Guests review history

Lisa98
Level 1
Fort Worth, TX

Guests review history

Can I see past reviews for a guest requesting to book before I accept their reservation?

11 Replies 11
Matt26
Level 10
Toronto, Canada

@Lisa98

 

You sure can! When you get a request, click on the message thread from your inbox.  On the left you'll see the guest's name and their profile picture. Click on the picture and you'll be taken to the guest's 'homepage', from there you'll see any reviews from other hosts. If you don't see any, its because the guest hasn't been reviewed. No reviews means one of two things: the guest is new to the site or the guest did not receive a review from previous hosts. The later is generally cause for concern since mosts hosts always give positive reviews and occasionally some give no review when the guest was terrible. To understand which is the case with this guest, just ask the question. If they're new and haven't used ABNB before you'll probably want to ask more questions about their stay so you feel comfortable hosting them.

 

Good luck!

 

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Laura159
Level 2
Colorado, United States

Hi I am about to become a host for the first time.  I am kind of wanting to only rent to people who have been positively reviewed by other hosts.  Any opinions about this, whether this would be an appropriate thing to state outright, or better to just decline requests where there are no reviews? Thanks for any thoughts. 

@Laura159, our general (but unstated) policy is to decline most requests unless the requestor has 2-3 *recent* positive reviews. When we decline for that reason, we do tell the requestor why we're declining, Most of them understand graciously; the ones who don't, well, they're the very guests we're trying to avoid. We do make exceptions occasionally if the requestor has multiple verifications and seems to communicate promptly, politely, and intelligently. I have other friends with AirBnB listings who make NO exceptions, however, having been burned in the past.

 

Good luck!

Laura159
Level 2
Colorado, United States

Thank you, that is very helpful, I'm going to follow this advice.

Hi Lisa,

We've been hosting for nearly two years and I just learned to be thorough about this a couple of weeks ago. You are way ahead of the curve. Of course, all the information is there - most important is to check the reviews they give to the other hosts they've had before you.

Today, after thinking about it for a few days, I wrote a rare response to a guest who left a review that looked great but was crappy. She marked us down on the star rating which dropped our overall percentage and she did so because she didn't like the firmness of the bed in our master bedroom. 

The bed is new. Maybe 10 people have slept in it before her, and we agonized over the firmness, make, model etc. before settling on that particular bed. I would have let it slide but she marked us down on overall experience because she didn't like the bed.

Anyway, writing a response allowed me to reassure future guests that this criticism was entirely subjective and I realized, if I were a host, looking at the reviews she had left before deciding to host her, I would have been better aware of the particular pitfalls she brings with her and we might have avoided a bad review. Basically, she needed to be reminded that Airbnb is not a hotel, etc etc and if I am honest with myself, she is the kind of guest I know we can never please. There is a certain kind of persnickety woman whom I just rub the wrong way and no matter what I do, they will never be happy in my house.

I mentioned the fact that she gave us a lot of praise and a low star rating so that other hosts can see her for what she is and be forewarned. 

So now, from now on, I am going to look not only at the reviews a potential guest has on their profile but also at the reviews they have left at the places where they've stayed. What they say about others, they are likely to say about me too.

I'm suggesting we all start doing that.

If you get one of those folks who says all the right things in their review and then slams you in the star ratings, please leave a response that will draw the attention of other hosts and give them a heads-up.

As hosts, we all tend to be very generous in our reviews of guests. I would never be unkind or hurtful to someone in a review. They have to be very unpleasant for us to even say they weren't an ideal fit.  As long as they don't actually break anything or smoke on the property, we always give them the benefit of the doubt - and there have even been times when they have caused damage and we've let it go. (Hudson's Bay Blanket that now needs its edge restitched, broken glasses - things like that.)

Hosts  don't know until we get that yellow flag for a crappy review, that these people are not going to be as gracious as we are to them. A response allows us to draw attention to their true colors. I think it's a helpful tool.

 

Just my two bits.

@Stephanie-And-Steven0, I haven't bothered to go beyond checking out a guest's reviews from hosts, but based on your write-up, I'll start looking at the guest-written reviews of places they've stayed. Not to say that some places don't deserve realistically frank or even bad comments, but I think a picture can be assembled in aggregate. Thanks.

I'm sitting in the second bedroom of the suite the bad guest I cited in my last post rented - the one who called our bed, "squishy" and marked us down on overall experience?

The little jerk left black tire marks on an antique white bedspread in a room she was supposedly not using. 

I wish there was a way to communicate to other hosts about the little "surprises" bad guests hide when they check out. All too often, it is only when we're doing a deep clean or setting up for new guests who are arriving three or four days later that we find things like dirty dishes shoved under the bed in the spare room or this - tire tracks, on one of our beds. 

Really, some people aren't fit to stay in a dog house.

@Stephanie-And-Steven0 -- Tire marks! Was she parking her car in the spare room or just practicing her indoor cycling skills?

When they arrived we saw she had her bike in the back seat of their car.

My husband told her she could feel free to keep her bike in the common hallway if she didn't want to leave it in the car. 

She said - "oh no no, it's fine in the car, it's just a cheap bike anyway." So it never occurred to me that she might be planning to do anything different. We have guests in that suite on Saturday, I haven't been feeling 100 per cent, so I hadn't gotten around to cleaning it and I was in there today, glanced down and saw two black tire marks running across the white bedspread. 

I guess she decided it wasn't fine after all.

We do our homework on guests. We're both former journalists so we do a quick google search and check out another few tools to see who they are. Sometimes we tailor the suite to their apparent tastes, since we like to collect books and art that's easily done and fun. 

 

It wasn't the only lie she told us - not by a long shot. 

 

I wonder if anyone else gets these guests; we get bookings made by women in their late 20's/early 30's as a "surprise" for their (sometimes) reluctant boyfriends. Over the span of our time communicating with them and observing them when we meet and after, it seems pretty apparent that these little surprise weekends are planned in order to prompt a committment.

 

When the committment doesn't materialize, he goes away happy and usually pretty oblivious, and she leaves a bad, nit-picking review.

 

We ran into them at our local co-op and I could tell from the way he greeted us and was so happy to see us and she - well, did not, that they were probably in the middle of one of those weekends but I brushed it off and decided to give her a good review with no reservations or warning signs for other hosts. I regret that now.  We care a lot about our reviews, I know we shouldn't but we do.

 

Anyhow, we had one right after them that was so glowing it brought tears to my eyes - I'm still trying out how to craft an equally nice response. 

 

For every crappy, mean-spirited guest there are three or four who are so great they make the whole experience a treat. I hope we make it clear how great they are in our review of them.

Dawn775
Level 2
New York, NY

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You can definitely find  out who review your 4 star! 
I just spent hours looking for it! 
if you’re on the phone app 

on the bottom you will see INSIGHT 

Then click STATs on top! 
then you will see your overall reviews and click that! By clicking that you will see all the people that reviews you and click on every single one of them until to find the corporate. You will see how they rated every single steps!

 

Like this girl voted my place 4 start for location which she knew where she was booking from! Also it’s the best location btw. It’s not my fault when they were hear all the popular places were close due to the new rise of Covid! but the area is very popular and hot place to be other times! 

And she voted 4 star for check in! Which check in is very easy! It’s a lock box! They broke my key in the door of the flat  and even broke my door lock which we had to come fix super early as they checking in very late at night!  I should of giving them a 4 star for even broken my door! I didn’t but I’m the one with the bad rating for their terrible care in check in! Next time I won’t be so nice! No one else had a problem before! 

@Dawn775  Don't stress about it. As the saying goes, you can't fix stupid. It's the overall rating that shows on your listing that really counts and I don't think many prospective guests drill that deep to look at the individual ratings, plus they see those as an average- they don't see what individual guests rated.

 

Yes, there are guests who will mark you down for their own ineptitude and lack of attention- they'll ignore the check-in info you sent, then stand out on the street trying to get ahold of you for the door code, and think that means they should mark you down for a smooth check-in.

 

The only 4* location rating I've ever gotten was from a guest who sent me more questions when she booked than any other guest ever. A numbered list of 20 questions, to be exact. Some of them were reasonable, but some were absurd, like "For business and entrepreneur hubs, where do you suggest?" I don't even know what she was talking about- this is a little Mexican fishing village turned beach tourist trap- I don't know where she thought she was coming to.  

 

And she was well aware, as are all my guests, that my place is in the countryside, a 20 minute walk from town and the beach. It is mentioned in my listing info and reiterated by message with guests before I accept their booking request. 

 

I wish Airbnb had something in red lettering at the top of the guest review form that said, "Ratings given are a reflection of the accommodation itself and your dealings with the host. They are not meant to reflect any issues you encountered due to your failure to read the listing or check-in information provided, or difficulties stemming from your own actions."