Hosts not leaving reviews.

Louise231
Level 10
Manchester, United Kingdom

Hosts not leaving reviews.

Hi all,

 

I recently had a 'special' birthday and decided to do a bit of travelling around Europe to celebrate, I stayed in a mix of Airbnb's, and hotels.

 

Of the 4 airbnb's I stayed in, in Austria, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary. So far only 1 has left me a review.

 

I'm a bit surprised by this, I always leave my guests reviews, even if its sometimes a bit generic if they havn't left a big impression.

 

But 1 out of 4, do hosts not really care about the reviews anymore?

 

I didn't tell any of the places i was staying that i was also a host, although its fairly easy to spot if they clicked on my profile, but would they treat me different for being a host, thinking i don't need a review as a guest?

 

Maybe I'm just a terrible guest and they're too polite to tell me 😉

14 Replies 14
Sandra856
Level 10
Copenhagen, Denmark

Hi @Louise231 🙂

I just thought about this thread when I read your question. Haha..and I'm sure the reason is not that you were a horrible guest 🙂

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/New-trend-Hosts-not-leaving-reviews/m-p/885901

Best, Sandra

Barry-and-Lera0
Level 10
Sarasota, FL

@Louise231: We do not leave our review until we get notification that the guest has left theirs. We have had numerous guests not leave us reviews (while leaving them one) so we started this particular protocol. If we do not get one, the guest does not get one. Only fair.

Kath9
Level 10
Albany, Australia

@Louise231, I guess some hosts are as bad at leaving reviews as some guests are. It's a shame really as we hosts know the importance of reviews. Like you, I have left a review for every single one of my guests without fail - really, it only takes a minute or so.

 

@Barry-and-Lera0, yours is an interesting approach! I guess it is only fair, but what if the guest is waiting to see if you're going to leave a review too? Hmmm, I might try this as I'm tired of guests not bothering to leave reviews.

@Louise231: We send a reminder about a review seven days after they check-out if a review has not been done. Then a second reminder at twelve days. If they did want to do a review one of the two reminders usually kicks that action in. This method has worked for us a majority of the time (97% review rate). There have still been a few people after the two reminders that still do not leave a review and those are the ones that we do not leave reviews for.

@Kath9: Sorry. The response above was actually to you.

Paul154
Level 10
Seattle, WA

@Louise231

I am sorry to say that I sometimes am one of those hosts.

I know my guests deserve better, But reviews are something I put off, because they are time-consuming.

I wish there were a button I could just press to do all of my reviews.

 

Be-Our-Guests0
Level 2
England, United Kingdom

If they haven't done so already, I'm sure Airbnb will start punishing hosts by using this as a ranking metric on their search results. Thus potentially you as a host start to see less traffic, as the review system makes up a large part of the community.

Gordon0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Louise231 I've noticed this trend more of late. And if I come up against one of these hosts, I'll mention something in my own review along the lines of 'It's a shame X doesn't take the time to leave reviews'. 

It takes seconds, it isn't a tit for tat (I don't get @Barry-and-Lera0's game, because the guest could be thinking the same!), and why wouldn't you do the right thing by your fellow hosts? We're supposed to be the pros here and can't moan about guests for not leaving reviews if we can't be bothered ourselves. 


Barry-and-Lera0
Level 10
Sarasota, FL

@Gordon0: My response to Louise. (No big deal you don't like our "game". It works for us.)

 

We send a reminder about a review seven days after they check-out if a review has not been done. Then a second reminder at twelve days. If they did want to do a review one of the two reminders usually kicks that action in. This method has worked for us a majority of the time (97% review rate). There have still been a few people after the two reminders that still do not leave a review and those are the ones that we do not leave reviews for.

As I said, we’re supposed to be the pros.

@Gordon0: We are professional. If you do not like our methods that is fine. We will continue with our business as we see fit.

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Barry-and-Lera0  If you don't leave reviews for guests, it's not the guests you are hurting, which seems to be your idea, it's other hosts who can't see what a guest was like to host.

@Sarah977If it was a review that was needed to inform hosts of a negative situation that we experienced we would most definitely write the review. We have been fortunate enough not to have anyone that needed a bad review...but I'm not talking about that kind of situation. The one I speak of with a guest not writing a review after numerous attempts to contact them after check-out and us not writing one back has happened I believe 3 times in 110 stays. Its usually people that are here for two nights, we never even run into them while they are here and then they are gone forever. 

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Barry-and-Lera0  I understand.  And if you've had 110 stays, then it's no big deal not to leave a review for 3 of them. It's annoying when people can't even be bothered to answer your messages.