Missing host protection

[Melanie325]

Hello everyone!

I am Melanie and wanted share some experiences and get some advices.

First of all i got to say I just love Airbnb concept, the community is wonderful and airbnb workers

are probably one of the most friendly and open-minded people I have met so far.

But there is something I would like to talk about and personally have some of issues with, is unjustified reviews,

especially the ones from the first user´s of Airbnb. Especially the "firsties"  often confuse a 5 star rated apartment

with a 5 Star hotel room. So I had recently a guest, who told me why their is no 2nd bedroom,

although stated in the ad that its just 1 bedroom or another one telling me why there is no

daily cleaning. This would all not be a problem, but they are basing their reviews on these wrong assumptions.

I am completely fine with justified criticism, this makes you want to improve. But provenly wrong reviews

just distort the picture. Unfortunately airbnb only deletes reviews if they are highly offensive (even that is rare),

but provenly wrong reviews won´t at all, like its actually the case on every other major travelling site.

I personally think the reviews should reflect the reality here. I do understand that the guests protection is important,

but also hosts, maybe not to an extent like the guests, need protection. As I said I am very fine

with justified criticism, thats just good, because it makes you better and lays focus on things you maybe missing out.

But provenly unjustified reviews are just missguiding to the hosts as well as guests. I would like to know your experiences. What

can i Do here? Because i might lose my superhost status, because of some unjustified reviews. Thanks in advance for your help!

[Christine1]

@Melanie325.

Greetings sorry for this disappointing situation. Unfortunately it does happen sometimes. 

Regular communication to reinforce guest knowledge of the facilities and features at your listing can help. But guests can be so surprising! Thats for sure. But most surprises will be good. 

Best regards Christine 

[Robin4]

@Melanie325

Yeah Melanie I hear what you are saying, The major issue is guests do not read the listing desription fully and chose to rate the host on their perception of what they expected.

You can of course always fight back in the review response .....

"I am terribly sorry we did not have the time or opportunity to engage a builder to tack that extra couple of bedrooms onto the end of the property that you thought you were going to get"!

I guess I was somewhat disappointed to see you have 20 listings! This puts you in the boutique hotel category rather than the genuine Airbnb host category. I don't quite know how you can give a genuine hosting experience when you have that number of listings!

But having said that, Airbnb will not remove reviews unless they contravene the content policy guidelines....and even then guests get to make outrageous comments and get away with it.

But you will not loose your Superhost status unless you cancel a confirmed guest reservation or your future  guests desert you in droves and fail to review you.

Melanie, don't get too bogged down with one poor review....sooner or later we are all going to get one but just keep on doing what you are doing and be .....a great host.....20 listings and all!

Cheers......Rob

[Sabrina301]

@Melanie325 Considering the amount of listings you have, as @Robin4 has mentioned, you could be considered Boutique-Hotel type. If you do find you are getting these comments often maybe you could offer daily cleaning for your guests at an extra charge ( and make it optional if you want to keep your nightly rates low for guest that don’t require daily cleanings). For guests that also, ‘mistakenly’ book a 1 bedroom unit and want 2, if you have an available 2 bedroom available you could offer them to switch (paying the difference in price of course). That might help.