This recently happened to a friend of mine and I am wondering what off-site hosts thinks of the self check-in protocol...
The friend hosts a building that has 3 apartments. The entrance to the building is opened via a special key that guests obtain from a lock box. Once they obtain the key, they open the building door which automatically locks once closed (nobody can enter building without this special key). Then the guest goes upstairs and enters a code in a keypad lock to enter their apartment. The only person that can possibly enter the building itself are the other guests staying at the other 2 apartments, the cleaner and the host. Each apartment door has its own unique door code so nobody can mistakenly enter into someone else's apartment.
So the guest writes a really bad review saying that the lock to the apartment door is broken (she thought the building key door also opens the apartment door- wrong!) and that although there is a keypad lock on the apartment door, anyone can enter her apartment.
The host asked for my advice on this one- I told her to just kindly message the guest and clarify that nobody can enter except for herself and the cleaner and to ask her to contact airbnb to remove the review due to the misunderstanding and her review being innacurate.
The guest replied that the cleaner may not be honest and should not have access to the apartment and that they should have been given physical keys instead. At that point, I became very upset on behalf of the host because:
1) Every hotel or airbnb I have ever been to always allows the possibility for the cleaner or host to enter because a physical key usually has a few copies (how else would they clean)
2) The description clearly states the door has a keypad entrance.
3) Virtually every off-site host these days either have a keypad entrance or lock box or will eventually move in that direction as this is the trend.
So, my question is, how would you resolve this issue because her reputation looks really bad now due to this review and the guest seems to not understand that in all cases in all accommodations, there is always a potential for the host or the cleaner to enter. Whether it be with keys or with a keypad.
And my second question is, how would you avoid this from happening again? I myself have a self check-in with keyless entry at my listings and fortunately, I have never had a nutcase write a negative review about it. On the contrary, every loves it and always provides a 5/5 rating for check-in.
Or is this just a crazy person who doesn't understand that all accommodations are vulnerable to a dishonest cleaner to enter and since this is the case, she should not be staying in any hotel or airbnb unless the host lives on site and does not hire a cleaner but cleans herself.