Sorry, another thread about reviews for bad guests ...

[Cat-Phuong0]

Hello the Community,

An everlasting concern for hosts, apparently, and in any case for us: how to review bad guests?

We have read many similar threads, we have reviewed several bad guests already ...

But since we've just discovered 2 public harsh responses to our bad reviews (which were harsh as well, but deserved in our opinion), we're rethinking again about the best way to handle bad guests.

Some facts first. We rent brand new modern apartments in a tower. We don't live there, this is only for business. We aren't far, though. We know that comparatively to local competition, our standards of quality are extremely high, regarding our places and our personal hospitality. We mostly have good guests, who keep praising both week after week.

So, we have the following policy to review our guests:

- best/perfect/top guests: 5* everywhere, warm-hearted comments, thumbs up

- good guests: 5* everywhere, nice comments (more neutral), thumbs up

- so so guests: 4* here or there, neutral (ok) comments, thumbs up

- bad guests: less than 3* here or there, bad comments, thumbs down

- worse guests: down to 1* here or there, harsh comments, thumbs down

We feel that, as much as guests showing consideration for their hosts (through politeness, cleanliness, gratefulness ...) deserve to be praised, those who don't care at all about their hosts should be penalized, to warn and protect future hosts.

Whereas the majority of our guests are great by being courteous and responsive, simplifying our work, being open-minded, making sure they leave our place in decent condition (or better), respecting our rules and us, why should a minority be totally careless, behave like in hotels and leave without being flagged?

Some of them had many good reviews, like "clean and tidy", from hosts who probably never met or dealt with them ...

Whenever we face that kind of guests, we almost always observe the same pattern: careless or absent communication, only to ask things, never hello/please/thank you, (much) dirtier than the rest, no respect of several of our rules, etc.

We don't buy the excuse of cultural differences, because we've hosted top guests from all corners of the world.

We don't buy the excuse of having a big family and/or no time, because we've hosted top family or busy guests, likewise.

We know it's due to bad/poor education, immaturity, arrogance, etc.

And yes, those people are never wrong and always have something to retort instead of doing self-criticism.

They're used to easy going hosts, actually, who provide little and expect little or nothing ... So they demonize us.

Sorry for that long introduction, but now our short interrogation:

Should we go into (harsh) details in our reviews, or should we just say "better suited to hotels", that kind of things? Are low ratings and thumbs down enough to do our job towards other hosts?

When they make us suffer and stress for days, it's human that we want to trash them after they leave, given all the attention we give to all our guests.

Thanks for reading us, and sorry for being a bit long 🙂

Cat & Alex

[Gerry-And-Rashid0]

@Cat-Phuong0

Better suited to hotels, or very demanding guests, tells other hosts everything they need to know.

Also - if I see a long review from a host I think the host might be the one with the problem.

[Cat-Phuong0]

If the hosts have not only superb ratings but also frequent dithyrambic reviews from top guests, would you really question their judgment when you see one terrible review they wrote for one guest without track record?

[Marit-Anne0]

@Cat-Phuong0

Why do you break your own rules and admit guests who are not willing to provide ID ?

Why do you accept unverified guests ?

I have had a very harsh and lengthy response to a "better suited to a hotel or guest house" review, so that will not protect you entirely. My consolation is that it will reflect badly on the one who wrote that response.

[Cat-Phuong0]

Marit Anne,

I don't know exactly what you're referring to, but we don't admit guests who don't provide IDs.

Neither do we accept unverified guests.

Our country's laws actually require us to register our guests with their IDs.

But even though we have their IDs, it doesn't detract some people from being bad guests and breaking other rules.

For the review, what about "There were some problems with this guest.", and full stop, plus bad ratings and thumbs down?

[Marit-Anne0]

@Cat-Phuong0

This is the review I am referring to:  

Besides, the booking guest failed to show us his passport, as we request, and instead produced a local temporary resident card that is not relevant. All this constitutes an unacceptable behaviour for somebody who, upon his booking, wrote to us: "Read and understood House Rules, we are quite and easy going". Therefore, we don't recommend this guest at all.

Same guest does not have the green verified badge. 

They left you a review and you reviewed them, so they must have stayed/been admitted ?

[Cat-Phuong0]

Oh ok, this review. It's even another case than the two we mentioned, but here, the problem was different.

It was a new listing and we had verification deactivated coincidentally.

Yet, we always ask for copies of documents, because we have to. Showing local temporary resident card instead of passport is a detail here.

The main problem was that he and his brother played the good guys when we checked them in, and then brought prostitutes when we had our backs turned. We couldn't know before they checked out, and we got reprimanded by the building's management.

That's why we felt so bitter after this guest.

You know, Marit Anne, sometimes we have first time users of Airbnb, not at ease with the platform, so we help them to complete their booking, and they turn out to be beautiful guests to host.

This green badge is really a mini-filter for us, at best.

It doesn't protect us at 100%, far from that ...

[Paul154]

You have many good reviews so I'm not thinking you have many problems.

You should look at reviews as a marketing tool.

You do need to be truthful, but diplomatic and understanding.

That's why "best suited to hotels" is the harshest response we should give or some non-judgemental "Left one hour after checkout" or "Left garbage behind"

Anything else and the host looks crazed and retaliatory and no guest wants to stay with a host like that.

For example, you went into a long explanation about the time and expense of getting a spare key made in Vietnam.

Why did you do that?  A prospective guest will think "Why is she going on and on about this? Why didn't she have a spare key available like a reasonable host would?"

Reviews are not a place to hang our dirty laundry, but an opportunity to show how gracious we can be with difficult guests. 

[Cat-Phuong0]

Thank you so much Paul for your contribution.

We definitely see the reviews as a marketing tool. Indeed, as I've explained in another post, we try to enhance our best reviews by writing judicious public responses.

Since you read some of our reviews, do you think we're doing the right thing?

We use Instant Book, so we try to select our guests in an indirect way, through the seriousness of our listing, and by collecting beautiful reviews from top guests, that we think mainly attract similar top guests.

I understand that writing a short hinting bad review, with low ratings & thumbs down, should be enough to protect future hosts against a bad guest.

But it's hard to resist to the temptation of telling a terrible guest what obviously he's never been told or taught.

When people often compare your rentals to 5* hotels, having sometimes to be sleepless and spend unreasonable amount of time to handle bad guests is a bitter experience.

They want to pay less for more, they complain about any tiny detail, they never say hello/thanks/please, and they just don't respect you at all.

Are you sure we have to show how gracious we can be with that kind of guests, no matter what?

When dirty youngsters bring prostitutes after playing the good guys in front of you, should you just say "better suited to hotels"?

In some cases, we don't only want to warn hosts, we want the guests to be kicked out of Airbnb.

About the key story. The guest was decent. But imagine that he didn't inform us that he had lost one of the 2 keys that we give to our guests, so we only found out when we went to our place. And when we asked him, he put the blame on his kids!! As if it was something that could happen ...

We had a new group coming later, and we had no time to replace the key lost. And yes, it looks simple from US or Europe, but it can be very troublesome and time-consuming to get certain things in developing countries.

But I reckon that we could have refrained from saying something in our response.

You know Paul, it's a fine line between getting the guests that you want and filling your calendar ...

[Marcus0]

HI @Cat-Phuong0

If you leave a truthful review and the guest decides to leave a public harsh response, this response only shows up on their profile.  Your future guests will never see this bad exchange of words.  And in the end, it can acdtually make your past guest look worse to future hosts.

I hope i am understanding the situation correct.

Also, i agree with some of the other hosts who say you need to remain diplomatic and simply use phrases like "better suited to a hotel".  It makes it virtually impossible for the past guest to respond badly but red flags them for future hosts.

Good luck.

[Mark26]

Wow!

[Marit-Anne0]

@Cat-Phuong0

"But it's hard to resist to the temptation of telling a terrible guest what obviously he's never been told or taught."

To beat that temptation rather than name and shame guests in public would be the sign of a good host.  Do remember our profiles/accounts are public - some avoid airbnb altogehter just because hosts are able to review guests. If we are not careful, it will backfire on all hosts and reflect badly on airbnb.

Savvy travellers will use a reverse search to find what hosts write about guests and will avoid those hosts looking undiplomatic or too detailed in their reviews.  

[Cat-Phuong0]

I understand your point.

That's why I've opened this thread indeed. Because we realize that bad guests won't question themselves.

Without a proper education, you just don't know how to behave.

So what's the point of losing time writing about self-centered pains in the neck ...

We will just write "better to suited to hotels" from now on, and spend more time for good guests only.

When we write reviews, there is a section reserved for Airbnb, where we can write things that only Airbnb will see. Is it useful, for example to write some details that we don't want to make public, or is it totally useless because nobody will read?

[Marit-Anne0]

@Cat-Phuong0

I do not know how the info we give to airbnb about our guests is treated, but I suppose if there is a second issue with same guest, it may prevent airbnb siding with the guest in a conflict.  

Personally I have only done so once when I hosted a scammer - that account has no more airbnb activity after that. Writing that review was a challenge I can tell you, because it was a clever scammer and I had no proof.  I gave a thumbs down though.  My review was very cryptic, but hopefully got the message across both to the guest and other hosts.

[Cat-Phuong0]

Yes, they need at least 2 instances of proof of incorrect behaviour of a guest to kick him out.

We haven't hosted scammers, luckily, but we were contacted by a few, for sure.

People who ask to communicate outside the platform before booking, people with unreliable photos, people who ask for long-term stay even if your calendar is busy ...

We even got a confirmed booking from a guest, which was then canceled arbitrarily by Airbnb, without our consent. The reason was kept confidential, but it was related to some bad actions from the guest previously. Maybe a new profile for somebody who had been kicked out.

When you don't feel comfortable with a guest, you have to keep all communication inside Airbnb. Only proofs will support you if there is a conflict.

When we got these 2 youngsters who brought unauthorized prostitutes, we had no proof except what the building's management reported to us. But we had to disclose it publicly in the review. Because that can't be ignored by future hosts.

And this guy never dared to reply to us ...