How can 5 stars for everything be overridden by 4 stars for Overall Experience!

[Tracy200]

Over the last couple of days I have been stewing over a review that I received which is for a new room listed in my home.  I'm a superhost and have been tracking with only five star reviews!

Ridiculously, the guest was able to give me 5 stars on every aspect, she posted a raving written review and they also left me some cheeses as a gift.  THEN she left 4 stars for overall experience!

I'm convinced the star system is too sensitive allowing a quick selection that can mistakely be posted as below.  For example someone might think they have to touch each of the stars to cover them and build up to five of them.  The present system would save that first star and move onto the next.

I am sure this was an error.

I'm not bothered with the guests choice, moreso I am frustrated at how Airbnb can have a rating system that allows for 5 stars on every aspect and then less than that as an overall experience.  How stupidly contradictory!  

[Pete28]

We as a community need to create a leave behind which explains the rating system. Uber drivers have,managed to do it (you can buy lanyards on Amazon which solicit 5* etc). Something like

           Airbnb.     Hotel

*****. Ok.            The Best

****.   Poor.          Good

***.     Delisted.   Ok

seems sad to have to do it, but that is how Airbnb has set it up...

[Rachel0]

I have a similar problem, only worse!  I have had 5* for everything for a long time now and have been a superhost since July 2015, with well over 200 reviews.  On a couple of occasions during all that time I have been given 4* for location but that is not really an issue.  A guest who spent a few nights here in early April gave me 5* for all categories and then awarded me ZERO stars for overall experience.  It was obviously a mistake, an oversight on his part, but bad news for me.  I phoned Airbnb Support to ask if there was anything I could do to rectify this and got told that he could amend his review within 48 hours of writing it and that I should send him a message asking him to do so.  They also said that if he did not respond they could call him on my behalf.  I thought at the time that they had got this wrong but went ahead and sent him a message anyway.  Turns out I was right, you can't amend  a review after it is written so I am stuck with it.  I am also stuck with "Status Anxiety,"  a frame of mind which Airbnb loves to impose on its hard working hosts.  

[Robin4]

@Rachel0

Hi again Rachel, Gee whiz........ what CS phone help 'individual' would tell you, a review can be ammended once both have been posted??? Rachel I am staggered at what I read and hear here at times.

Every week I am seeing posts by experienced hosts like yourselves saying that they have been given some totally useless and incorrect information by CS.

I hope you noted on that support person feedback email that comes when you involve CS that the information given to you by xxxxxx was totally incorrect and actually frustrated a successful resolution!!

CS do have the capacity to remove a review, and they do also in certain iregular situations have the capacity to sanitise it. I once had a guest here who's name was Koop....and in my haste to get a few odds and ends tydied up, did not fully read my review of Koop before I posted it and........you guessed it, good old 'spellchecker' changed his name to 'Poop'!

CS did feel that this may cause un-neccesary  embarassment and did remove that section of the review.

How are things in London Rachel, I hope all is gowing well for you and Bob!

Cheers.....Rob

[Rachel0]

@Robin4

Well that raised a laugh here!  Funnily enough though, Airbnb did not send me a feedback email after either of my conversations with CS.  The first bloke I spoke to was useless but the second one was much better and more helpful and I took his name.  He understood my frustration at what was clearly a mistake on my guest's part - and this guest was most certainly not stupid as he was doing a PhD in organic chemistry - but explained that even if he took the review down the star ratings would remain anyway.  The review itself was lovely so it would be shame to lose it.  The CS person, called Samuel, has given me a "Ticket number" which I  can quote to CS if my SH goes at the next assessment in July and they may be able to reconsider the situation.  I have quite a lot of bookings between now and then so providing the rest of the reviews are all good I may be fine.

All is fine in London - the sun is out, so after a long spell of miserable, cold and all round horrible weather, people are ripping off their clothes indiscriminately and turning bright red! When will we learn .....

[Marit-Anne0]

@Tracy200

Although your guest most likely made an error, there can be situations/issues not covered in the specified categories, meriting a 4* for overall.  During one of my stays I did exactly that as the apartment had a terrible and penetrating sewage smell. Being a major event, we were stuck there for a week and my backpack is still smelly, more than two years later. 

Perhaps in your case the shared bathroom situation ?