Guests with no reviews

[Laura2592]

I know this has come up in other threads but wondering how you feel about this as a host.

We have taken a fair number of these guests and are considering changing our acceptance strategy. Either they seem not to understand what Airbnb is (in the case of some of our older guests who are booking for the first time ever) or they leave the place as you would a hotel (wet towels on the floor and mess). In either case they don't read the listing or instructions in the check-in email or house guide. Sometimes they are the partner or friend of a seasoned guest who has a poor rating and is also coming to stay. 

Ratings are all over the map too. These are our guests who most often seem to think that all fives is a perfect score and the stay wasn't "perfect" so they need to find something to mark us down in. 

We have had great experiences with guests who are first timers but increasingly there are issues. How do you handle these guests? 

[John5097]

@Laura2592 
I've had three no review guest in past 24 hours be a handful. 

First one messaged me  wanting to change reservation to dates that were already booked by another guest, asking me to "check" with the other guest to see if I could bump them. Probably got that advice from one of the support ambassadors is my guess. That was a challenge to sort out. 

The nights she canceled and opened up I got this inquiry: 

"Good Morning,
I’m interested in renting the home in May I have an event but I need the exact address before booking to know how far it is from my event is in Marriott Hotel"

I declined this one. 

Then another booked four nights and canceled within 2 hours. Probably worried about her personal info being secure, which more often a concern with new guest and its more awkward when they don't communicate well.  

I don't think screening the first one would have helped at all. She was a great communicator and provided a lot of personal info, then wanted me to bump someone else and change her reservation. The second thought my listing was a home when its an apartment and wanted the exact address, so would rather just avoid ones like that. I even blocked off those dates so no one else she knows can book them for her. I'll open them back up in a few days.  

Not sure it would be worth all the extra screening as most guest require minimal communication, but would at least screen out the ones with complete misunderstanding. I'm doing it to make as much income as possible to pay back the cost for renovations then I'm in a flood zone so have to cover flood cost as well. You might also run the risk of less guest demand which would lead to worse guest, but each situation is different. For me it would be a lot of extra work screening guest. I don't even try to educate them on the reviews or ask for reviews. I guess if my reviews started dropping I would want more communication to sort out whatever guest didn't understand. I suppose there are lot of different approaches that would work. Evreryone is different. 

[Anonymous]

@John5097 I don't think screening needs to be a lot of extra work - if taking two minutes to ask a few questions spares you the drama of a problem guest later, it's more than worthwhile. But if you're talking about Inquiries rather than Requests, that's a different story - these are unlikely to convert to bookings and aren't worth taking seriously. 

If a request is unreasonable, it helps to be able to simply say NO, Ute style, without wasting energy on it. And asking you to bump other guests to accommodate a date change is about as unreasonable as it guests. 

[John5097]

@Anonymous I haven't had any extra drama. I accept 100% of bookings, so if I cut that to 67%  I would have excluded a lot of great guest for no reason at all. Like I said everyone is different, and reducing occupancy is not my objective now. 

The topic was guest with no reviews, so I mentioned the three I just happened to deal with over 24 hours. I think they were a good example of some the issues with new guest. 

Of course I would never ask any guest if they could change their reservation to accommodate another guest. Its just a typical challenging situation for host to educate new guest, which is the topic of the conversation. 

I often get inquiries that turn into great guest. I included that example because if a host uses Instant Book but changed the settings for guest to have reviews to IB, host is essentially requiring an inquiry  to accompany a reservation request. That guest would have been a good example of requiring new guest with no reviews to inquire first. 

But for my listing now screening guest and asking questions would create more problems that my existing approach for my particular listing. That could change, though, as some of us are contemplating changes. 

I could also start screening all guest, as you suggested, but so far it isn't necessary, but do appreciate you mentioning your experience with it. 

I commented here to provide my perspective and was clear that I understand and respect that each listing and host is different. 

If hosting doesn't work out there is always support ambassador. 

[Jayme23]

@Anonymous Can you share a few of the questions you ask initially for the guest with no reviews yet have been on AiBnb for multiple years?

[Anonymous]

@Jayme23  I don't make any distinctions based on how many years the profile says the guest has been on Airbnb. That really doesn't mean anything of any value.

The questions I asked were pretty specific to the type of listing I had - which was a guestroom in a shared home (obviously, pre-Covid). At one point I took a great tip from a fellow contributor in this forum and planted an Easter Egg in the listing text, asking that people use a certain word in their Requests to show that they'd actually read everything important. I used the name of my dog, because it was really important to me that people knew and understood they were booking a room in a shared home with a dog. Any request that didn't mention my dog's name, I asked if they understood the nature of the listing and how much they liked dogs, and insisted that they take another close look at the text before moving forward. On many of those occasions, people realized that they had a totally wrong idea of what kind of listing they were trying to book, so I just gave them suggestions for how to better use the Search tool and moved on.

You have a different kind of listing, so naturally you'll have different questions. Making the logical assumption that Airbnb won't back you up if something goes horribly wrong, what would you want to know about a guest before handing them the keys to your home?

[Jayme23]

This is a really great idea. Thanks very much for all of your suggestions. 

[Pete69]

@John5097

Does Airbnb penalize you for declining a guest? If so how? Perhaps you eventually lose your Superhost status if you decline a certain number of inquiries during a certain time period? And, if so, is it just requests to book or do they include declined inquiries that ask if you want to pre-approve?

[Sarah977]

@Pete69  There is never a need to decline an Inquiry. There is no requirement to click on pre-approve or decline. All you have to do with an Inquiry is message back.

Declining lowers Acceptance rate, so hosts shouldn't waste declines on inquiries. Requests do require a decision within 24 hours, if you can't get the guest to withdraw the request, so best to save any declines you have to make for requests.

Acceptance rate isn't counted in Superhost stats, but apparently if you do a lot of declines, you get Airbnb bot warnings.

[John5097]

@Pete69 

No risk of losing super host status for declining inquiries. I've only declined two inquiries so far, so try keep that to a minimum. If you use IB, if you get a request to book, you have to accept or decline in 24 hours. Once again, no risk of losing SH status, but one help article I read said to try and minimize declining bookings as much as possible. (There are a few scenarios guest can request to book when host is using Instant book.) 

If you use Instant Book you are allowed 3 cancelations per year. However, the Super Host requirement only allows 1% of cancelations. So you do the math right? I haven't canceled any and saving those for major red flag risk. And if a host starts canceling reservations they should consider changing bookings settings. 

As @Laura2592 mentioned this could be more of a trend for influx of new guest, which is why I mentioned three very recent ones, and took an interest in this topic. 

Above all host need to modify their settings and policy for their own listing. I do like as much flexibility in the bookings process as possible. If I rented a whole house I would screening guest much more closely, for example. Always be proactive and change settings to address any issues. 

I declined that one inquiry because she had just signed up, demanded my address, said she had an event, and thought my guest apartment was a whole home. My listing is extremely popular so a few declines won't matter at all. I was also really busy and stressed trying to rescue a wild animal, a fox, at the time so just didn't have time to deal with inquiry where guest had my listing confused with something else and risk of party.

 

[John5097]

Airbnb could have a "quick guide" for new guest. Just like a listing it needs to be concise. its hurting everyone when new guest don't understand the basics. For example they should know that host only have their name and emergency phone number. To reach out to host with any questions. Host are limited in what they can and can't do. Don't inquire about dates that aren't available on the calendar. Check in and check out are very important to follow. There are probably just a handful the most common misunderstanding by new guest that Airbnb could address better. But most of the help topics are cluttered with PR garbage, so both host and CS have to fieled the same questions that could have been resolved with a quick guide. 

[Anthony608]

I use Instant Book and offer one day overnight bookings, so I have seen my fair share of guests with no reviews and also, many of these are local accounts as well.  While some have been legitimate bookings, I am beginning to think a lot of these bookings are some type of scam, or people who are up to something illicit. 

Most of the time the reservation request will come in late in the afternoon, often with very little information.  The account will have no reviews and be registered in a city or town only about 15 to 20 minutes away, if not in my very same city.  Dealing with these people I have two major theories:

1) Homeless people: Nomadic between AirBNB, literally day by day and often coming up with money that afternoon to find a place for the night.

2) Prostitutes: Using the house as a pick up point for a John.  Most often, these will be young girls who check in around 6 or 7PM, then leave in a local car with an unknown male and don't come back for the entire night.  I live in Maryland and the cars noticed doing this are 99% always with Washington DC plates.  There have actually been news stories about this, i.e. DC pimps using Maryland AirBNBs to put girls in until a client is available.

I have indeed had some good one night same day bookings and I want to give everyone a chance until they give me a reason not to.  Also, if I see a scam, I slam them in the review and then others will know about it and the account can't be used.  But, as we know, such people simply move on to another account.  That is on AirBNB and there should be safeguards to prevent that kind of thing from going on.

[Elaine701]

We've been declining requests rather often since the quality of requests has been dropping. But I know we've probably been declining some legitimate requests. 

For example, I just declined a no-history request (paying top high season rate for a 10 night, stay) who was asking to contact them privately (email address hidden by Airbnb) and send them photos of the house. 

For me, this is a scam alarm. This signals a scammer who wants to copy your listing on another platform, and collect the money. We've had the before. 

But in this case, when I declined and explained why, the guest wrote back totally confused, and a bit miffed. "We're really a family! We just wanted to see more photos of the house". Still, I think the 30 or something photos adequately represent it. Nonetheless, after some additional dialogue, the guest was offended and vanished. 

I don't feel particularly guilty about this one. The behavior was suspicious, and it still may have been a scam. But their reaction did seem genuine. As if they really didn't know they shouldn't do that. 

But after hosting a number of really bad guests that were initially somewhat suspicious, I'm no longer inclined to be tolerant. If you're legitimate, and have a good history, you're always welcome here. Otherwise, I have to look very, very carefully.