Explaining 5 star ratings to guests

[TracieandJason0]

Hi everyone. I recently had a guest that was unhappy with their stay, never told me about the problems to which I had already designed my space to have solutions for and then gave me a 2 star review. I may now lose my superhost status but oh well. I've since learned superhost status is not that big a deal anyways and I should just be happy to have made some money since her reservation was 7 days long and she left the place with no damages 😊 I am expecting new guests soon and updating my house manual and thought I could share with you all what I added and would also like to ask if anyone has any constructive critcism as its a bit lengthy and wordy. Thanks! 

Credit to @Branka-and-Silvia0, who I used part of their response in the forum about Airbnb Answers: Protecting you from one-off bad reviews

[Robin4]

@Margy6

With @Kath9's permission I have worked on this page of hers and here is how it now appears in my house rules......

Guests have since commented that they are surprised and how it makes a mockery of the review process but they certainly would not want to contribute to any form of penalty for my hosting....and all my reviews since have been 5 star!

Cheers.......Rob

[Kath9]

@TracieandJason0, @Branka-and-Silvia0, I have written this on the first page of my guest manual which also has other important house information (e.g. guest access areas, kitchen use, checking out, etc. ). I ask guests when they check in to spend a few moments reading this page - it also shows the Wifi password so hopefully they are prompted to actually read it!

[Emilia42]

Keep in mind that guests are asked two separate questions: Step 1 is to give an overall star rating ("won't share your responses until after your host writes a review too") and Step 3 is to rate if better than expected ("host will only see answers that multiple guests have picked") According to Aribnb only the overall star rating will affect your Superhost status.

[Allison2]

I'm not sure the top part, showing the actual review, is necessary. The bottom half that shows the gap between how Airbnb presents the review to host & guest is more compelling way to get your point across.

I might suggest changing the wording in your last paragraph. "Reasonably unhappy" sounds strange to my ear. Perhaps you could say "We want to earn your 5-star rating. If you are unhappy with any aspect of your stay, please let me know so I have the opportunity to make it better."

[Ania-and-Greg0]

Im not sure what the logic here is with these new questions. Is ABB deliberatly trying to sabotage their own platform by having a ton of listings removed by suggesting that guests leave 3 stars if everything is as described? IMHO "overall" rating should be DIRECTLY derived from the other ratings' average

[Anne8883]

Airbnb should Explain what each stars mean in Airbnb systems on each page.

 Without explanations it would be so random can hurt the host’s rating and future guests.

[Martin-and-Ingrid0]

Before we were hosts, I gave them a 3 or 4 star rating or didn't bother to rate. I didn't know any better. After we became hosts I tried to change that but unfortunately that is not possible. Now I give 5 stars overall if it was as I expected. 

We sometimes get a 4 star rating on accuracy or location. It's because they can't find the house or it was not "right" on the website. (we have a very well written check in instructions with maps and photos). And just now we had a 4 star overall rating by a guest who complained about the cold after they checked out.........

I think I will put something you wrote in our manual as well. It is good to explain how it works with AirBnB, and to many 4 star ratings is not good for hosts.

Ingrid