How to make good use of public responses to good reviews from guests?

[Cat-Phuong0]

Hello the Community,

We would like to hear some opinions about how to make good use of public responses to good reviews from guests.

We know that from time to time, hosts have to post responses to bad reviews, either to apologize or to denounce lies ...

Luckily, with our almost 50 reviews now, we never had to do that until now, because they were all positive, without exception.

Thanks to our hard work and our high standards of hospitality, we assume.

But we do publicly reply to almost each of them, in the purpose of increasing their positive impacts on our listings.

What we usually do is thank the guests for their visit and/or their comments, express our joy to host them (when it's really justified), elaborate on 1 or 2 points they highlighted and that we want to take the chance to advertise specifically, make hinted call for great guests like them to come and visit us, and wish them good things. And we sign.

We name the guests in our responses.

But since they then only appear in our listings, and not in guests' profiles, should we keep mentioning our guests, or just talk about ourselves?

Since reviews are the first thing prospective guests read, we think that we show our reliability and seriousness by doing this.

And indeed, we keep attracting upscale guests who read our reviews.

But what do you guys think about that? Is it always viewed positively by guests? We wonder if it can detract not so good guests from our listings. Because we also need to fill in our calendar ...

Cat & Alex

[Linda108]

Trying to weed out potentially negative guests is the goal of all hosts, @Cat-Phuong0.  Most of us have certain key questions to message the potential guests and judge the reaction of the guest.  Nothing fool proof but does help.

[Cat-Phuong0]

We use Instant Book, Linda. So sometimes, we start seeing troubles coming after a booking is done, when the guest can't communicate properly.

That's why we try to detract troublemakers through the content of our listing.

[Rene-and-Zac0]

Always talk about your listing in either a positive OR negative review. Thank them for choosing to stay with you and mention something about their visit. Example, "Thank you so much for choosing us to stay with. We hope you enjoyed the fresh fruits from our garden". "You are such adventurous travelers, we hope you enjoyed the cocktails on the roof deck". Always talk about upgrades you've done as well in the comments. "I bet you noticed we just installed a brand new dishwasher, it makes doing the dishes so much easier". If they leave a negative review, always comment on it. "Thank you so much for letting me know the sink drips. We work very hard so each guest feels special and part of that is keeping everything in good working order. When I comment on the guest page, I always include the name of my property and the city. This is just "brand developing " and it may help with Internet search results. @Cat37

[Emilia42]

@Cat-Phuong0 As you know, when you leave a public response to a guest’s review it is only visible on your listing page and not the guest’s profile. So all future guest’s can read that response. For instance, I can see Corrado’s nice review on your listing page. I cannot see the star rating but, as a traveler, I would say he was very happy with his stay. I can then click on this profile and see that you rated him with high remarks as well. As a traveler and a host I am constantly looking at the exchange of reviews between the two parties so I assume many others are doing the same. Then I see your public response to this review. As a traveler, I would be very put off by your response. I’m sure there is another side of the story, as there almost always is, but from what I see Corrado did not give you 5 stars (possibly a 4 star?) so you harshly retaliate. Perhaps this response would be best in a private message if you still have an urge to send it but it does not sit well with potential travelers reading your reviews - In my opinion.

[Cat-Phuong0]

Yes, I know. We shouldn't have written that response.

We should have just despised him.

Yes, we left him a good review because he's a fake person, and we were too weak and nice with him.

He's one of the guests who contributed to the enrichment of our House Rules.

Because we know that he brought a prostitute half of his age, and made a story about that.

Now we demand the presence of local girls at check-in when there are in our groups of guests.

He gave us 4* in 4 categories, unprecedented, which we found so nasty, even though it had no impact on us because we mainly have good and fair guests. It's free nastiness.

We give zero value to comments from a guy of little virtue like him.

Of course, when we asked him if everything was ok during his trip, he said yes ...

There isn't another side of the story, everything is in our response.

We are very honest people. That's why we can't bear being soiled by people like him.

Our context here is very different from the one in USA or Europe. Young population, few values apart from money ...

There's intense competition where we are, and we know that we don't attract the same guests than younger, easy-going hosts.

People may read it, but it's flooded at the middle of generous reviews from the honest guests that we want.

And they keep coming to us because they trust us.
We don't mind if we discourage people like him to book our place.

[Marit-Anne0]

@Cat-Phuong0

Sometimes I simply say: Thank you for being such perfect guests. 5* all the way. I believe in keeping it simple.

[Julia66]

@Cat-Phuong0  I think it's a good idea to say something positive and personal in your response to a guest's review (as well as thanking them).  I would congratulate guests on a long walk they had done, or wish them well on the next stage of their holiday to the Isle of Skye, for example.  This demonstrates to future guests that you had a friendly contact with the guests while they were staying.

[Cat-Phuong0]

That's exactly what we do, even though they probably won't read it. It shows your kindness, care and genuineness.

You don't necessarily have thorough contacts with your guests.

But when see the value of all you give them, they are grateful.

Most of our guests already like us before coming, and we always know with whom we will just enjoy and won't have any problem

[Marit-Anne0]

@Julia66

It depends on the property.  With entire homes we do not usually interact so much with our guests.  In fact, most of my guests prefer to be left alone and if my tour of the premises takes longer than 10 minutes, I often feel I have overstayed my welcome. Some have a few questions, some ask for recommendations, most find what they need to know in the info folder.  

[Cat-Phuong0]

It's case by case, Marit Anne. You can feel in advance if people want to be totally on their own or not.

It depends on your product and on your market also.

Many of our customers come to Vietnam for the first time, a big cultural shock, and feel very reassured by our presence and by our standard of interaction. They're always surprised to find themselves in a place like a 5* hotel huge suite, cleaner than clean.

Because it's far from being the norm.

If you totally exceed their expectations, and if they're sincere people, they will be always be grateful, both parties will enjoy each other.

We give a lot of recommendations during the check-in for them to be totally independent.

If they need us during their stay, reasonably often, we're fine. If they don't, we're fine also.

[Julia66]

@Marit-Anne0  Yes, you're right, this approach would only apply to those of us letting Private Rooms.  I also see my guests when serving breakfast and dinner, so I see more of them than many hosts.  But I think it's quite good in the response to the review for a busy host to at least show they remember who the guests were!  

[Fred13]

We never talk about ourselves, but about the guest and what a wonderful time they had. Also - about 'coming attractions' (intended for potential guests).

[Tim-and-Holly0]

@Cat-Phuong0:

In my opinion the ability to respond to a guest review is one of the very best parts of the Airbnb platform. We all know that most guests do not read the entire listing, yet almost all guests will read several of the reviews, thus the response is extremely important in marketing your property. In my responses I take time to reiterate something positive the guest has said or told me that highlights an ammenity of the property. To me, the response gives me a huge marketing opportunity and I feel that it is one of the reasons my properties stay so well booked.

[David126]

I have never responded to a review.