Resolution Center and Review Consequences

[Ryan52]

I am concerned about what opening a case in the Resolution Center could possibly do to a guest review.  We are very sensitive to making sure our guests have the best stay possible.  The hope is that a pleasant stay will result in a positive review.  That said, if we open up a case in the Resolution Center for something a guest broke (say a TV), will the guest still be allowed to review the stay?

No matter how positive their stay was, I am very concerned that me asking for money for damages will make them angry at me, resulting in a poor review.  I obviously want to avoid this.  Please let me know if anyone has experience in dealing with the Resolution Center and its affect on reviews.

Thanks,

Ryan

[Roger17]

Hi Ryan - if they actually stayed with you (and assuming they did) as they broke something.  Airbnb sends them an email after their checkout just as they sent one to you.  So they will be able to review you.  If you haven't already, I would email the guest to discuss the damage and give them the opportunity to offer to pay for it.  You need to email Airbnb as well to keep them in the loop. Hopefully the guest will be honest and offer to pay for the damage.  By chance if they are not, I would review them honestly. Maybe they were great guest and had the misforture of the accident so you can review accordingly.  If they trash you in their review, Airbnb should not post it as it should be obvious why they are upset.  Best of luck and best regards, Roger

[Ryan52]

Hi Roger,

Thanks for the reply.  The problem I have is that I have not been able to find any written procedure from AirBNB that outlines what AirBNB does about reviews that get posted by guests that are in the middle of resolving a Resolution Center request with a host.  I would sure hope that they wouldn't allow the guest review to post, but like I said, I have not seen a written stance from AirBNB on this.  Right now, all I have is "hope" that they won't allow the guest review to be posted to the hosts profile.

Ryan

[John247]

I'm in a very similar situation. I had a guest that stayed three nights. I got a call after the second night wondering how to inflate the air mattress since it had gotten a little soft. I explained to them how to do it and heard about it until after they checked out and they called to let me know that they weren't able to get it to inflate. Turns out that the heat had been turned on (It's the middle of summer) which turned on the baseboard heaters which melted a hole in the mattress. I called them to explain the situation and ask if they would be willing to split the cost since I would feel bad about making them pay for the whole thing (The mattress was about $40). I couldn't get a hold of them so I went ahead and created a resolution center request. A few days later I get a call from the guest who completely denied that any one of their party could have possibly turned on the thermostat. While I don't want to doubt what the guest says, I know that someone turned on the heat and it wasn't me and it wasn't the guest before them. (I texted them to see)

So here's the dilemna - do I accuse the guest of lying and continue to try and get the money from them through the resolution center? (which I'm sure would result in a bad review) Or do I just eat the cost of replacing the mattress to avoid confrontation and possibly a bad review. (Which ended up being about $65 since I had to get one right away for our next guests. )

At this point, the resolution center request is open, but the amount was declined by the guest. I now have the option to "Involve Airbnb", which I haven't done yet. 

What I learned from Airbnb:

I called airbnb to ask them about it and this is what I learned. 

1) A review cannot mention any active investigations - if it does, it can be removed by Airbnb. What exactly is meant by "mentioning" and "active investigation" wasn't that clear but the person on the phone made it sound like if they talk about the resolution center sitation in their review, then it could probably be taken down. 

2) Since reviews can only be made 14 days after the guest checks out, I asked if I could just wait till the 14 days have past and then involve Airbnb at that point. (This seems to be a potential work around to bad review situation) She checked with her manager and then told me that Resolution Center requests will automatically close if there is no activity on them for a certain period of time. If that happens, there is nothing you can do to continue the request. However, she didn't give me a specific time before it will close automatically. In my case, the guest denied the request on Sunday and it's now Friday and I have not yet involved Airbnb and the case is still open. The 14 day period ends on Monday, so I'm still debating if I should involve Airbnb yet or not. 

Anyways, for what it's worth - that's been my experience and I hope that you're able to get things worked out!

[Masih3]

A similar situation happened to me yesterday. My guest invited her friend and agreed to pay a fee for the extra guest. I asked for the extra fee through Airbnb but during her stay and after her stay she didn’t reply to any of my texts. I escalated the case to get my fee. I knew it might make her to give me a negative review. I talked to Airbnb staff and they assured me that after she post the review they would do something about it. I got my fee from Airbnb resolution centre and as expected she left me a bad review saying that I left a used toothbrush in the room and room wasn’t clean. However, Airbnb didn’t do anything about the review. I texted and called Airbnb several times and explained the situation but they can’t even get my first name right. They are very inefficient sometimes and they just give you the same response like a robot. It’s like I’m talking to Siri.