Responding to disappointed guest / mediocre review

Tabitha26
Level 2
Fayetteville, NC

Responding to disappointed guest / mediocre review

We recently received the worst review we've had so far, and I would love to get any feedback ya'll have to offer. The guest's complaints were:

 

1. House smelled like a wet dog.

2. Guest had "no privacy" because our listing was "just a room in a townhome."

3. Our dog jumped all over him and we didn't do anything about it and "didn't keep him put away." 

 

I don't know what to make of the comment about the smell. We thoroughly and regularly clean the house, and all but three of the 36 guests who have reviewed us have given us five stars for cleanliness. The other two guests who have had an issue with cleanliness didn't mention a smell, even in the private feedback. But I realize that we probably wouldn't notice a dog smell ourselves, and I am going to ask a couple of guests and friends if there are any bad smells in the house.

 

Our listing clearly states that it's a private room in a townhome, so I think the guest just didn't read the listing thoroughly and was expecting something we don't offer. He also had no prior reviews, so I suspect he is totally new to AirBnb and may have been disappointed overall with the experience of renting out a room in someone's home. I am going to start including a mention of "your private room" in my welcome message to guests just to emphasize that we are not offering a totally private residence.

 

The comment about our dog is the most confusing to me. It's true that he is a puppy who still gets very excited when new people are in the house, and he does have a tendency to jump. But we always stop him when he is jumping on guests. When he was jumping on this guy in particular, my fiance went over to grab him as he always does, and the guest just kept petting him, said he loved dogs, and insisted the pup was not bothering him. I still get that the jumping is annoying and the guest was probably just trying to be polite, but it's not true that we were just letting the pup jump all over him without doing anything.

 

He also mentioned in the private feedback that our dog is "untrained," which is not true. He responds to "sit" and "no," no matter how excited he is, and our house manual (and a welcome note that we leave in the room) clearly state that he will respond to these commands and that guests should use them if he is ever bothering them when we aren't around.

 

As far as not keeping our dog put away, I mean...the guest was with us for three days. We're not going to keep our dog confined for the duration of a guest's stay. We have had several people book our listing (which clearly says we have a dog) only to find that the guest does not like being in a home with a dog. So I'm going to include a picture of our dog in the listing photos with all the info about the jumping and the commands he responds to, and I'm going to put all that stuff higher up in the guest manual and in the welcome message we send out to guests after they book.

 

I also responded to the guest's review with the following:

 

"We're sorry to hear that you weren't totally happy with your stay. I am not sure about the issue with the smell, as we have not had any other complaints about this. As far as privacy, our listing clearly states that this is a private bedroom and bathroom in a townhome, so I am not sure how we could have served you better in that respect.

 

We are also a bit confused about your comment regarding Mas. We realize that he is an energetic puppy, some people like to interact with him, and some people don't. We always try to follow our guest's lead in either allowing Mas to interact with them or keeping him away. When my fiance came over to pull Mas off of you, you insisted that it was fine and that you didn't mind. If you had at any point indicated that he was disturbing you, we would have taken care of that immediately. Again, we're sorry you were not happy with your stay, and we do appreciate you taking the time to offer your feedback."

 

If anyone has any suggestions about other ways we can improve in light of this review, I'd appreciate it. I'd also like to know if anyone finds any issues with the response I posted, if it seems defensive at all, if something could have been worded better, etc.

 

Thank you!

 

 

37 Replies 37
Suzanne302
Level 10
Wilmington, NC

@Tabitha26 

 

Yes, a picture of your dog and several mentions in the listing will go a long way! I also mention my dog in my check-in instructions as well as sign off with, "Griffin (my friendly dog!) and I look forward to your visit!"

 

After a recent "misunderstanding" with a guest over "Private Room" vs. "Whole House" I have amended my welcome message to confirm they understand I live in the home and they are renting my guest room. Crazy that we have to do that!

 

For the dog smell (that may or may not be there, as dog owners we DO get noseblind to those things!) I sprinkle Arm & Hammer "Fresh Pet" powder on my floors prior to vacuuming and it does a great job of neutralizing any odor. I don't want to use air freshners because they just seem to "mask" odor and I personally don't want my house smelling like some air freshener either. I want my house to smell fresh, not like an artificial scent.

 

SIDE NOTE: I drove up from Wilmington to adopt my newest dog from the Cumberland County Animal Shelter! They always seem to be full and our shelters get emptied quickly so I figured I'd make it one less dog in the Fayetteville shelter. He's amazing!

Thanks for the tips, Susanne! Will definitely try amending my welcome message and using vacuum powder.

 

Glad to hear you rescued a dog from Fayetteville! I don't know why the shelters around there fill up so much, but it is a huge problem. 

Today I got the same problem as you that guests misunderstanding about “Entire place” and “Private room”. Even I already described my place detail in “The Space” and mentioned sharing common spaces with host in my confirmation message. Guests didn’t read them, so I got 2-star for my accuracy. 

 

I am a new Airbnb host and just got 11 reviews in my listing. I know how terrible when getting a bad review that you never think about. The sound of making a cup of coffee could be complaining as noisy and hard to sleep. “A hair on the floor in the bathroom” or leave a pan contain hot oil in the kitchen could lead to the problem of cleanliness. My apartment is in Coquitlam City, then guests expected I should mention it is not close to Vancouver City. Also, they think I should mention “it is uphill from the Skytrain” even I didn’t that much uphill, so I got 2star for my location. I also received a complaint that why I didn’t show them how to use the microwave/oven or where to take dining ware even I have a well-organized and they never ask me anything. 

 

I do keep asking all of my guest that is there any problem/concerns and feel free to let me know. They said nothing, then left bad reviews and feedbacks. I was lucky that the overall review and rating seem good, but then private feedbacks and details rating were so low. It didn’t effect to my overall rating at all, but it turned my day so bad. I made a lot of efforts to please our guests and I really care about guest’s experience. I was dreaming to become a Superhost, but now I am praying for hosting normal guests. I closed all future days and still thinking about disable the account. I don’t know whether I can handle those problems anymore. 

@Christie91  All hosts have unexpected negative feedback sometime during the hosting experience.  What is needed by the host is to take the feedback and see what could be adjusted in the listing or the orientation or the communication to the guest.  What is never a good idea is to publish a long, defensive response to any guest review as you have done.  These responses are read by potential guests who then judge that you might be a difficult host to deal with.  A short acknowledgement with a professional response shows that you as a host will be easy to deal with.  Trust me, we all have had this happen to us.

Thank you so much for your advice! Since I didn’t get use to the Airbnb platform, so I thought the review I leave will be displayed as the reply the guest’s response in hosting. It looks straight to other people cause the review he left in my listing seems nice, but the my review sounds strictly. That’s my new experience and I just realized I can’t remove that.

 

Kat84
Level 10
San Pedro, Philippines

Christie, your type of the property will always have problems with guests not understanding how it is to live with someone else around.

 

When I got to the stage you are at right now, I put the following information in my House rules: please, remember that this is a shared property. That means that cleanliness is divided between us as common areas are shared. If you will leave me unfair review, I will conduct a serious inspection of the property and if I will find at least one of your hair in common area, I will dispute your review with Airbnb. It might lead to a possible account removal. Be fair!

 

And you know, it worked. Fair people started to book and even asked me what happened before... And they wrote incredibly long super positive reviews! 

Thank you so much Kat84! I will add into my House Rules to avoid crazy guests. I am now getting much better and I try to be positive as much as I can. I was so much lucky since always being around with nice and polite people, so dealing troubles with those guests turned my mood so bad. It took me more than a week to kept thinking about what they said and what they done to me, I don’t know what wrong to them. I try a lot to please all guests so that why I was so surprised when guests rude to me. I love this community where I know people care about each others, give helpful tips and great advice. I learned from that and I really appreciate for your time to help me. 

Kat84
Level 10
San Pedro, Philippines

Crazy guests are not avoidable for 100%. Just like in real life idiots are everywhere 😂 But seriously just 1 crazy person in your private residence can ruin your life or take it away from you. Renting a room to strangers is very, very dangerous anywhere in the world. And your safety is always compromised.

 

My experience was 99% positive (and extremely wonderful with a lot of great memories), but 1% was something that I am thankful to God that I am writing at this forum now.

 

After taking a break and deciding on what to do, I took a risk. I subleased several properties and concentrated my efforts on earning and improving myself as a host. No more safety issues, time spending for crying and entertaining the idiots in my own home! Only 💰💰💰, 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 and ❤️ Airbnb 😂🤣