Star reviews

Dawn227
Level 2
McKinleyville, CA

Star reviews

Has anyone else had guests leave great reviews with 5*'s across the board, then give you a 4* overall with no explanation? It seems to happen to me just often enough to prevent me from ever achieving superhost status. It really drives me crazy! If everything is worthy of 5*s, why on Earth isn't the whole thing? I even had one review that said "This is the best BnB in the entire County!", and do the above. Two of those in a quarter, and you cannot get more than 4.7*, period! Please let me know how you dealt with this situation if it has happened to you. It's terribly disheartening when you work so hard, and Airbnb doesn't even respond when you ask them about it

16 Replies 16
Fred13
Level 10
Placencia, Belize

The Airbnb star system is inherently fraud with inconsistency and entrapments, it should have never mimicked a hotel 5-star system, to confusing with the hotel mentality. In time it makes more sense, in the short-run it is filled with unintended consequences.

Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Dawn227 looking at the breakdown of your reviews it appears you score lowest on value. To achieve higher ratings you could reduce your rates. This is EXACTLY the type of behaviour that Airbnb want to drive with their daft review system. Dangle the carrot of being a Superhost and hope people are daft enough to reduce their profits to achieve it.

@Anonymous may wish to add something.....

@Dawn227 If a guest clicks on an overall rating but doesn't select any values for the individual ratings, the system automatically makes them 5*. That's one possibility of what happened there, but it seems to be relatively rare.

 

The likelier explanation comes from the fact that the individual criteria Airbnb asks guests to rate don't account for every facet of the guests' experience. That 4 star Overall could be from someone who thought the house was a little smaller or older than they wanted,  the bed was too firm or too soft, maybe there was a noise or smell they didn't like, etc.   

 

Looking at your recent reviews, one thing immediately jumps out:  the larger the size of the group, the likelier they are to describe the home as "small" or "cramped." If having that little orange Superhost badge feels like a meaningful goal in your life, your overall ratings would almost certainly improve simply by reducing your maximum occupancy to 3 or even 2. But that also means a lower booking rate and less income for you. 

 

At the end of the day, you are the person running your business, and it's you that should determine how its success is measured. Whether your listing service puts that little sticker on your homework is only one of many ways you can gauge this.

 

 

Laura2592
Level 10
Frederick, MD

@Dawn227 time to rebrand. Your cottage is a 2 person listing, period. 

 

Take off the sofa bed as a sleeping space for 2 additional guests. Lower your guest counts to 2. 

 

Market to couples as a cozy romantic space. 

 

Raise your rates to $99 a night.

 

Upgrade things like bedding, towels, etc.

 

Take better photos. 

 

Include a floor plan or info on the square footage of the space. 

 

Trust me. This may seem counterintuitive, but it works. You have a lot of okay reviews, but you seem to be targeting some bargain hunters with your super low rates for 4 people. That's less than $25 per person per night. Expect guests who are a bit on the thrifty side-- they never will leave great value rating because those folks always want anything above free to be cheaper. 

 

Upgrade your market and make your listing stand out with better images and nice touches. Two people in a small space do a lot less wear and tear than 4. Our cottage could easily fit 6 or even 8, but the experience those guests would have would be a lot more cramped than the 2-4 we actually desire. And many guests surprise hosts with extra people. Better to lower the guest count and expect that may occasionally happen (and it will still be comfy enough.)

 

Once you do the above, you will start to see higher ratings. Your place is cute! Good luck!

I suggest you look at two other threads covering about 2500 highly dissatisfied hosts including me. "making reviews more fair for hosts" (my statistical analysis appears there at the end of the thread); and "connection between overall rating and individual ratings".

 

In my opinion the underlying problem is that AirBnb's income comes mainly from GUESTS with only a small fee from hosts.  With their focus fixed firmly on guests, their undisclosed policy seems to be to keep hosts in a constant state of apprehension as to the outcomes of their interaction with guests or potential guests, while at the same time liberally showering "get out of jail free" cards to guests.

 

Most of the dialogue from AirBnb is about good hosting and how to jump through ever increasing hoops that  often have real costs which are almost impossible to pass on to guests. It would be amazing if the same degree of pressure was put on Guests to put their best foot forward. Super hosts are even more like squirrels in a race, with constant risk to their status being removed or suspended without easy recourse to natural justice.

 

While most of the following have not happened to me personally, I take the trouble to read the posts as they come through, and have come to the conclusion that AirBnb has many more hosts than guests most of the time, which has informed their self-serving policies.

 

#Hosts get penalties for slow responses, guests who don't have the common courtesy to reply to messages when making a booking enquiry sail merrily on to the next victim. What if the Host is ill, away in a remote area with no communication, or there is an IT issue.

#Guests can rate a host without even staying with a cancellation. If a host cancels the stars begin to fall.

# Guests can use the threat of poor rating to get on the spot refunds.

#Guests can now turn up with infants and children notified after a booking is confirmed

 

As for the help desk with robot like off-the-shelf "broken record responses", just window dressing. Eve this community centre is designed to divide and rule with many common threads filed under headings that make searching for them difficult, slowing down a tide of general discontent on a topic.

 

@Christopher1257   Your conclusion is not numerically accurate  (there are more guests than there are hosts). And while it's great that you've taken the time to research and learn from other hosts' experiences, your viewpoint might be skewed by a common tendency people have to vent and whine on the internet instead of taking charge of the situation. You don't hear much from the hosts who actively prevent or resolve problems, because they're not on here looking for advice or complaining.

 

Hosts who expect Airbnb to act like their partner, their employer, and their protector are certain to be disappointed. It's just a listing platform, and either it suits your needs as a business owner or it doesn't. 

Hi Andrew,

 

Thank you for your perspective. What I was trying to say is that the overall number of accommodation opportunities in the market exceeds the number of guests seeking accommodation. If the reverse were true full occupancy would abound all of the time. Yes good marketing strategies will improve guest attraction to AirBnb as opposed to other platforms. However it is equally important that those strategies serve both parties to the accommodation search; provider and seeker.

 

I for one do not want a partner, employer or Nanny. All I seek is that the information as to Guest satisfaction is a fair and statistically accurate report, free from (hopefully) unintentional bias, so that real overall Guest satisfaction can represent the efforts that a host puts in to achieve it, drawn with equal weight from all of the criteria set by the platform.

 

Diligently working to resolve genuine Guest concerns, AND seeking changes to a methodology that is disputed by a large cohort of hosts is, in my opinion, taking charge of the situation.

 

 

Richard531
Level 10
California, United States

@Dawn227  I actually disagree with @Mike-And-Jane0  as I think your place appears to be a fine value.  So winning with price should not be your approach.  @Anonymous nailed it.  Your spot is a little too tight.  "Little sticker on your homework" is spot on.  Let's focus first on making the guests happy and meeting expectations!  The rest will come.  @Christopher1257 makes some great points.  However, I think it's a great host's ability to surpass Airbnb's guidelines that allow said hosts to dominate the markets they serve.  Be one of those hosts!  @Laura2592 also gave you some brilliant (free) consulting.  You need to do EVERYTHING on that list.

 

My take?  I really hope I’m not offending you: but I think your listing is a modular home, correct?  “Cottage” might be throwing people that can’t tell that a modular home is what they're booking at first glance.  Perhaps you could think of something else in the title of the listing to bring guests back to earth?  Along those same lines “Ocean View” could really set high expectations (I know it does when I’m booking a place).  So if a guest needs to peek over an adjacent home on a perfectly sunny/clear day to see a blue strip of Pacific Ocean out in the distance, you may let a few people down.  Imagine being from the Midwest and you're ready to see white water and hear waves crashing. That doesn't happen?  4-star/3-star.  No matter WHAT you do.  

 

It might not be your fault that guests don't study your wonderfully transparent captions on your photos.  They’ll still hammer you with a 4-star/3-star since they feel you were shifty and they had to explain their listing choice to the folks they traveled with.  "I told my wife we'd be at an ocean view cottage, this place is hardly either of those things."  SMACK!  

 

I'd set expectations a smidge lower and then blow them out of the water with all the simple things you can provide/control.  

@Richard531 Perhaps read my post again - I never suggested that the listing was poor value.

@Richard531  good point about the mobile home. 

 

I didn't immediately read that, but looking back on the listing I see it. And I can totally see how I would be a bit deflated if I booked a beach view cottage and got a trailer, even a very cute one. 

 

@Dawn227 I would lean into the mobile home aspect. Call it something like "Gidget's Caravan" and make it really beachy themed. Colorful Adirondack chairs in the yard with a big umbrella (you can get them pretty inexpensively in a heavy plastic that is indestructible.)  More coastal decor on the interior. Light and bright with some color. I think you could totally pull that look off. (I wish I was near you-- I have so many ideas for your space LOL. I do interior design as a hobby.)

coastal.jpg

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Richard531  I'd have to agree with you that it isn't what I would call a cottage.

 

But then I don't think of what wealthy people refer to as "the cottage" with 6 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms as a cottage, either. 🙂

It's really hard to get 5 start reviews from others. Unless the product is too good and the customers are well satisfied. For me, I suggest you to buy reviews from a paid vendor.  This also helpful. 

@Tomeka1  No

 

I can't even....

 

Just...no.

@Tomeka1  That is a terrible thing to suggest. It's dishonest and completely against Airbnb policy.

 

Hosts should be delisted for doing that.