How often you get 4 stars

[Lia91]

Hey i‘m curious to know, how often you get a 4 star rating? I always give my guests 5 stars if they were ok, this means that they left our apartment in good condition, but this doesn’t mean they left it perfect. I don’t like to give bad reviews. But I see that a lot of guests are really strict and give 4 stars without any reason. For example i had  a very cheap price for Silvester without cleaning fee, fully apartment for 4 people and got only 4 stars for price. 4 stars for cleaning, and I clean almost three hours or more, 4 stars for checkin...my checkin is a self check in, so what should be wrong with it...you don’t have to wait for someone, you get the key from the keysafe. This is irritating me, because you do so much for your guests and than you get only a 4 Star review. How often you get this, and what do you do to get 5 stars? 

[Linda108]

As you know, @Lia91, only the overall rating affects Superhost status or rating on your  listing home page, but a 4 star review has little effect on the potential guest perception.  Why guests give 4 star rating and a glowing review, has been a discussion on this site for years and no one has an absolute answer except some people never give a top rating.  It is a known bias in any type of assessment tool.

On the other hand, most hosts are like you in that 5 star is the norm.  Therefore less than that is a significant message to the host community and does affect the ability of guests to book a reservation, especially if the rating is 3 or less.

While most of the review processes we all partcipate in only impact the service or product provider, the Air BNB system affects both the provider and the consumer.  Not perfect by any means, but I think it gets the job done most of the time.

[Lia91]

Thanks for the message. I know that only the overall rating affects the status, but the last times I got this 4 star review often and without any reason. Guest say that their stay were perfect but give  you in every category 4 stars...this is crazy. I don’t know what is a 5 star check in for them, if a self checkin without any problems  is only a 4 star. Or what is a 5 star price, when 14 euro per day and person is only a 4 star. But yes I think there is nothing you can do...

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Lia91

someone commented few days ago how guests tend to leave lower ratings and complain more arround Christmas time. I also noticed this trend during winter months, it seems people are grumpy in winter. Lack of sun and seratonine

And they don't say anything during their stay even though most of their "problems" are easy fixable but then they complain in a review. Why? Is it some sort of sado-masochism? They will suffer now just to be able to hurt us afterwards? I don 't get it...

I am seriously considering closing until the spring.

[Huma0]

@Branka-and-Silvia0

I haven't got all the reviews in yet from my Christmas guests but certainly, I am seriously considering not hosting over Christmas next year. This year, I had three rather than two rooms listed and back to back bookings. I worked my backside off and added lots of extra touches and treats for the guests, but 75% of them were ungrateful, unfriendly, untidy and unwilling to follow house rules. Some left damages. The other 25% were lovely.

This is the opposite of the rest of the year, when around 75% of the guests are lovely and even the remaining 25% are mostly okay.

I don't know if it's a Winter thing or not as my New Year guests are normally nice. It's Christmas that seems to be the problem for me.

[Lia91]

Thanks for the message, interesting, I absolutely agree with you. Yes maybe it’s  because of the wintertime. At first I wanted to cancel the reservation during Silvester, because  I was new at airbnb and the price was too cheap for Silvester,  but I did not do it, so i thought I would get a very good rating for the price, but nothing of this had happened:D 

A reason why people give a good review but a not so good star rating could be because the star rating does not show up at the profile of the host. Maybe it would help to make the Stars also visible, why this is not possible?! 

[Sandra856]

Hi @Lia91 🙂

Just so you know. If you cancel an already accepted reservation you will get penalized hard by airbnb. You will have to pay I think it is a 100$ fee to airbnb and you will lose the abilitity to become a superhost for a year (if you would like a bagde like that). Also upcoming guest will be able to see that you cancelled on a previous guest on your profile and that could make them think twice about making a reservation at your place as they can't be sure you won't cancel on them.

Kind regards, Sandra

[Sam397]

@Lia91,  personally I have had 1 three star and 3 four stars and 99 five stars. I have had several 4 stars on individual things like the location but received a 5-star overall review. The ones I received the 4-star overall review only had one thing that received a 4. For example one of the 4 stars I got the guest put in the wrong network ID and couldn't get internet and never said anything. He gave me 5 stars on everything but communication( he gave me a 4) and a 4 star overall.