Reviews from bad guests & Bad guest cancellations

[Nikky0]

If you accept a reservation that you know is going to violate the rules & confront the guest about this during their stay. They give you a bad review & low ratings. Not so long ago, we had some guys who were very unhappy about not being able to bring girl’s for each of them, back to the property as the maximum number of persons had already been reached. They were respectful of this & behaved perfectly. They even gave a great review. HOWEVER, they gave me an overall rating of 4, because they could not invite additional unregistered guests! This is HUGE for me & I am sure for other host’s as well. Other than my beautiful home being trashed by additional unregistered drunken, partying guests. I am HUGELY concerned about my reviews & ratings as these are the most vital aspects of my listing. The reviews & ratings is the main factor that ensure bookings!!! There must be a better way to deal with this problem!!!

On the flip side. After 6 years of being with AirBnB, I can see a trouble booking a mile away. I immediately contact these guests to ensure that they are fully aware of the NO PARTY & NO UNREGISTERED GUEST POLICY!!!

If I am lucky, the guest understands that we are not suitable for his intentions & cancels via the AirBnB contact center with a full refund which I freely give!!! HOWEVER, my stats are showing a high rate of cancellations because if this & reflects very badly on my performance, as it is not possible to see the reasons for the cancellations. 
In a normal world. Cancellations would be because guests are not happy with the accommodation!! My concern is that this is the impression that the AirBnB stats & agents looking at my profile, automatically perceive the reason to be!!!! 
HOW CAN THIS BE RECTIFIED TO GIVE A TRUE REFLECTION OF THE STATS & BE MORE FAIR TO THE HOST!!!

[Angelica-Y-Jorge0]

@Nikky0 This is a tough one to fix. When looking at your listing the only suggestion I may have is changing your bed configurations to one large bed per room vs all the twin and doubles. Limit guests to 6. This may attract more families with children and fewer party-goers/ bad bookings. We did this when renovating our place a year ago and find we attract more families.

[Nikky0]

Hi there

Thank you for your suggestion. The majority of our bookings are corporates & families. It’s only the “weekend” guests that are an issue. Our corporates are a large part of our business & they want additional areas to separate the ladies & gents.

it’s such a fine line & business is very hard at the moment!

[Dale711]

Hi @Nikky0,

Thank you for sharing about your experience, I would feel the same.

You're not alone. I've over a dozen untrue, unfair and revenge review.  

Refer to Airbnb reviews systems is doesn't make sense.

It's out of your hand! 

Letting you know that reviews are the backbone of Airbnb's community and in order to maintain that structure Airbnb have guidelines in place that ensure all reviews are fair, honest and relevant to the travel and experience.  

Airbnb's default position is not to delete, censor, or edit reviews. With that being said, in rare cases like this, Airbnb may remove a review only if it violates the review guidelines.

Nevertheless, recently that is host success to remove the negative review, https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Negative-Review-removed-when-guest-cancelled-after-check...  

 As a link below, How do I remove a review I disagree with?

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/32/can-i-remove-or-respond-to-a-review-i-disagree-with  

Happy Hosting 😀

[Nikky0]

Hi there

Yes, however, at one time they would not delete the ratings. However, recently this seems to have changed.

[Dale711]

Hi @Nikky0 ,

Check out from Catherine update Airbnb review system 👏👏👏

Hopefull, a good starting point 👍

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Airbnb-Updates/Catherine-s-Host-Update-reviews-party-ban-policy-...

[Elena87]

@Nikky0 

reviews & ratings is the main factor that ensure bookings  you state?

What you are presuming is at odds with the guidance airbnb publish on this matter of rankings.

https://www.airbnb.com/resources/hosting-homes/a/how-airbnb-search-works-44#:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/39/what-factors-determine-how-my-listing-shows-in-search-results

Have a read, reacquaint yourself with ranking guidance and perhaps reset your assumptions. They say that there are 100 vectors that are in play.

The top three factors are alleged to be clicks and requests, price, availability.

From recent postings here on the community pages, there is a deluge of comments on reviews

that are less than five stars and resulting malcontented hosts all thinking the same way.

[Nikky0]

Sorry, I disagree. If you have bad reviews & low ratings, your chances of being booked are CONSIDERABLY reduced!!! Why would someone book a property with bad stats, when there are hundreds with FABTASTIC stats!!

[Dale711]

Hi @Elena87 ,

Absolutely right.

Thank you for sharing both links.

@Nikky0 

You’ve a right point as well.✌️

[Nikky0]

MY REPLY TO A PROBLEM GUEST (INSTANT BOOKING)

I have contacted AirBnB on your behalf & asked them to give you a refund despite trying very hard to find out your intentions straight after you booked. I phoned you twice to ask you to be honest with me & sent you very clear messages with regards to your intentions, advising you of AirBnB’s terms & conditions & our house rules . You still thought that you would be able to bring unregistered guests onto the property. It is not easy to survive today. As explained, when the property has more than capacity of liquored up guests, we have had terrible experiences. You ignored all this, knowing full well that you intended to do exactly what I had clearly told you was not allowed. I lost the chance to rebook my accommodation & spent hours waiting for you.
Despite giving you clear instructions on how to cancel with a full refund, more than once in the message thread & in our conversation. You still cancelled via the App. I have spent hours & hours on your booking & contacted AirBnB on your behalf to ensure you get a refund that you don’t deserve. I hope that you do not do this to future hosts. Life is hard enough & every cent counts to survive!
I have been extremely kind to you, but this situation should not happen again. You need to be up front & honest when someone makes such an effort to ensure that your reservation is suitable for your intentions. AirBnB & other platforms have a wide variety of options. It is not necessary to book a property that is not suitable for your intentions.