. I don't think it's worth turning them in over $2-$5 items, but its happened multiple times now and I'm seriously considering quitting hosting. Please help! Any tips and tricks would be appreciated. 

Thank you.

[Linda108]

To clarify, you don't have 50 guests review, you have 5, right?  Anyway, your room looks super clean and functional.  Anything you leave out for guests, might be taken thinking like a hotel guest, so just don't leave anything out.  If you spoke with the guest about missing items (which made you think they were lying), you might have created a bad vibe.

It might be a good idea to emphasize that the bathroom is shared with other guests, even though it is clear in your listing.  Picture captions are a good way to do that.

One indicator of guest reaction is how short, although positive, your reviews are. I also have a private room and from the very beginning I was blessed with fairly detailed positive reviews.  I think it was related to my interacting with the guests and being a part of their travel planning.  Who are your guests?  What are they looking for?  Can you spend time with them or do they seem to want to be left alone?

Ratings are important and as a new host, you could share that you are always looking for feedback to improve and you seek 5 rating since that is required by Air BNB.  If the guests like you, they would be inclined to help you be successful.  Good luck!

[Cadeara0]

Thank you for your help. To clarify, some of the things that guests have taken which seem to be super random have included a keychain attached to the key for their bedroom door and a large refillable soap bottle which if I were a guest, I wouldn’t think those would be freebies for staying. 😕 I try to interact with guests whenever I can but they mostly seem to stay in their room despite me trying to tell them all my home has to offer. I don’t want them to feel like they need to stay trapped in their room and I try to offer things people may enjoy (like TV, games, books.) My work schedule also often has me leaving very early in the morning and coming home kinda late so sometimes I don’t see guests at all. I did make a printed sheet they have in their rooms to remind them of wi-fi info and amenities. 

[Ann489]

@Cadeara0   I'm a  little confused here; you say that you are a "newer" host--yet you have 50 reviews from guests, dating back to 2015?   

@

[Cadeara0]

Well compared to others I feel newer. I haven’t hosted in two years and this is now the first time I’m co-hosting and hosting a place with a dog. I’ve been doing what I was as a host back then but something clearly isn’t working out with the reviews I’m getting. I’ve made changes people have suggested but it still doesn’t seem to be enough as some guests love it while others aren’t happy at all. There’s no middle ground. I’ve gone above and  beyond for some, providing things they’ve asked for that aren’t in the listing at all and then they still give a 2-3 star. 

[Mark116]

@Cadeara0  I must be missing something, the reviews I have seen are all positive.  Did you get any private feedback from the people who left 2 and 3 star reviews?  Depending on how recent, you can always send  a follow up message and thank them for staying and ask them for any suggestions they have on how to improve....a lot of people won't answer, but some will.  It's hard to give suggestions because I don't have any sense of what your guests are reacting negatively to.  

[Sarah977]

@Cadeara0  From my reading here on the forum, many hosts who have been doing this for a long time say that the quality of guests, their understanding of what a home-share or Airbnb is, as compared with booking a hotel, and their sense of entitlement and leaving unwarranted bad reviews has changed in the last couple of years. This seems to co-incide with Airbnb's customer service and policy shift to expecting hosts to be accepting any and all bookings and favoring the guest's representation of things over the host, listing thousands of hotel rooms and property managed places with hundreds of listings. There was also a perception in the early days that Airbnb was about a sharing economy, living like a local, meeting new people, broadening one's horizons, whereas now many guests seem to equate it with being simply a cheaper alternative to a hotel or a "party pad".

[Sarah977]

@Cadeara0  Do you use Instant Book, or do you pre-screen your guests? Asking the right questions of guests when they request to book, knowing how to recognize "red flag" guests from their communication or lack therof, can prevent many inappropriate guests from booking your place.

If you do use Instant Book, do you have requirements in place for guests to be able to book?

Also, review your listing description and find ways to gear it towards the type of guests you want. I do this and get consistently good guests who are a good fit for my listing (feel free to read through my listing to get an idea of how to do this).

And don't run around trying to please demanding or entitled guests- those types will never be happy and always leave bad reviews, so save your special efforts for the guests who are polite, friendly and appreciative. At the risk of dating myself, people used to consider instilling basic manners, i.e. Please and Thank you so much, to be part of their role as parents. Sometimes it seems like those human niceties, which were developed to facilitate civilized human interaction, have gone the way of the dodo.

And a tip- remove the large refillable bottles and use small refillable ones. Easy enough for you to top up between guests since you're a home-share host. Same for toilet paper, etc- just leave enough for what you think is reasonable for the length of stay and say to just ask you if for some reason they need more. 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Cadeara0 

As I can see you have 5* overal and in all categories except 4,5* for location. And great reviews except the one from the light sleeper so I don't understand ...

[Cadeara0]

The public reviews may say nice things, but their star reviews didn’t represent that and anything they had suggestions on was via private feedback. Maybe that’s why you can’t see them...?