The "new" host review form for guests to rate hosts

[Timothy19]

I just saw this on a FB hosting group and was shocked at how tedious this process has gotten for guests. I have several comments and questions.

1. Is this standard for ALL guests of ALL properties, or is this just aimed at select guests of select listings in order to verify the listing amenities, etc? This is literally 10 pages of questions (on mobile at least). 10 pages!

2. If this is standard practice now, well, wow. Does ABB expect guests to go through this whole thing every stay? ABB is pushing owners to get reviews get reviews get reviews....and then makes the get review process this cumbersome? I wouldn't be surprised if guests stop leaving reviews.

3. The entire "compares to your expectations" part seems like it will actually make the rating system WORSE than it was before. Guests already had trouble with ABB's interpretation of what 5 stars meant. We had owners pushing for 5* because ABB treated 4* like a bad rating. Now this new system looks even MORE geared to getting low ratings. Imagine you have a listing that just looks stunning....all the amenities in the world....picture perfect. The guest stays there with HIGH expectations and the owner delivers. "About the same as expected". That looks like a 3* rating equivalent. Even "better than expected" would only get this incredible listing a 4* equivalent rating.

----------- I think AirBnB just made their rating system WORSE!

[Sarah977]

@Donna240   haha. One guest asked me if I painted all the red seeds on my Manila palm. Like 100's of them. 

No guest has ever mentioned in a review the fresh flowers I leave in their room, but several have told me how lovely and what a nice touch they were. Even if guests don't mention the little touches specifically in their reviews, I think it gives an overall impression that we cared.

[Donna240]

I  have to agree with you; they take notice of the small things, and we do care. One guest came to our foggy city without a coat, so I loaned her one. I'm hoping she will not mention that or expectations could be created. 

[N-C-0]

What other platforms? Im getting annoyed with ABB - always pushing us to lower our rates to “neighbourhood average”, give discounts etc. And now i see their fee to guests tops out at 20%. That is highway robbery. I remember when it was 12% max. Give me names of other platforms.

[Mims0]

• VRBO.
• Booking.com.
• HomeAway.
• Flipkey.
• Homestay.
• Wimdu.
• Go With Oh.
• OneFineStay

[Susan151]

There is an existing thread about how many fewer reviews some of us are receiving since AirBNB has rolled out "The Review Inquisition." The search function is so broken that I have been unable to find it for you. Maybe someone else has better search-fu today.

[John1080]

@Susan151 I had a 100% review rate until the past three guests and was wondering what was going on. Now I see this may be a part of the reason.  

[Eric-and-Peter0]

Same here, last 3 guests..............no review zip 0

Never happened before, 7 years hosting.

[Dave-and-Carissa0]

This explains why all of a sudden my guests weren't reviewing me, but leaving me great reviews in the guestbook.

[Jan384]

Oh WHAT this seems crazy... So if guests already have high expectations due to being superhost and having tons of exceptional reviews you'd basically get a 3star rating on overall??? That seems CRAZY.

It definitely reinforces our new approach with reviews... After each guest we send them a message asking them to review us and we let them know that we'd like to stay superhost and that this requires a 4.8 star average (we rewrote the text like 20x until we thought it doesn't come off as begging or coercing guests).

[Valerie192]

Hi Jan, Would you mind sharing your text? Thanks

[Giulia297]

So the take away from this is to make the listing sound unappealing so that guests will say that their stay was better than expected? This is crazy. I have several reviews stating "exactly as described" which is how it should be- when you're traveling you should know what to expect.

[Loring1]

@Giulia297nailed it. If I do my job and accurately describe everything in my listing, I SHOULD only receive a 3 star rating. The guest certainly should expect exactly what has been described, nothing less and nothing more. ABB positions this whole rating thing like a five star rating is the standard when it should be a rarity....

My argument the whole time is that a 5 star rating is worthless. It should be a below/at/above standard rating and that is it. Why not go to  a 100 star rating!?!

[Letti0]

@Timothy19   You're missing two more screens. The would you recommend this host one and then finally the public review... There are also drop down boxes to when it's less than 5* for explainations on why. More and more people will start to say forget it after the first 3 or 4 screen. Also it's so easy to make an error on the phone app and check off the wrong thing if your not paying extra attention to what you're doing. This will end up hurting more than helping AirBnB with their marketing information demands and spying on hosts tactics. 

[Jan384]

Oh hehe, those 2 screens would have been rather important to understand the whole process :).

[Cor3]

I think the whole series of screens is described here (obviously it will show differently in the App): 

https://indieweb.org/AirBnB_Reviews

And as I've got a review upcoming. I will ask the guest to get this confirmed.

It really is inquisition style!

What was wrong with the previous version? Don't fix what ain't broken!

Airbnb is harvesting data on our backs, and we don't get to see any of the results!