Negative public review and private feed back?

[Jeanne249]

I am writing my first negative public review with private feed back to our recent guests, and want to clarify airbnb policy.

I have read many of the post on these forums to figure out the best way to handle this, with honesty and have come up with this.....

Public review…..

We suggest (guest names) might be better suited to staying in a hotel.  However, they were a friendly & kind couple, and if they wanted to book with us again, we would just be certain they have read and agree to all our house rules and other policies first.

Private feedback….. 

Our house rule of 10pm Quiet Time is especially important and we would prefer hosting guests who also appreciate that.  Late night food deliveries, use of shared spaces inappropriately, after 10pm was not acceptable for our listing.

It has been 3 days and they have not submitted a review for us yet, even though I reached out to them, and I suspect they may not, as they have a low rate of writing reviews of their past bookings.

So, my only question left is, should I wait out the 14 days, and submit it at the last minute?  When woud the exact cut off be?  If they checked out on a Monday at 11 am, would the deadline be 2 weeks later at 11am?

Also, if I submit it now, will BOTH the public review and private feedback be withheld until either they submit their review or the 14 days pass, or will they receive the private feeback immedietly?

I appreciate any advice or feedback!

[Lawrene0]

Both public and private feedback will be held back as you say, @Jeanne249 . There is no mechanism by which they get the private feedback first.  

I am sitting on a similar review right now for guests who are serial non-reviewers. Mine know they were awful guests - they lined up their cigarette butts and matches beneath my 'no smoking' sign, for instance, so it is pretty clear... I expect no review, but I don't want to spark their rebel spirits with a prompt. 

Someone may chime in with the exact minute cut-off. I don't trust the system, myself, so I just make it the morning of the last day. 

I would leave out the hotel sentence. I know it is beloved of many of us, but, really, the rest of your review does the trick. Start with "[guest names] were a friendly couple, but if they wanted..."

[Jeanne249]

Thank you!  I appreciate your explaining airbnb's policy on the feedback.  And I will leave out the hotel part too.

[Huma0]

@Lawrene0 

They left their cigarette butts and matches lined up under your no smoking sign? WT...? Who does that?

I have smoking areas here, but if any guests left butts and matches lined up and not in an ashtray, I would still find that offensive.

Would love to know how you're going to review them!

[Lawrene0]

They are repeat guests, @Huma0. They came once before, and were a little messy but nothing off-putting. Nothing that required calling out in the review. I did have to remind them privately that our place is leave-no-trace, so that means packing out trash. I expect they didn't like that and the butts were to show me what's what.  

As it sits now, my draft review says [guest names] lined up their cigarette butts and matches beneath our No Smoking sign. I can no longer recommend them.

What do you think?

[Huma0]

@Lawrene0 

I think that's perfect: succinct, factual, free of emotion and gets the message across.

Even as a host who allows smoking, that would put me off immediately due to their blatant lack of respect.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Jeanne249 

As a fellow host...... I think your review is a bit contradictory 🙂 and based on what you wrote, I doubt the guests are the type to even care about the fact that you found their late night food delivery problematic so I don't think the private review will matter.

If it were me, I'd tweak the public review so that it's something like this: Guests were friendly and nice. Unfortunately, our quiet time was not respected and use of shared spaces was inappropriate. Based on my experience, I would not recommend these guests for a shared home listing. 

Hope this helps~

[Jeanne249]

Thank you!  I really appreciate the way you tweaked the public review........the reason for my private feedback was to be more specific for them, because I don't think they would know what they did that was problematic, because they were clueless and absent minded or didn't bother to read the house rules or listing policies carefully.  I thought I could tell them specifically what they could do to be better, because I think the main reason someone would choose a shared space is for the affordability, so if they don't have the luxury of being able to stay in a  private, more expensive place, at least they can learn how to share a space in their price range better.  So I do still want to give private feedback.  Any other opinions on this?

[Jeanne249]

I wasn't going to get too deep into the details, but the behavior I felt was inappropriate for a shared space situation with a 10pm quiet time was....... they spent over an hour in the bathroom together, with the shower running and voices very loud in conversation, betwen 10 and midnight, even ending up with using the hair dryer at 11:30pm.

[Huma0]

@Jeanne249 

I have quiet hours after 11pm, but host many, many guests who do not stick to this and showers and hairdrying after this time is quite common amongst Asian guests (although late night food deliveries is not something I have had to deal with). I don't make a fuss about this unless it's seriously late, e.g. it has happened at 2 or 3am, because I would be stressed out all the time and Asian guests in particular can get quite offended if you confront them about anything.

So I have found it better to remind them of this rule during my house tour, especially about the hairdryer! Most will then make an effort to keep noise down. They are not breaking the house rules deliberately, but simply don't remember them.

That aside, I think you are right to give the private feedback. Perhaps they won't care, but if they were just being clueless and weren't aware of doing anything wrong, it might make them a bit more careful in the next place. It's worth a shot anyway.

[Jeanne249]

Thank you so much for your insight from your experience!

[Jeanne249]

The food deliveries were very disturbing.  They would get two separate each night between 10 and midnight, because I guess they wanted to eat different things.  The day they checked out, I got another delivery at 11:30pm that night, a delivery guy knocking on my door waking me up.  I suspect it was for them, but they forgot to updat their address in the app they were using for food deliveries.  They had moved on to another nearby city but it came to me by accident.

[Helen3]

Hello @Jeanne249 

I cannot tell you how unhelpful it is to us as hosts to have our fellow hosts use the ubiquitous comment 'We suggest (guest names) might be better suited to staying in a hotel".

If you guests didn't abide by your quiet time rules this is what we need to know.

Out of interest, did you remind your guests of your quiet time rules the first time they had late night takeaways or disturbed you? If you didn't then I don't think it's something you should mention as you didn't give them an opportunity to correct their behaviour.

[Jeanne249]

I ended up giving them a thumbs up, but dinged them 1 star on communication and 1 on following house rules, and the public comment was to be certain these guest have read and agreed to all house rules before confirming reservation.  I gave the guests more specifics in private feedback.

What I have learned is how important it is to make sure guests have read and agree to my house rules before confirming a reservation, and send a second separate message with house rules reminder, a half hour before check in.  In this case, because the guests also arrived early, unexpectedly, they never received the message I usually send before check in.  In the future, I will still send the message anyway, even if they already checked in early.

I think these text communications increase chances of compliance of rules, and I will be more diligent.

So many guests don't read the entire listing before booking.  That is out of my control.  So I will take the time to make sure house rules are known ahead, by sending a text asking them to read and agree.