Dear Airbnb team,
First let me say thank you for the platform to meet wonderful people from all over the world, as well as the opportunity to earn some extra income. It's been a generally wonderful experience with a few hiccups.
We recently had some retaliatory ratings which caused a dip in our overall rating. I will not go into details, as I have read through a lot of threads on the community forum and the rating system seems to be the biggest bone of contention on Airbnb with such vindictive ratings at the very top.
So I thought of a few suggestions that hopefully Airbnb can look into to help ease these frustrations that hosts are experiencing. It can really tire one out.
Suggestions :
Whenever hosts receive "unjustified" ratings, hosts should contact the guests via the message thread asking why such rating was given. At the same time, hosts should contact the review dispute arm of Airbnb and notify them that they are disputing the rating. Airbnb could then put the review on hold while investigating the matter (say for the same 14 days required to write a review). If there is no justified response from the guest after this period, the review should be taken down.
Where guests acknowledge that the rating was a mistake, they should be given another chance to re-write the review. (it appears guests cannot change their ratings choice as the platform does not allow them, so I was told by a guest when I made enquiries).
If it takes one guest to drop a rating, it should also take one guest to get it back on track. I read from a host that it takes about a year for a 3 star overall rating to be upgraded (I do know it takes a while for any low rating to be upgraded). This shouldn't be. If it takes one 3 star to drop a rating badly, it should take just one 5 star to correct that rating.
Superhost status should not be a threat. I believe the superhost status was created as a reward system, but it seems to have become a hangman's nook. If it took a track record to get to superhost, it should take a track record to lose it. The same way Airbnb let's hosts know that they are on the way to earning the badge, hosts should host allowed to know when they are on their way to losing it.
Those are my few suggestions. I hope it makes a difference.
P. S… I know the normal response from airbnb is that as long as a review does not violet airbnb's content policy it cannot be taken down. It may not violate the system's policy, but it oftentimes violates moral and ethical policies. It sometimes violates humanity's policy of fairness and is sometimes the sheer abuse of human rights.
There are wonderful hosts and there are bad ones. But I do believe the good far outweighs the bad, else Airbnb would not have grown so much over the years.
To fellow wonderful hosts, keep giving your best and let's keep praying and hoping for such in return.
God bless.