Guest made a mistake with review rating - wants to change - AirBNB screws our rating. Help!

[William227]

We have a 5-star rating in a small vacation town in  Canada where 5-star ratings count.  We had a great guest leave us 5-star ratings in all of the "attribute" ratings, and left a great written review. And then she accidentally left a1-star overall review. We contacted AirBNB within 12 hours after the review was written and we were told that AirBNB would remove the review from our account because it was obviously a mistake, and to contact the guest to ask to update the rating within 48 hours. We were told by a supervisor in an email that if AirBNB removes the review, it will "not affect our rating", which is 5 stars.  The guest was horrified and is trying to work with AirBNB to update to a 5-star review. 

Now, AirBNB says that while they can remove the review, the 1-star will count in over overall rating! The guest made a mistake, admits it and wants to correct it. I keep reading in these boards that AirBNB is generally hostile towards hosts. But in this situation, it doesn't even make sense for guests because AirBNB will intentionally count into the overall rating count reviews they admit themselves are faulty. Yelp, for example, always lets users update their reviews, and suppressed reviews not deemed reliable are NOT counted in the overall rating. That is fair for all parties. What the hell, AirBNB?

Does anyone have any suggestions how to fix this? It just seems preposterous. 

(p.s.: we've only been an AirBNB host for 5 months)

[Dede0]

AirBnB's programming (the code that runs everything) is seriously broken, inflexible, and horrible. The reason they can't adjust to fix your issue is that they're locked in by their own bad programming. Their system has almost ZERO flexibility. I could cite a couple of dozen examples, but... I've pointed them out to AirBnB over the past 3 years and they have NEVER done anything about anything, or even responded.

If I didn't make decent money via their service, they would be the #1 company that I'd like to see dry up and go away. They're the worst. All of their pretense at good relations is pure fake BS. As an example of their BS, yesterday I received an email whose subject line was "New amenity requirements, pricing options, and more".

The new "pricing options" turned out NOT to be anything new, but an insulting explanation of pricing options that have been in place for over 2 years. Not one thing was new.

I used to rail only against their coding team (the programming team). But now I'll add their communications team as well. This company is 90% smoke and mirrors.

[William227]

Thanks, Dede. That is helpful to know. We're new to this, and it just doesn't even seem rational from their perspective. They knowingly keep overall ratings that they know are not accurate reflections in the overall rating. How does that help their guests?! 

[Pete28]

They can cleary delete a review and rating - if it's against their content guidelines. I got one removed a while back.

[Rebecca181]

@William227 @Dede0 Airbnb CAN remove the bad review AND make it so the review (in your case, the one star) does NOT count in the overall scoring / rating. I know because I received an obviously malicious, retaliatory review; called Airbnb C/S; and had a very competent rep who was able to remove the review. The review had dropped my overall percentage down a full point (from 95 to 94%). When it was removed, it immediately went back up to 95%. So why this is not being done for you makes absolutely no sense to me at all. Is it possible for you to try and reach somebody else there who has the ability to make the changes you need? Or run it ty Airbnb Twitter, given I have heard that they are very helpful and knowledgeable there?

I do know of hosts here who, as a last resort, sought legal help and the review was removed, but I do not know the details as to how they went about this. In the past, when we needed only an 80% 5 star average to maintain Super Host status, a situation like this might not be so damaging to our business. But with the new 4.8 requirement being rolled out in July, just one bad review can torpedo our stats to the point of even being delisted (from what I understand, to remain on the platform we need to maintain a 4.7 average). So your situation presents as serious indeed, unless you are currently at 5.0 / 100% and can take this kind of a hit without sinking. 

[William227]

Thanks, Rebecca. The user has been trying to contact AirBNB, but it is a long weekend in Canada and she is on the road. We helpfully received an email from AirBNB this morning warning us that, because of the 1-star review, we are now in the bottom 10% of hosts worldwide! We dropped from 5.0 to 4.3 because of this mistake. We have had one supervisor tell us our 5.0 rating would go back up, and another supervisor tell us we're screwed and there is nothing she can do. She said she felt our pain because she only searches for 5.0 rated houses. Thanks for the understanding. 

I'll try Twitter. And keep on the guest to try from her end. She is pretty upset. 

[Rebecca181]

@William227 Please keep us posted. To go from the top to the bottom 10% and receive nagging warnings / reprimands when it was all due to an accident must be terribly difficult for you. I do hope you get this resolved. This is why it would be very helpful if, as one host suggested here in the community, a pop-up appeared that says "Are you sure you want to give this host one star?" before the final submission is made. Accidents like this could be prevented by doing this. 

[William227]

Thanks, Rebecca. My wife and I were incredibly frustrated to receive the warning email from AirBNB rubbing it in that we're now in the 10%. I think your suggestion "Are you sure you want to give a 1 star" is a great idea that benefits everyone. AirBNB had to spend a lot of resources working through this mistake, so it is in their interest, as well. 

[Demétrio1]

This is so true!!!!! Airbnb coding is know for being horrible

[Dvora6]

agreed with the first response, 100%

[Letti0]

@William227 Has the guest actually called AirBnB? If not she is the one that needs to call. She may get it changed.

[William227]

Hi Letitia. She has reached out to them and will try again today. Since it is a long weekend in Canada, she is on the road at the moment. 

[Robin4]

@Letti0

Quite right......if the host calls and complains they will get nowhere! If the guest who placed the review calls wanting to correct their obvious mistake...it can be corrected.

That is a good observation!

As a host, I even had one of my reviews corrected once!

Cheers.....Rob

[Debbie59]

You probably can’t change the mistake but you get to respond to the review where you can tell about the mistake. If guest read the review they can see all 5 stars in their rating does not equal one overall!

[William227]

Thanks, Debbie and everyone else. The guest finally contacted AirBNB and expressed her frustration and anxiety with the situation. AirBNB did the right thing and honored the guest's wishes and removed the review completely. So all's well that ends well. 

This is my first experience with this community. I'm blown away how supportive and helpful everyone is and how timely the responses were. Thanks, all!