Giving a bad review to a guest

[Sam397]

I get the whole being honest with your reviews of guest thing. But the bottom line is that the guest reviews of the host will make or break a host. Good reviews will put your listing closer to the front of the line in terms of when your listing comes up in searches,  your bookings will go up because of people reading them,  plus they give a host the feeling of a job well done . Bad reviews will do the exact opposite. That said, currently AirbnB allows the guest to read the host review before submitting his own. By doing this a host will only be hurting himself if he gives an honest review. If a host gives a guest a bad review the guest is going to give the host a bad review, even if that means lying, its how they are going to defend themselves. For example say a host says in their review that a guest left the place trashed,  didn't throw their garbage in the garbage, spills that wasn't cleaned and allowed to dry. The guest will read this and will want to defend themselves, so they put in their review how the place was dirty when they got there, and that their was stuff dried up on the counter and how they couldn't throw their garbage out because the garbage can was full. Even though they were lying people wont know that. They wont know that the guest review  came after they read yours. Its going to look like the guest was in the right. And if you dispute it in the response you get, it will at best be a "he said she said" situation but you could come as being combative and petty. 

So by you giving that guest a bad review, the guest at worst has to spend a few more minutes searching because he got turned down by a host.  But you the host will get a bad review, and as I am sure everyone knows 1 bad review can be devastating, especially if your new and dont have many reviews. It will cause your rating to go down a lot and will be a difficult long process to bring that rating back up.  In my first four reviews as a host I received  2 five star,  a 4 star and a 3 star reviews. My rating went down to a  4.3, since then I have received 17 straight 5 star reviews and my rating just went up to a 4.9 on the last one. Also that 1 bad review will never be taken down so future guest will be able to read it as long as your hosting.  

I know this was a long post and was difficult to get to the end but I think I have shown that under the current system AirBnB has that giving a guest a bad review as noble as it may be  can only end bad for the host. 

[Elizabeth429]

As far as I am aware, neither the host nor the guest can read either review until both reviews are written.

[Sam397]

Really,  I was under the impression the guest were allowed to read the review first. I will have to see if I can find out one way or another. Thank you for saying something.

[Letti0]

@SamThe reviews are blind. Neither the guest nor the host can see a review until they both do one or 14 days has past and only the host or guest gave a review. So do other hosts a favor and give an honest review of all your guests. 

[Sam397]

Apparently I was misinformed and I apologize for my post. Thank you for letting me know. I tried to remove it but cant.

[Letti0]

@Sam0 Don't worry about removing it. It may help some of the other hosts who didn't know this also. 

[Neill-and-Michele0]

I have heard a strategy that is used by Airbnb property managers is that you can send your honest and negative review of the guest minutes before the expiration and the guest will not have time to respond or write a review. Is this correct? 

[Ocean50]

Correct but I think they didn't explain you everything, neither host or guest can see the review after they submit their review. The property manages send the last minutes review for 2 reasons:

First you wait for the notification that the guest just submit his/her review and you have a hint that it is most likely a bad review, you can chose to not submit your review. That way after review period ends, you can then reply to that review and doesn't look like you are going back on your words.

Second If you don't see any notification of guest review, you can left them a bad review at last minutes without worrying about what they might say in their review.

[Sarah977]

@Neill-and-Michele0  Plenty of hosts use this strategy, not just property managers. The downsid is if the guest was really bad and is booking more places before your review posts, other hosts who get booking requests from that guest won't have the benefit of your review.

But if you get a notification that the guest has already left a review, there's no point in waiting to submit one yourself.

@Ocean50 "First you wait for the notification that the guest just submit his/her review and you have a hint that it is most likely a bad review, you can chose to not submit your review. That way after review period ends, you can then reply to that review and doesn't look like you are going back on your words."

With all due respect, I totally disagree and think that's terrible advice. If a host is pretty sure a guest is going to leave a bad review, it's almost always the case that the guest has been a bad guest in some respect. So if the host writes an honest review, there are no words to "go back on".