Our 2nd review ever and it's devastating - help please

[Gillian235]

I have been so excited to get my unit up on air bnb after months of preparing and now my 2nd guest ever has left a scathing review. Im completely confused. Prior to and during her stay we were sending friendly texts back and forth. She asked if we had a heater (which we didn't as our climate is pretty warm and the unit stays comfortable but offered to bring one) but she came back with they would see how they went and let us know if they needed one. The last day of their 3 nights stay they sent a message saying they were really enjoying their stay and wanted to stay another night. It was sent late at night and I saw it the next morning and responded at 5.30am that we had another booking coming in (which would have been noted on the air bnb calendar too). I never heard back but her scathing review mentions I took 5 hours to respond. Is it normal to have to reply during the night? I never heard anything else after the request for the extra night, I just got the scathing review which mentions homeless people out the front (which we have never seen), noise that we have never heard and lighting issues in the unit complex we didn't know about. I'm not sure what to do here. I've messaged her back, but have yet to hear from her. Can anyone help? I feel devastated and thinking maybe we should pull the listing down and rent it privately instead.

[Sean433]

@Gillian235 

No place is perfect, perfection is impossible. Nonetheless, you did not deserve this. You should not be held accountable because she sent a message at night time during sleeping hours and you replied to it in the morning. Any reasonable person would understand that. As a host of multiple properties, I have never had a guest dock me for not replying at 2:00am. I also seriously doubt their are homeless people 15 feet from your home, otherwise, why would she want to extend.

Yes, she is clearly a miserable person but not the brightest one because she now has a lot of eyeballs on her from other hosts who are probably very angry at her behavior, myself included. Honestly, I think you need to be a little creative in your approach to get her to remove the review. I can tell you that such people are very few and far between but I think because you are just starting out, it is best to try your best to get it removed.

Perhaps send one last message and word it something like this.

"Dear Kandy,

I know you are a host and I am sure when you were starting out, you had made some mistakes and I am sure some of  your guests were understanding. I understand you wanted to extend your stay however I received your message late at night and I was asleep. Had I been awoke at this time, I would have replied to you.

I am sure as a host you do your best to please your guests and take pride in your home. It is for this reason, your guests have given you great reviews. I also do my best and hope that guests would highlight my efforts however your review has a really damaging effect on my ability to host other guests. I am sure as a host, you would not appreciate a guest doing the same to you and I would love to help bring you more business.

I have several friends and family members who saw your listings and think they are beautiful and would like to book them. If you can kindly ask airbnb to remove the review, I will be sure to tell my friends and family that you are a wonderful host and kindly asked airbnb to remove your review of me."

I am sure the above can be worded better, I just wrote it in a hurry but I think you can see where I am getting at.

[Gillian235]

@Sean433  - no not perfect - but nothing like she describes! I sent a pretty extensive reply immediately asking her to remove it that covers a lot of this and even appealed to her as a ‘host’. I didn’t think you could remove your own review once it was made?

[Sean433]

@Gillian235 

Yes you can ask to remove your own review. I recently had a guest leave me a 4 star review and simply said 7th person can sleep on the couch.

It was the oddest review I ever received. I wasn't so much upset at the 4 star but I was upset that she admitted to having a 7th guest when the home only has capacity for 6 people. I messaged her immediately and did not ask but told her to ask airbnb to remove it because 1. She is telling other guests that it is ok to have 7 guests in the home which it is not and 2. She is admitting to have snuck in an extra guest and that I would escalate it to airbnb if she did not rectify this.

She immediately called airbnb and asked them to remove the review.

As soon as they know their actions can have negative consequences on them, they will act accordingly.

In this case, you are indirectly suggesting that your friends may book her places and well, there is the review request in the end and who knows what will happen 😉

[Mark116]

@Gillian235  I don't think you should bring up anything about reviews in return for bookings, this is something airbnb will take in the worst possible way and may get you into trouble.

Just forget her, she's a jerk.  I read some of her reviews and there is a consistent minority of people who said she was unresponsive, failed to give them proper instructions, they couldn't reach her, so it is deeply ironic that as a guest she would ever bash someone for a 5 hour over night gap of response time.

[Gillian235]

Thanks @Mark116  - good advice 🙂

[Gillian235]

I just wanted to say a huge Thankyou to all of the people on here that helped me through a very tough review when I started last year. It’s taken me 20 reviews to get my rating up to super host status. It still doesn’t seem fair that one bad review took me 20 to make up for it, but I understand it won’t always be fair. After my scathing 1 star second review ever from a disgruntled guest where I couldn’t extend her stay I just about gave up. Everyone since has been 5 stars except for 1 other who gave me 4 stars when I didn’t move our cancelation policy (I’m learning!). We rent our place out via our own arts community outside of air bnb so although we have had more than 50 stays, only the air bnb bookings get reviews. You guys gave me hope and support when I needed it and I’m so grateful. Thankyou again and I hope you are all surviving Covid around the world. @Helen3 @Mark116 @Sean433 @East-Village0 @Kelly149