One unreasonable review may affect Superhost Status

Darien1
Level 2
Suffern, NY

One unreasonable review may affect Superhost Status

I was reviewing my Superhost status and notice my Overall Rating for the past 12 months which counts towards Superhost status was 4.7 and it takes a 4.8 or higher to qualify for Superhost. I reviewed the Overall Ratings provided in the past 12 months and all but one of them have 5 stars. In fact, out of 20 stays from 1/1/2019 until August 2020, 19 of them have been 5 Overall Stars.

 

In December we had a woman who stayed with us who gave us 3 Stars as the Overall Rating, which is interesting because she gave 4 stars for accuracy, 4 stars for value, and 5 stars for everything else. She complained privately that the mattress was on it's "last legs" (the mattress was less than 6 months old), that she could have used an extra blanket (she never asked for one), and that the "the shower head is horrible and needs to be replaced" (I did not replace it and no one has complained prior to or after her stay). 

 

The point I am getting too is that her 3 start  rating brought my Overall Rating for Superhost status to 4.7 and may affect my Superhost status. I am actually fortunate that the requirements were waived for July 2020 or I would have lost my status without even realizing it. 

 

Has anyone else experienced this where one bad, unreasonable review has caused your Superhost status to be in jeopardy? Is Airbnb open to taking the overall track record into account and determining that the review is not a fair assessment of the persons stay?

 

Thanks,

Darien

27 Replies 27
Mary996
Level 10
Swansea, United Kingdom

That's a great question. There are new personnel involved with Airbnb now, and you've made a case for an unrepresentative review, that is the exception,  being removed from overall consideration.

"Unrepresentative review" I have never heard about this.. Is this a thing? 

@Lance170  No.

Enlighten me.

@Lance170  Enlighten you how? You asked if that was some known term, and it isn't. It was just what that poster was calling a review that isn't accurate and at odds with the host's other reviews. 

 

Now enlighten me. Why is your profile photo the Airbnb symbol?

 

 

Thank You

David704
Level 2
Portland, OR

This happened to me. One bad review with easy to prove lies but AirBnb did nothing about it and my 2+ years as a Superhost went away. I will get it back as every guest review since then are 5 star but it's too late for me. I have expanded my property listing to other platforms and they are starting to gain traction. And I will never book thru AirBnb for my own travels again.

@Darien1   Superhost status is not actually designed to be a reward for consistent excellence. The entire point of it is to prey on your status anxiety and manipulate you into staying on your toes and sucking up to even your crappiest guests. There's no human involved in the so-called "assessment," just an algorithm that is in no way qualified to judge the quality of your hospitality. If the fear of losing it is causing you distress, train yourself to ignore it; it's rather meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

 

The review to which you're referring features only positive comments; there's no grounds for having it removed. If possible, though, I would recommend trying to have your Public Response removed. I just can't get my head around why so many hosts make the mistake of desecrating a review that looks perfectly positive by responding to private feedback or star ratings that are not visible to your prospective guests. You're really shooting yourself in the foot there.

@Anonymous you hit the nail on the head about what SH "status" means. 

@Anonymous, you make a good point that I had not previously considered. Thinking back I probably meant to comment on the "Perfect for One Traveler" comment, but instead went down a rabbit hole and commented on everything she said privately. I am not concerned about my response to her overall as I think the rest of the review override that one and we have not seen a decrease in requests because of that review. It's probably not worth the effort to try and have it removed.

 

You also make a good point about the Superhost algorithm. I am not stressed or losing sleep over the issue, but I just noticed it and it did concern me as it does not seem like a reasonable assessment.

 

Thanks for taking the time to read the review and comment.

@Darien1 It is a very common mistake, responding to private feedback publicly. We have all have had to learn this one at a time, because is not an intuitive thought. The objective is to acknowledge the public review and address it in passing (if negative) and think mostly of future guests considering booking. Your 'rabbit hole' analogy, is interestingly put.

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

A while back, Airbnb posted on the CC that they were introducing changes to the review system whereby an 'outlier' review would be removed. It was unclear what they meant by that. One would hope it meant that if you had five star reviews from all guests and then suddenly someone left you three stars, that rating would not be counted. However, I think it applies more to if someone gave you 5 stars in every category and left you 1 star overall, i.e. genuinely hit the wrong button.

 

I've yet to see a host post on here saying they had one of these 'outlier' reviews removed, so I don't know what is happening with that... Can't be that common, can it?

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Huma0 

Hi Huma, no they reneged on that, it was a thought that was thrown around for a couple of years but ended up just a bit of hype! Here is Airbnb's current stance ......

https://www.airbnb.com.au/resources/hosting-homes/a/airbnb-answers-protecting-you-from-one-off-bad-r...

 

Although this Admin post was generated in September 2018 it was up-dated in March 2020 so the information in it must be current!

 

Despite talking about it and being aware of it, they have completely ignore the practicalities of an outlier review. What the program does now, if a guest gives 5 stars in the categories and a 3 or less overall, the system will prompt them and ask if they wish to amend that overall star rating.

 

The system is now designed to pick up 'mistakes'......... but totally ignore revenge reviews.

Isn't that just typical!

 

Hope you are safe and well in London Huma!

 

Cheers........Rob

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Robin4 

 

I'm well thanks, apart from the truly miserable weather we'e having here. How are you?

 

Yes, I remember that outlier review thing being designed to pick up mistakes, but honestly, how often that that scenario happen? I've only had once incidence that I'm aware of, when a guest gave me 4 stars but seemed so delighted. I asked her for feedback as to why and she was astonished as she was sure she had clicked 5 stars. Airbnb did change it once the guest confirmed that, but this outlier system wouldn't pick up the difference between 4 and 5 stars.

 

What annoys me though is that when this was first announced, it was supposed to be in response to so many hosts' concerns that one unfair and really low rating could impact them significantly, even if all their other reviews were 5 stars, but it's not a solution or a response to that concern at all. It's kind of an insult to our intelligence if they think we will see it that way.

 

Oh well. Luckily I haven't had a retaliatory review in a long time, but to be honest, I don't usually ask guests to pay for small damages, even though these happen frequently. I can imagine it would be more of an issue if I did as, I have found in the past that if a guest doesn't tell you themselves that they've broken something, they tend to get very hostile when you bring it up.