Irresponsible guests

[Vee-Gee0]

A few days ago I had a young couple from my own city stay at my guest house for about 4 hours. Booking notice given to me was less than 1 minute. They land up 1 km away from my guest house and do the booking and before I could see the booking they called me on gone to say they are reaching in 5 minutes. I hurriedly go with the maid to clean up the place just as I do before any guest checks in. I tell them to call me (I stay 5 minutes away) when checking out as I do that for all guests. I also normally take a selfie picture with the guests for my collection as a normal prqctise. And I expect the guest to complete the Airbnb review after they leave as Airbnb expects at least 50% reviews from guest if I have to maintain my SH status. Finally the guest calls me and says they are leaving in a hurry. They don't wait for me to meet them. After they leave I enter the AC room and for hours get a strong smell of cigarette smoke, inspite of me telling them that mine is a business travel ready place and a CO detector is installed inside. I also find left over food on the plate which I had to clean it myself.  I don't find them responsive and I don't expect them to be bothered to give me any review ( Hopefully they don't give me a negative or lower rating ) I didn't call them to confront them for fear of them giving me a poor review. 

What is other hosts suggestions to tackle such pesky guest who have no regard for your property and no regard to give you a good review for the hard work you do for your guests. I would like to keep such guests away from booking my place, but the personality of the guests becomes clear only after checkout. Any suggestions?

[Robin4]

@Vee-Gee0

Vee Gee, I am so sorry for you that this has happened to you my hosting friend. None of us want to experience this sort of behaviour but unfortunately it does happen.

You have no control over what the guest may write, if they do choose to write a review of you but, you must write a review of them. Don't make outrageous statements about the guest, just be factual and say.....

"Communication with the guest was minimal and I feel the concept of home hosting is not undstood by this guest. I wish them well but would not wish to host them again!"  

Leave it at that Vee Gee, you haven't accused them of anything and there will be nothing in that will allow the guest to request the removal of the review by Airbnb.

The guest will not know what you have written until they post their own review....or if they don't post a review then your review will become public on their profile 14 days after the stay has ended.

They can always respond publically to your review, but so can you of theirs.

But Vee Gee, if you do not review them and they review you, then you will not be able to respond to their review, you will not be able to take any further part in the review process! This is why it is important that you write a review.

Once again,. sorry Vee Gee, I hope you never have to go through this again but the one thing that comes out of this is, you did break that golden rule....'Never rent to locals' !

Locals will only ever use someone elses property for something they would not want to do in their own! 

If ever a local wishes to rent your property you need an ironclad reason why it is your property they require, and not their own. 

All the best Vee Gee.

Cheers.......Rob

[Sarah977]

@Vee-Gee0   The common wisdom voiced by many hosts here is never to rent to locals unless you have been able to ascertain that they have a really legitimate reason for booking a place in the town or city where they already live. The "locals" guests can be using the place to deal drugs, an extra-marital affair, or something other than what you intended your place to be used for. In the case of the young couple you had, maybe they each live at home with their parents and wanted a private place for a bit of fun and games? A legitimate local booking might be the case of someone who is doing renovations on their own home and needs a place while their house is torn apart. But, as you say, you can't always know, or believe a stranger.

To avoid having guests book and immediately show up, either stop using instant book entirely, so you have a chance to exchange messages with guests before approving their booking, or change your settings so only people with certain verifications, good reviews, and such are allowed to instant book. 

As far as these particular guests go, I'd actually be relieved if they didn't leave me a review (and they probably won't bother to, they sound too self-absorbed), as it would probably be bad. Bad guests tend to leave bad reviews, even if there was nothing there for them to complain about, and anything wrong resulted from their actions, not yours. 

[Vee-Gee0]

@Robin4@Sarah977 Thanks for your advice. I value them and realise have still a lot to learn. I accept instant book because otherwise your listing gets lower visibility. Secondly is there an option to block locals? Didn't know it's possible? Thirdly, I'm getting psyched with the Airbnb rule of minimum 50% reviews to be received on your profile by guests if you have to maintain your SH status. Is there any suggestion how to take care of that. I've been talking to Airbnb customer support and all that they say is that they are reviewing that in favour of hosts and should hopefully come up with a policy soon in this regard favouring hosts, but that is left to be seen. Any more inputs from you guys and others would be appreciated. Thanks once again.

[Robin4]

@Vee-Gee0

Don't be too 'spooked'  by the stats Vee Gee, the fact that you are a Superhost shows that you are a good host and are going to always receive above that 50% minimum guest review rate!

Reviews are a 'double edged sword'. Vee Gee, you are right, the review system is itself being reviewed at the moment, but current concesus is to drop the minimum review percentage to retain Superhost status.

There are a few issues here with this. 

A/. Guests who are likely to leave a review will do so because they felt the stay was worth making a statement on...They either sufficiently enjoyed it to comment, or they found it unpleasant enough to make a comment on.

B/. Many guest who do not leave a review had a neutral prespective....It was ok, nothing great, nothing bad, overall what they expected....end of story!

C/. If you force guests to make a comment then it is probable that the comment rate will favour poorer rather than better because they will feel they are being coerced into something they don't feel is suitably required....they don't want to be pushed into one camp or the other!

For these reasons nothing is be gained by either penalizing hosts for poor review rate or penalizing guests by forcing their hand, so the probablitily is that the minimum review rate will be dropped!

@Louise231 raises a good point as far as the timing of the review is concerned. Guest and hosts are prompted to write a review after a stay, most do, some don't but, when a guest receives that email 'Find out what xxxxx had to say in their review, write your review to see what xxxxx has written'....that is when they will 'put pen to paper', they will want to find out what the host had to say. 

What Louise is saying is, if they have just not got around to it, or felt it was no big deal they may just not bother to write a review, so, leave the writing of a review until the last second so they don't get the chance to respond. Good thinking on Louise's part.

I personally don't do that because you don't know when 'that last second'  will be! Time zones around the world mean you don't exactly know when that 14 days have elapsed and Airbnb are certainly not going to put in a countdown timer for each review because that is exactly what will happen, everyone will 'flirt'  with that review timer.

The other reason I don't personally follow Louise on this. The guest does not get to see what the host has written until they post their review, and they in lots of instances don't realise they may have upset the host to the point where the host will give them a bad review. They think..'Oh ok, we had a reasonable stay, we will just put in a few words and lets see what the host has had to say!' 

They will not automatically expect to be caned, so it won't always be a bad review they will write.

I have deliberated not disagreed with Louise, she is right with what she says, I am just offering an alternate observation that I use.

Cheers.....Rob

[Louise231]

@Vee-Gee0I would definatly avoid last mintue guests. I'm also Instant Book, but you do have the option of stopping Instant bookings for the same day.

Meaning people can only instant book for dates from tomorrow onwards. You can still let people book and arrive today, but they have to message to ask first. But be wary same day bookings are much more likely to have issues, especially if they are local as @Sarah977 @Robin4 said.

I'd also recommend yes leaving a review but leave the review at the last possible moment. Set yourself a reminder to do it 14 days after check out. When you leave a review they will got notified, even if they can't see it. And if you're worried it's going to be poor then give them as little chance as possible after they know you've left the review. (I personally like a good midnight review when chances are they're asleep!)

Also if you have another person stay between now and in 14 days then hopfully the better review from a more recent guest will be on top, and the crappy one will drop down. (Remember even if they give you a review today, if you wait until the end of the review period, their review won't show)

[Vee-Gee0]

@Louise231 that was a very good suggestion you gave on review timing and i plan to implement that this time along with the words suggested by @Robin4 . What I also want to know if it's possible for me to charge a cleaning fee and write on my listing that "the cleaning fee will be refunded seperately through Airbnb after checkout provided I find the room kept clean and also as an incentive if the guest completes the review formality" Will this amount to an extortion from me from the guest's as well as Airbnb's point of view, or is this absolutely legal? 

[Sarah977]

@Vee-Gee0   No, there is no way to ban locals from booking if you use Instant Book, and if you start cancelling instant bookings if you find out they are local, you will be penalized. That's why I suggested turning off instant book, but if you don't normally find you have locals booking, then there's no need.     There is no way of banning locals (that would be considered discrimination) even if you don't use instant book, but at least non-instant book hosts have the opportunity to question guests as to why they might want to book since they live in the same city, and decline their booking if the response doesn't leave them satisfied and they feel uncomfortable with it. (I remember one host said they had a local guy book a couple nights simply because he had a bunch of noisy roommates at home and just needed some peace and quiet and was not a problem guest) And yes, not using instant book does lower one in the search rankings, but it's a trade off for having more control, which each host has to decide for themselves if worth it.

Concerning the number of reviews to maintain superhost- when you have good guests who you feel will leave a nice review, there's nothing wrong with having a little chat with them, maybe in the course of a general converstion, over a cup of tea, or when you meet them at check out, letting them know that hosts are currently rated on the number of reviews they receive, as well as the ratings, so you would very much appreciate it if they took a few minutes to leave a review. This doesn't assure that they will, but can't hurt. (Wow, it's great to hear that airbnb told you they were looking at changing that- it's the stupidest thing to count towards a host's rating)

[Vee-Gee0]

Thanks @Sarah977 for your detail explanation. Regarding the last line of yours, I've even suggested to Airbnb that they should send the link for review at the time of check in rather than sending it after checkout. With this if you have a good relation with your guest, you both can sit together before checkout and write the review after discussions just as it happens in a corporate office between a boss and a subordinate during appraisals. Once the guest checks out, his priority with regard to you and your property diminishes with time.  But is Airbnb listening to this ?

[Louise231]

@Vee-Gee0Yes you can charge a cleaning fee, and Yes you can charge a cleaning fee that you choose to refund. (or partially refund)

Personally I think you're opening up a can of worms on that though, a guest will always want the money refunded if they think it's an option but, if you're wanting to make it a quasi deposit rather than the deposit via airbnb it could work, maybe. The issue is you'll then look very expensive when guests search for your listing as the cleaning fee will be included in the price (even if you are planning on giving it back)

However your plan to control it with the reviews is likely to be considerd blackmail by airbnb, if they see reference to it on the listing or in any communications, they could say you are in breach of the T&C's about forcing reviews, especially if a guests says that they thought you were saying you 'wanted a good review' to get the money back. Even if your intentions are just to get a review to keep your % of reviews left up. Airbnb will take the line you are manipulating a guests ability to review in privacy and not under duress.

Similarly the plan to review together would have this problem, guests will claim they couldn't leave a fair review as you were stood right next to them. So the chances of airbnb saying yes are miniscule.

[Robin4]

@Vee-Gee0

The strength of the Airbnb review system Vee Gee is that hosts and guests do 'NOT' get the opportunity to collude on the writing of a review. Airbnb will never allow this to happen because it takes the genuineness out of the review system.....and I would absolutely agree with them on this.

You are by all means able to discuss with the guest during the stay the importance of the review system, but the review itself must always be a personal private statement by both host and guest.

Cheers......Rob

[Sarah977]

@Vee-Gee0    No, I don't think you can offer to refund money to the guest for leaving a review- I'm sure that would be considered extortion, as it would mean you were essentially paying for a review. Nor do I think it's a good idea to charge a cleaning fee and offer to refund if space is left clean- that would lead to arguments with guests regarding what they consider clean as opposed to what you do. Do you find most of your guests leave a big mess? If so, I'd either charge a cleaning fee always or up your booking fee a bit to cover it (this I suggest because there are some guests who think that if they are charged a separate cleaning fee, that is license to leave the place a pigsty).  Then if you get wonderful guests who leave the place spotless, you could reward their behavior by sending them a surprise "cleaning rebate" in appreciation, if you feel so inclined. 

[Vee-Gee0]

Thanks all. This discussion was very informative to me to learn more. I have noted all your comments in my mind and will consider all when  editing my listing the next time. As @Robin4 discussed @about Airbnb's thought process on the review system is relieving for me to hear and hope they implement it soon, which would otherwise force anybody including me to naturally think of ways to resolve this without one thinking or realising of the methodology is legal or now. However one point I want to mentioned after the number of points mentioned by@Robin4 is that nowadays there is another reason why guests don't want to leave reviews which I have heard from few other hosts and one of the guests. It's the recent development of leakages from Facebook and many are beginning to feel that they don't want to leave their imprint on any social media. Hence this should be one more reason why Airbnb must consider seriously dropping the minimum 50% review condition to maintain ones SH status. It's also important for all to understand that for a serious host every good review is important and a bad review can scar his image as he has no option to close the account on his hard work and open a new account. Whereas for a guest any bad review from the host or nom recommendation from the host does him no harm, as for booking another home, he can create a new account id and operate