Newer host navigating the bumps of unfair bad reviews

[Amy1129]

I am fairly new to hosting (first full year). I have a private guest suite in my basement.

Like many others, because of unfair or bizarre bad reviews I have had a poor experience with hosting.

I have made additions to my listing details in response to review comments, but I am not sure what additional detail is realistic.

I added actual mileage to local hot spots because I have been marked down for location, even though guests know the general location when booking. I added more detailed space descriptions such as there is a narrower stairway in my 1933 home. 

How many description sections and messages need to say that I live in the home and they may hear some footsteps, and that there is no dishwasher? In being up front and honest about the space with guests, if they read the descriptions, they should know what to expect.  

I now understand it is unrealistic to expect guests to express concerns or ask questions before they leave and write the review. 

One guest left me a 3 star overall review because she saw "water damage and mildew" that I could not find. A full waterproofing system with dehumidifier was installed with the basement remodel.  Also I have a house cleaner and I go through the space after she is finished and check it again before a guest arrives.

With relatively few booking reviews these low scores drop my percentage rating very quickly. That puts me even further down the search lists and makes it harder to reach the Super Host status. 

The whole review process seems to be an aggravation to many experienced hosts too. 

What did you do in your early years of hosting to respond to reviews?  Any tips or notes to share?   I have made some changes in the space in response to private comments and I had the screen door spring adjusted when a guest review said it was too noisy.  (I acknowledge that i have not had the horror story guests that some describe in these posts.)

If it was not for the wonderful guests who I've been delighted to meet, I would quit renting the space.

[Kath9]

@Amy1129, we're in this weird catch 22 situation where we feel like we need to provide information about every minute detail so that guests aren't 'disappointed', but the longer the listing gets, the less likely it is that people will read it! It's a fine balance. The problem is that many people don't bother reading the listing at all, arrive with unrealistic expectations and are then disappointed. This is a common source of frustration for hosts.

The review system is also pretty much universally despised. The overall score is not an average of individual ratings (like it is for guests). At the end of the review process, guests are asked 'how did your stay at Amy's place compare to your expectations?' with 5 stars being 'much better than expected' and 3 stars being 'as expected'. Which means if you are accurate in your listing and don't over or undersell it, a guest should technically give you 3 stars (which is a 'fail' in Airbnb's eyes). Location is the other one that hosts can't stand because they are so frequently marked down for it, despite it being clear on the listing. Airbnb should just get rid of it.

So, here are my tips for you:

1. You do state clearly that you live upstairs and that people may hear your footsteps, so if guests don't bother reading that, that's their problem! But you might think about putting it higher up in your listing (maybe first thing under 'Space') so that it is one of the first things guests see. They often don't read past the first few lines.
2. I wouldn't worry about detailing things you don't have (e.g. dishwasher) - it's not ticked under amenities, which is sufficient. It's ridiculous for guests to complain about things that aren't listed (some will anyway - it's unavoidable).
3. Never respond publicly to things that people have mentioned in their private feedback - that way you are just bringing attention to things that prospective guests would never have known about in the first place. You can privately message them if you like to let them know you have heard their concerns.
4. Do respond to publicly written valid complaints like the squeaky door - your response to the guest here was perfect - professional and showing that you are willing to listen to and fix guest complaints.
5. As soon as a guest books, I send them the following message:

Hi X, I'm happy to accept your request and I look forward to welcoming you into my home! You are welcome to check in anytime from 3pm to 7pm but please do let me know what time you expect to arrive so I can plan my day and make sure I am home to greet you.  To ensure you're fully satisfied with your stay, please spend a moment reading the listing details and house rules carefully - if you feel they might not be a good fit for you, I do have a flexible cancellation policy. Otherwise, I look forward to meeting you and 'll be in touch closer to the date with arrival details. Best wishes, Kath

You could do something like this and customise it for yourself e.g. add something about the footsteps etc.

It can take quite a few tweaks before you get it 'right', but it looks like you're on the right track and your reviews are good overall, so please keep going. Once you build up your reviews, the odd negative one (which is inevitable) won't make any difference to your overall rating.

[Ann489]

@Amy1129     I think Kath has summed it up very well.   We all have had that one guest who made us question why, on earth, we decided to host strangers in our home/guesthouse.   Don't let it discourage you!   When I get tired of dealing with guests I simply block off a week or so on my calendar to recharge and re-center myself.  So far, that has worked quite well for me.   😉

[Sarah977]

@Amy1129  When there are things about our listings that we think could be problematic for guests if they haven't fully read and digested the listing description, I think its important to reiterate those things when you get a booking. In your Welcome, thanks for booking message to the guest (or if they are sending an Inquiry, whatever) ask if they are clear that you live upstairs and there is the potential to hear some sounds, like footsteps, but that you aren''t noisy person (if that's true). And anything else that has been an issue in the past or you think could be. 

Every host has different things that they need to make sure guests are clear on, it's as unique as our listings.

Don't worry too much about location ratings, they don't count towards Superhost, neither does value.

[Amy1129]

I really appreciate the feedback. I had not thought of it before, so I willl add more information to my welcome message. Moving specific items to the top of the listing information makes sense too.  

Do you mention the different points about the space in just one of the description sections? Such as only listing once there is not a dishwasher, thus working to streamline the descriptions. Then it is up to the guest to read the information (and now I understand most of them don't).  

There is a steep learning curve to this hosting role. My realistic expectations about guests has definitly shifted much lower.

It helps to know others have the same problems and frustrations.  I'm glad I reached out in this forum.  Thank you!

[Emily145]

In my case I think the thing that made the biggest difference in avoiding negative reviews was getting to the point where I was getting regular enough bookings that I could afford to be choosier about who I wanted to attract.

1. I increased my minimum reservation to 2 nights. Most of my problem guests had been 1 night reservations. I don't have any theory as to why and I don't know if it's like that everywhere but it was a definite pattern I noticed and just upping my minimum to 2 nights seemed to immediately weed out a lot of problem guests.
2. I increased my cleaning fee to reflect the actual cost I pay my cleaning service. Early only I didn't want to scare people off with a big cleaning fee (only $95, but this was in 2016 when many folks around here were still not charging a cleaning fee or were only charging $39 or $49). Now I don't mind if some people are put off by the cleaning fee - if $50 is going to make or break them, they are probably going to be a lot fussier and prone to wanting refunds, in the aggregate.
3. I decreased the maximum number of guests allowed. Since a lot of the AirBnBs around mine were nicer and more established but only allowed 1 or 2 guests, I thought fitting an extra bed or two into my spaces would be a way to stand out for people whose needs weren't being met by the other listings in my neighborhood. And that was probably true - but similar to the people who balk at a real-world cleaning fee, the people who booked the max number of guests were more prone to having issues. They're on such tight budgets that they want compensation for everything that they perceive as less than ideal and want to haggle.

All of these things weren't possible until I had a few reviews under my belt that other people would still be willing to book my listing - it takes a brave person to book an AirBnB with 0 reviews. But simply by making my unit more expensive per person by capping the number of guests, and per trip by requiring two nights and a real-world cleaning fee to be paid, I weeded out a lot of the worst guests and haven't gotten a dreaded 3 star review in over a year. (I've gotten two, my second one almost exactly a year after my first - I was gutted because the original was just about to fall off my superhost score only to be replaced by another. It took me 3 years to make superhost because of those two 3-star reviews one apiece in my first two years.)

[Lisa723]

@Amy1129 As mentioned above, don't respond publicly to private feedback.

In contrast with some others, I'd suggest making things like "no dishwasher" impossible to overlook, rather than relying on guests to examine all amenity boxes. You can put this in "amenities limitations" under house rules as well as "other things to note." The hope is to under-promise and over-deliver; make sure no guest is negatively surprised.  It's impossible to entirely avoid this because some guests are just plain clueless, but you can minimize it. I don't screen guests much (in fact I don't think I've ever turned one down) but I agree with others that higher prices, a real cleaning fee, and a two-night minimum will help divert problem guests.

Another thing I do is leave a brief note in the listing (with an attempt at humor) letting guests know that while Airbnb tells them 4 stars is "good" it simultaneously tells hosts that anything less than 5 stars is failure, and threatens to delist if average falls below 4.7.

[FWIW as a guest I have never seen the overall star descriptions as described by @Kath9 . I've seen 5 stars = great, 4 stars = good, 3 stars = okay, 2 stars = bad, 1 star = terrible. Nothing about relative to expectations, but still completely out of whack with interpretation vis a vis hosts.]

[Anonymous]

@Lisa723  Apparently the way that star ratings appear on listings depends entirely on what device you're using. The desktop, Android, and iPhone versions of Airbnb all have different sets of features.

I haven't seen persuasive evidence that using language in your listing to attempt to influence guests' ratings will have the intended effect. As a guest, I'd personally find it extremely off-putting, and it would make me question whether the host's previous good reviews were genuine.

I see a lot of comments here suggesting that higher prices will bring better guests. This is probably true for listings that are genuinely undervalued (as would be the case for anyone using so-called Smart Pricing). But i can also attest that it's entirely possible to have a low-budget, low-luxury listing and still maintain a consistent stream of guests with accurate expectations, who genuinely appreciate what you offer. I agree with the under-promise / over-deliver approach, but in addition to that I also find that it helps to know who your target customers are, and to convey a kindred personality in your listing and in your pre-booking correspondence with the guests.

I personally don't have a favorable opinion of people who think they need a machine to wash their dishes for them, or who are so bored on vacation that they need a TV in their room, or who believe they're entitled to discounts. Of course I wouldn't say such things in my listing, but miraculously what I do put out there has been pretty effective at making high-maintenance people assume I won't tolerate their nonsense. I don't grovel for 5 star reviews, but in the first message from a prospective guest I can always tell who's going to leave one.

[Lisa723]

@Anonymous  in case it was not clear, I was referring to the way the star ratings have been  presented to me, as a guest, when rating hosts, over the years and on multiple platforms. I'd love to see a screenshot of anything different.

I agree that attempting to inform guests about the misalignment in Airbnb's rating messaging is a tricky business. I never say anything directly and the small card I leave in the listings is very brief and hopefully humorous, with no request for any action of any kind. I introduced it after a couple of 4-star reviews where the guest after the fact was astonished to learn this was not a good rating. I'm not a large enough operation to draw any statistically significant conclusions but I'm sure it has at least not had any noticeable negative effect.

We have different business models and I certainly am not questioning yours. None of my spaces are shared and I don't really screen guests; I use instant booking and I've never had a request that I wasn't willing to accept. It's been my definite experience-- though again not statistically significant-- that in this context the guests who pay the least are the most difficult to please. 

[Anonymous]

@Lisa723  I find that the most difficult guests to please are those who have the fewest alternatives available at the time they book. My personal experience is that the ideal guests are the ones who have a range of options within their budget but choose your place for its particular qualities. The problems start to multiply when the range of options shrivels, and customers can no longer find the place that best suits both their wishes and their budget.

There's a name for this curve in economics, which I've forgotten, but basically - when consumers feel they're getting their top choice of a product or service, they're willing to drastically overpay for it (see also: iPhone) but there's an incredibly steep dropoff down to what they perceive as  value for their second choice, and third, and so on.  When consumers compare items that they feel are inferior to their idea of the "best" choice, they usually go for the cheapest one (see also: the universally best-selling Second Cheapest Bottle Of Wine at every mid-range restaurant on earth). 

With that in mind, as long as there's an equivalent property that's cheaper, you're unlikely to get the hard-to-please customer who views your home as second-rate. But this doesn't exactly mean that higher rates is the magic solution, because when people looking for something higher-end run out of options and settle for your place, you wind up with the same problem. This is exactly what happened to me when hundreds of entire-home properties were wiped out of the market overnight in high season; I could raise prices to match the demand, but the customers that paid top dollar were the absolute worst, and they resented that what they really wanted wasn't available.

[Kath9]

@Lisa723, maybe they've changed the wording since I was last a guest, I don't know. If anyone can confirm this, that would be great. The wording you've mentioned is definitely better than the dumb 'expectations' question.