Ratings errors

[Adam766]

I recently hosted a guest for 6 nights. I purchased extra items the guest requested etc as one would do I guess. The reviews came back and even though she had given me compliments for: sparkling clean, outstanding hospitality, thoughtful touches, quick responses, amazing amenities, stylish space, I noticed that she had given two 4 star ratings for cleanliness and accuracy. I thought it seemed a bit odd given the compliments she left, including a private note saying "thank you for all the attention",  so I messaged her in private to ask if she had found something to be dirty to please let me know so that I could make that better for future guests. She responded with a one minute voice message saying that she was really sorry and had been traveling for quite some time when she completed the review and was very tired but that she was sure she had given all 5 stars and would be willing to do what she could to correct the issue if in fact she had clicked accidentally and it wasn't a mistake on behalf of AirBnb.

I contacted AirBnb about the issue but they seem to have lost all use of common sense regarding the issue and are being quite rigid. I have since snoozed my listing since I feel like the way they're handling this issue is not very nice for hosts. 

Any suggestions?

[Gerry-And-Rashid0]

@Adam766  Hi - the only person who can request to change their rating is the guest (for obvious reasons). Unfortunately you will have to ask your guest to follow this up

[Adam766]

Gerry, 

As I said the guest said she would be more than happy to do what is necessary to change the ratings but AirBnb assistance say that since it has gone public it is no longer possible to change it.

I'm quite unhappy about their rigidity on this matter...

[David3267]

had the same, unfortunately I think you are stuck with it!

[Ana1136]

@Adam766 Airbnb is not very likely to assist you or the guest in this request. I know it can be frustrating but once tge reviews are complete from both sides they will only remove a review if it is against their guidelines. 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Adam766 

if you/me/ any host asks his guest why he gave him less then 5* , every guest will ALWAYS say: oooh sorry... my finger slipped... I thought I gave you 5* ... I will do my best to correct it blah blah blah...

This is not true. They gave you less than 5* because they wanted to but have no explanation or reason (or they don't want to tell you) so they are lying.

[Ana1136]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 yes! I don't believe that either. But some people tend to back down when confronted so that's when the excuses tend to come. 

[Adam766]

normally I would agree with that 100%, however, I didn't ask them why they gave 4 stars I asked what I could do to improve in their opinion and they complimented sparkling clean which is odd to do that then vote 4 stars for cleanliness... I've had guests in the past who have told me no problems what was the reasoning behind the 4 stars and I fixed.

[James1662]

I have just had the unfortunate situation were a guest who was very happy with my property and who said as much in their comments, did make the error (or not as some are possibly suggesting through these threads) of applying 4stars instead of 5 to some very key points.

Without sounding like I am spinning a yarn because it has affected my rating let me say that I do believe very much in the concept of it being an honest platform.

However, I do think that the ability to amend an error on ratings - not to change guest comments - at least once would be a helpful thing. 

Airbnb are very strict on the 'once published' rule as I too have found out!

To be honest, I think we all know when we are being strung along and if a guest 'lies' then we can get over this. We can move on and look to maintain our standards for our next guest and then the next and so on.

My point is that in my case the error does mean that I will need a further 33 guest bookings all giving 5 stars for me to naturally accumulate a 5 star rating.

If the error was allowed to be corrected as could be agreed by both parties then this reduces to 13 guest bookings!

Now I am still very new to this but do look at the long term and would want 333 future bookings not just 33, but if a genuine error on the guest or host part has occurred, I think Airbnb should consider an amnesty for such scenarios.

i would be interested to hear thoughts on this.

Thanks for reading

James